Fairfax County voters turned out in a trickle for Democratic and Republican primaries Tuesday (Aug. 4) to choose who will move on to the congressional midterm elections in November.
In the lone Democratic primary, Rep. Don Beyer (D-8) earned the nomination in the 8th Congressional District, the Associated Press called at 7:34 p.m. The congressman, vying for his seventh term, defeated four challengers — former Alexandria City Council Member Mo Seifeldein, fired State Department worker Michael Duffin, veteran and former CIA officer Adam Dunigan and military family advocate Lorena Bruner.
A voting booth at a precinct in Fairfax City, Aug. 4, 2026 (staff photo by Mary Stachyra Lopez)
In-person voting turnout has been low in Fairfax County for the dual primary elections, according to Office of Elections data.
Democratic and Republican primaries for the congressional midterms are being held Tuesday (Aug. 4). Fairfax County has a Democratic primary in the 8th Congressional District, and Republican primaries include U.S. Senate and the 10th Congressional District.
Ten children: 2 on track, 2 one grade behind, 6 two or more grades behind.
Nearly four in five parents say their child brings home mostly B’s or better. We built a K-8 math program, and when we assess children, about 8 in 10 turn out to be at least a full grade behind in some area of math.
Most children are behind somewhere
In our first study, about 6 in 10 of the children we assessed were two or more grades behind somewhere, usually in one or two areas.
Is our test simply hard? No. Our results are close to those of the federal NAEP test, which finds only about 1 in 4 US eighth graders proficient in math.
How good grades hide gaps
A child who has learned this week’s steps can get the worksheet right without knowing why they work. That is often enough for an A or a B, until a test asks for more.
Homework looks fine too, since it practices the topic just taught. Neither shows the missing earlier skill, so extra practice goes to this week’s topic, not the gap underneath.
Even Virginia’s state test can reassure too easily: a 2026 federal study put its 2022 fourth-grade “proficient” bar in math among the nation’s lowest.
Why gaps get bigger
Math builds on itself, so a missing skill does not stay small. Kindergartners we assess are almost never behind, but from third grade on, more than 9 in 10 have a gap somewhere. Research agrees: children who start behind tend to fall further behind, and fifth graders’ grasp of fractions predicts their high-school algebra results.
What trips children up
Our second study looked at more than 10,000 answers from more than 250 children who recently signed up for Level Up, including questions from earlier grades.
The misses were not math in general: basic multiplication and division facts mostly held up. What tripped them up was a few topics from a grade or two earlier, the ones this year’s math is built on: second-grade subtraction at the end of fourth grade, fourth-grade fraction word problems at the end of fifth, and fifth-grade decimal ordering at the end of sixth.
What trips kids up, grade by grade: at the end of fourth grade, 53 percent of the children asked missed second-grade three-digit subtraction; at the end of fifth grade, 73 percent missed fourth-grade fraction word problems; at the end of sixth grade, 77 percent missed fifth-grade decimal ordering.
Fractions kept coming back: among children finishing seventh grade, about 8 in 10 of those asked missed fifth-grade fraction word problems.
What closes a gap
One child in our study, just out of fifth grade, missed a fourth-grade fraction question and its fifth-grade version. Practice started with the fourth-grade topic. Within two weeks, the child had mastered all nine of its skills, then four from the fifth-grade version.
That is the approach: find the real gaps, start at the deepest one, and practice each skill from three sides:
Identify: recognize the idea, like picking which picture shows three quarters.
Construct: build the answer yourself, like marking three quarters on a number line.
The office building at 1800 Reston Row Plaza (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
A data center operator with multiple locations in Northern Virginia is establishing company headquarters in Reston.
Reston Station developer Comstock Companies announced that QTS Data Centers signed a lease at 1800 Reston Row Plaza in Reston Station. The data center operator will occupy 77,000 square feet in the building’s entire 11th, 12th and 13th floors.
Map of Plaza 500 site with substation (via Dominion Energy)
An earlier version of this story referred to the State Corporation Commission approving a substation, but the SCC approval only incorporates transmission lines.
As plans for the first phase of data centers have been submitted in Lincolnia just outside Alexandria city limits, residents are focusing opposition on an electric substation under review.
Manassas Latino Festival is the oldest Hispanic/Latino, family-centric festival in the area! Held during National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), join in the celebrations with live music, dance performances, diverse foods, and fun for the whole family! Come enjoy this premier annual tradition filled with cultural heritage and contributions of the Latin American community.
A Capital Bikeshare station in Falls Church (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
Five new bicycle docking stations from Capital Bikeshare will be installed in Vienna by mid-August, a first for the town.
Collectively, the docking stations will be equipped with 21 standard bicycles and four electric bicycles that can be rented and returned to any Capital Bikeshare docking station in the metro area.
Proposed new construction at 3541 Chain Bridge Road (via Network Realty Partners)
A proposal to replace two aging office buildings with 37 residential units and a small retail facility has met with mixed responses from members of the Fairfax City Council.
Virginia Career Works advertises job transition resources on a Metro train (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
Fairfax County recorded a 10% year-over-year increase in the number of residents counted as unemployed in June, according to new state data.
With 611,867 residents in the civilian workforce and 22,888 looking for jobs, the county’s non seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June was 3.6%.
Proposed site plan for redevelopment of Lake Fairfax Business Park in Reston (via EYA Development)
The planned redevelopment of Lake Fairfax Business Park into a large residential development is on track for consideration by Fairfax County officials this fall.
EYA Development provided a presentation on the proposed redevelopment to the Board of Directors of the Reston Association on July 23. The business park is at 1780 Business Center Drive, off the Dulles Access Road and near the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station. It has several office buildings, a Lifetime Fitness gym, Homewood Suites hotel, Reston Montessori School and a data center.
Voting at Cunningham Park Elementary School in Vienna (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
It’s Election Day — Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the 8th Congressional District Democratic primary and U.S. Senate and 10th Congressional District Republican primaries. [FFXnow]
Church Severs Ties With Pastor After Sexually Explicit Accusations — “‘Pastor Kenny Baldwin has been removed from all ministry responsibilities,’ says a statement from the church’s leadership. “Our first concern is for everyone who may be affected by this situation.'” [Annandale Today]
Sen. Warner Calls for Accountability on DOJ Election Monitoring — “This letter follows DOJ’s July 7, 2026, announcement that it would deploy election monitors to 15 jurisdictions across Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia during the 2026 primary election season, with plans to expand the program for the general election. While DOJ characterized the effort as ‘routine’ and ‘nonpartisan,’ the senators are concerned that monitors are being disproportionately assigned to jurisdictions in states led by Democrats.” [Sen. Mark Warner news release]
TJ Students Use AI to Summarize School Board Meetings — “It’s a free, web-based app that [Ronit] Singh said detects when a new school board meeting gets published. It then, using Claude AI, summarizes the meetings and posts the summary online. The group reviews the summaries the tech produces ‘because we know that some people don’t trust AI fully, so every single meeting is human reviewed,’ Singh said. As of June, Singh said the site is able to produce summaries for Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington and Prince William counties.” [WTOP]
Judge Upholds Medicaid Work Requirements Challenged by Virginia — “States will have to meet a Jan. 1 deadline to implement new Medicaid work requirements, after a federal judge denied 25 Democratic-led states’ request to pause implementation of the rule. The broad tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed last summer, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, requires states that have expanded Medicaid to cover more adults under the Affordable Care Act — 42 states plus the District of Columbia — to mandate that those adults work, go to school or volunteer for at least 80 hours a month to keep their coverage.” [Virginia Mercury]
Chain Bridge Road Work Completed in Oakton — “The Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) recently completed work on a new sidewalk along Chain Bridge Road between Courthouse Road and Sutton Road, improving pedestrian connectivity between neighborhoods and providing safer access to transit, schools, parks and other community destinations.” [Fairfax County Department of Transportation]
Sunday Marked Rainiest Day for Region — “Although 1 to 3 inches was most common, totals ranged from less than a half-inch in parts of the western suburbs to more than 3 inches in isolated locations. Arlington, which has missed many storms this summer, hit the jackpot, with more than 3 inches in several areas. A broad swath of eastern Fairfax County also received 2 to 3-plus inches. Other corridors of heavy rain, with 2 to 4 inches, stretched across parts of Fauquier, Stafford and Charles counties.” [Capital Weather]
It’s Tuesday — Partly sunny with a high of 86°F. Expect northeast winds at 5 to 7 mph. Tuesday night, there’s a 30% chance of showers mainly after 5 a.m., with mostly cloudy skies and a low of 71°F. East winds around 5 mph will become calm in the evening. [NWS]
Want more local news? Check out our newest sister site, WSHnow, with the latest from across the region.
