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Fairfax County Public Schools entered the final week of January after winter weather tested employees across the division. Custodians, maintenance and grounds crews, warehouse and support teams, transportation workers, office staff, classroom employees, and food and nutrition personnel were recognized for keeping schools operating safely and responding to schedule changes.
The week also brought national recognition for a Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology student, new details about the proposed fiscal 2026 budget, continued debate over school boundaries, and updates on graduation measures and literacy progress.
Ray Zhang was selected as one of 40 finalists in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search, a major national competition for pre-college researchers. The finalists were chosen from 300 scholars.
Zhang’s project examines biofilm composition in clinical isolates of the fungus Fusarium and the development of a multi-targeted antifungal treatment intended to inhibit its proliferation. He will receive at least $25,000 and travel to Washington, D.C., in March for final judging, a public exhibition, and meetings with scientists. The competition’s top award is $250,000.
Superintendent Michelle Reid attended the girls and boys basketball games between Annandale and Mount Vernon high schools Tuesday evening. Cheer squads from both schools supported the teams, including Mount Vernon’s winter cheer squad.
On Wednesday morning, Reid met with faith leaders at the Gatehouse Administration Center. Their discussion covered children’s mental health and resilience, difficult family conversations, diversity, immigration, technology’s effects on young people, volunteerism, polarization, stereotyping, community support, and changes to the school boundary policy.
Later that day, she attended the Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Committee meeting at Kilmer Middle School. Each school has a representative on the committee, which gives instructional employees a channel to raise concerns and provide feedback to division leaders. Representatives then report the meeting’s results to colleagues at their schools.
The committee’s work is connected to the workforce pillar of the 2023-30 Strategic Plan, which calls for a diverse, adaptable, and supported staff.
Boundary review moves forward
The Boundary Review Advisory Committee also met Wednesday at the Gatehouse Administration Center. Its membership includes parents, caregivers, or community members from each of the division’s 24 high school pyramids, along with teachers, administrators, operational employees, and other community representatives.
The group is intended to bring different perspectives into the boundary review and help make the process transparent, centered on students, and responsive to public feedback.
A virtual community meeting was held Saturday to explain the review and collect residents’ views about local priorities and needs. Additional virtual sessions were scheduled for Jan. 27 and Jan. 28 from 6:30 to 8 p.m., followed by another on Feb. 10 at the same time.
Each session was to use the same format and present the same information as the earlier in-person meetings. Participation was capped at 400 people, registration was required for an individual Zoom link, and language interpretation was available.
Proposed budget calls for 7% employee raises
At the previous Thursday’s School Board meeting, Reid presented a proposed fiscal 2026 budget totaling $4 billion. That represents a $297.1 million, or 7.9%, increase over the approved fiscal 2025 budget.
The proposal requests an additional $268.3 million through the county transfer, 10.4% more than the amount provided in the prior year. The requested transfer is 5.6% higher than the request made the previous year.
More than 85% of the proposed budget would support instruction. The plan seeks to balance changing student needs and family expectations against taxpayer fatigue and what division leaders describe as persistent underfunding by Virginia.
One major provision is a 7% salary increase for all employees. The budget would also provide additional help for students who need support and offer microcredentials designed to help educators address those needs.
Funding would continue several multiyear initiatives, including inclusive preschool, certified athletic trainers at every high school, family liaisons, stipends for fine and performing arts work, and replacement of the division’s Human Resources Information System.
The School Board was scheduled to examine the proposal during a Feb. 4 work session.
Technology pilot reaches thousands of educators
The School Board also received an update on Lighthouse Schools, a partnership involving FCPS, the International Society for Technology Education, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
The initiative tests emerging practices and technology in a group of schools, evaluates the results, and seeks to expand successful approaches across the division.
So far, the effort has included 17 teams and 1,837 educators. School leaders have completed 840 hours of action planning, while school champions and leaders have received 12,200 hours of professional development. Teachers have completed another 15,645 hours of self-paced training, and 17,750 FCPS teachers have been given access to ISTE membership.
Educators at participating schools also have access to Gemini Advanced through a Google partnership. The artificial intelligence tool is being used to assist with lesson planning, student engagement, and feedback. Educators from Madison, McLean, and Bryant high schools have described the pilot as supporting creativity, collaboration, and new learning experiences.
Another School Board presentation focused on school climate, inclusion, and belonging under the strategic plan’s goal of ensuring students feel safe, supported, included, and empowered.
As part of that effort, Food and Nutrition Services has been asking students to help shape school menus. The division gathers opinions through annual food shows, smaller focus groups, and testing before approving dishes. More than 20 new scratch-made items were added during the 2024-25 school year.
Performances and Lunar New Year celebrations
Reid visited Woodson High School on Friday evening for “Dessert on Broadway,” the Choral Department’s annual musical theater production. Students performed Broadway numbers with a live band while attendees were served beverages and desserts, including the school’s Black Magic Cake.
On Saturday, she attended and spoke at the Chinese New Year Festival at Luther Jackson Middle School. The event featured performances, food, and a Lunar New Year dragon parade.
The festival’s theme was harmony. The 2025 Year of the Snake was presented as a symbol of wisdom, resilience, and adapting to change.
Luther Jackson facility manager Sang Huynh also shared plans for the school’s upcoming celebrations and discussed Vietnamese New Year traditions. He described his appreciation for the school’s educators and his efforts to thank them for their work.
New formula could make graduation results appear lower
FCPS is also preparing for changes under the Virginia Department of Education’s 2024 accountability system.
The new School Performance and Support Framework includes a graduation component that accounts for 15% of a high school’s overall performance. That component uses the federal four-year graduation indicator, which counts only standard and advanced diplomas earned within exactly four years of a student’s initial entry into ninth grade.
The measure does not count applied studies diplomas. It also excludes students with disabilities and multilingual learners who take additional time to complete diploma requirements, even though state and federal law may allow them to remain in school until age 22.
That differs significantly from the Graduation and Completion Index used in Virginia’s former Standards of Accreditation system. The earlier measure recognized all diploma types and included students with disabilities and multilingual learners who lawfully used more time to graduate.
The index also awarded partial credit for certificates of completion, high school equivalency diplomas, and students who remained enrolled while working toward a diploma.
Because the new and old formulas count different groups of students, FCPS expects graduation figures shown in the new accountability framework to decline. Division leaders say the change will require schools and the public to adjust how they interpret and respond to the results.
Virginia’s on-time graduation rate, which includes all diploma types and allows additional time for students with disabilities and multilingual learners, shows a different trend. Under that measure, the FCPS graduation rate rose from 91.26% for the Class of 2019 to 94.58% for the Class of 2024.
Phonics results climb across five grade levels
The division also reported sizable phonics gains among students who received consistent, explicit instruction.
The comparison tracked the same groups of students from fall 2021 to fall 2024. Those students received as many as two years of core elementary phonics instruction and up to three years of intervention.
By fall 2024, the share of current fourth graders performing at or above grade level in phonics had increased by 32%. The gains were 42% for current fifth graders, 41% for sixth graders, 39% for seventh graders, and 29% for eighth graders.
Across the five grades, the average increase was 36.6%.
Those results reflect a concentrated effort on phonics, one component of literacy instruction. FCPS is now using Benchmark Advance as its new language arts curriculum for kindergarten through sixth grade, with explicit instruction spanning vocabulary, word study, comprehension, writing, and phonics.