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Fairfax County Public Schools is keeping thousands of students engaged this summer while advancing a new continuous background-check system, reviewing school boundaries and reporting gains among multilingual learners.

Kara Payne, an office assistant at Katherine Johnson Middle School, was formally recognized in late June as one of three recipients of this year’s A. Heath Onthank Award. Established by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, the award honors exceptional efforts to improve public service in county government and the school system.

FCPS student-athletes also secured a series of statewide honors. Five teams and 17 individuals won Virginia High School League Class 6 championships, while five teams and 20 individuals finished as runners-up. FCPS competitors earned additional championships in crew and rifle, which are not VHSL sports.

Continuous background checks planned

Beginning in July, new Virginia legislation allows public schools to enroll employees, volunteers and contractors in Rap Back, a continuous background-check monitoring system.

FCPS plans to enroll all employees, volunteers and independent contractors over the next year. As Virginia’s largest school division, FCPS is helping establish an approach that could eventually support continuous monitoring across divisions serving nearly 1.3 million K-12 students statewide.

Superintendent Michelle Reid also participated in the AASA Summer Consortium, where school leaders discussed collaboration and innovative approaches to learning.

Late in June, the Superintendent’s Boundary Review Advisory Committee examined summaries of feedback collected through eight hybrid community meetings held during the spring and through other platforms. Committee members discussed what they had heard from their communities and identified priorities for additional work by the consultant.

The public survey and commenting function in the Boundary Explorer Tool was scheduled to close at 5 p.m. Friday, July 18.

Scholarships, STEM grants and workforce partnerships

ITServe Alliance contributed $30,000 to Educate Fairfax. Of that donation, $26,000 will fund 13 college scholarships and $4,000 will support school-based STEM grants.

Reid also attended the Northern Virginia Technology Council’s annual member meeting, where regional leaders discussed partnerships between education and industry and the development of Northern Virginia’s future workforce.

At the Willow Oaks Administrative Center, Reid visited Nonye Oladimeiji’s Twice-Exceptional Academy class and recognized employees participating in summer professional development.

FCPS is also expanding its Portrait of a Graduate work. The framework centers on five attributes: communicator; collaborator; ethical and global citizen; creative and critical thinker; and goal-directed and resilient individual.

Presentations of Learning allow students to demonstrate their progress toward grade-level expectations through formats such as individual or small-group conversations, exhibitions and formal student-led presentations followed by questions. The initiative supports the school division’s goals for academic growth and future-focused innovation.

Summer programs fill FCPS classrooms

The Extended School Year program began in late June, followed on July 7 by SOAR, Algebra Power Up and Credit Recovery. Free breakfast and lunch are also available at designated schools during the summer for children younger than 18.

At Graham Road Elementary School, nearly 300 students from six Title I schools are participating in summer learning through a pyramid site model being used there for the first time. The program is led by summer principal Nicole Scesney, site director Jessica Nelson and educational specialist Melissa Chang.

During a recent visit, rising second graders in Sarah Heier’s and Allyson Norris’ classrooms worked on reading. Students in Madison Harpham’s preschool autism class studied weather and the calendar, while rising first graders in Chelsea Andrade’s class wrote sensory poems.

Brooke O’Donnell’s rising fourth graders created storyboards for project-based learning, and students in Meredith Jessen’s rising fifth- and sixth-grade classroom studied multiplication. In Erin Donovan’s rising sixth- and seventh-grade class, multilingual learners in the Explorers Program studied states of matter by making slime.

Annandale High School has nearly 800 students enrolled in Credit Recovery and Credit Continuation classes covering English, science, mathematics, social studies, health and physical education. The summer program is led by principal Raine Bradley, with support from Angela Linker, Stacey Kiggins and Michael Gillespie.

Reid visited geometry classes taught by Ahmed Gahein and Nadia Akram. Annandale is also piloting the Summer Credit Continuation program, led by school-based technology specialist Jen Cory and assistant principal Jae Lee.

The pilot allows students to build on work completed during the school year and apply it toward summer credit. Students had earned 151 credits toward graduation, while another 131 students remained actively at work.

Multilingual learners post continued gains

FCPS reported a third consecutive annual increase in the share of multilingual learners meeting progress targets on WIDA ACCESS tests.

The assessments measure reading, writing, listening and speaking, with progress determined by comparing a student’s scores across two consecutive years. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires annual testing of students identified as multilingual learners, and Virginia divisions use WIDA ACCESS for that purpose.

In 2023, 12,852 of 26,616 counted students met progress targets, or 48.3%. That increased to 15,279 of 27,534 students in 2024, or 55.5%. In 2025, 15,608 of 27,320 students met the targets, raising the rate to 57.1%.

FCPS highlighted English-language-development instruction at Timber Lane Elementary School as an example of work intended to accelerate English proficiency and improve achievement across academic subjects.

The division also reported that more than 14,000 students received diplomas this year. FCPS connected that result to its strategic goal of preparing students to graduate with confidence, useful skills and a path toward their chosen futures.

Leadership development and community activities

The Office of the Chief Operating Officer opened its four-part 2025-26 Leadership Journey with a session titled “Understanding Your Leadership Style.”

Participants completed a personality assessment modeled on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to examine their leadership tendencies, communication preferences and possible blind spots. Each participant identified an insight and committed to trying a new leadership strategy before the next session.

The training supports FCPS goals involving inclusive leadership, innovation, workforce development, equity, excellence and accountability.

Meanwhile, the Safe Routes to School team has been supporting the annual Puzzle Hunt, a countywide activity intended to encourage creative thinking, exploration and community participation.

The hunt grew from an idea developed in 2020 by a California parent named Marcy and a school principal named Hillary. Their collaboration later became Solving Fun, an effort designed to promote curiosity and creativity among learners of all ages.

More than 3,000 Fairfax community members had participated in this year’s Puzzle Hunt, and about 20 people had completed the full challenge. Safe Routes to School employees helped install signs and place clues in parks across Fairfax County.

The Puzzle Hunt was scheduled to continue through August 15.