Mary Stachyra Lopez is a staff reporter covering business, public safety, education, and other community issues. She covered Northern Virginia news for years at several media outlets, and spent half a decade as an editor on The Atlantic's audience team before joining Local News Now.
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid has proposed trimming a number of items from the school system’s fiscal year 2027 budget to address a $28.9 million shortfall.
“At this time,” Reid wrote in a May 8 letter to FCPS families, “I am proposing to make up the difference by reducing the staffing reserve, leveraging alternative major maintenance funding, extending the time to refresh FCPSOn technology devices, deferring microcredentialing, reducing math adoption curriculum materials, and reducing the Superintendent’s Strategic Reserve.”