Reston Association has settled on designs for two long-awaited capital projects, unveiling final concepts for a new dock at Lake Thoreau and updated tennis courts at Lake Newport last week.
A community meeting will be held at 6 p.m. today (Wednesday) to discuss the proposed Lake Thoreau observation dock design. Attendees can meet RA staff at the dock, which is located near the swimming pool at 2040 Upper Lakes Drive.
Work on accessibility improvements to the off-leash area for dogs inside the high-traffic Westgrove Park in Groveton will begin next week.
Half of the dog park at 6801 Fort Hunt Road will stay open while new amenities designed to make the park more accessible are installed, according to the Fairfax County Park Authority.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fractions kept coming back: among children finishing seventh grade, about 8 in 10 of those asked missed fifth-grade fraction word problems.
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 Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval at its July 22 meeting of a proposal that could more than quadruple the number of residential units at the Merrifield at Dunn Loring Station Apartments.
County staff’s comprehensive plan amendment would pave the way for Malkin Properties — which has owned the 35-acre garden-apartment complex at 8130 Prescott Drive since its construction in the late 1960s — to replace the existing 706 units in phases with up to 2,975 apartments in high-rise and mid-rise buildings near the Dunn Loring Metro station.
Arrest in Groveton Shooting — Fairfax County police officers have taken a person into custody following a shooting last night (Tuesday) in the 7200 block of Fairchild Drive. “One adult male was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. Preliminarily, the parties are known to one another and this appears to be an isolated incident.” [FCPD/X]
Repairs Progress on Potomac Sewer — “DC Water has completed the first major phase of emergency repairs on a critical section of the Potomac Interceptor near Pennyfield Lock in Potomac, marking a significant milestone in an effort to strengthen the aging sewer line. The repairs follow the January 19 collapse of a section of the Potomac Interceptor along Clara Barton Parkway.” [MoCo Show]
Data Center Group Launches Ad Campaign — Promotional campaigns advocating for data centers and challenging critiques have cropped up in Virginia and other states considering regulations or restrictions. “They’re all part of a network of groups created by the nonprofit Data Center Coalition, an industry group hoping to improve public opinion of data centers as pushback grows.” [Virginia Mercury]
Feds Propose Transportation Funding Shift — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has proposed cutting funding for mass transit and “Complete Streets” projects aimed at improving pedestrian and bicycle safety. “The administration’s key transportation goals include improving transit safety and security, supporting development of autonomous vehicles, ensuring freight railroad safety and building or expanding interstate highways, according to the letter.” [Smart Cities Dive]
Reston Man Arrested for Reported Theft — “Northern Virginia Community College Police Department officers have arrested a man in connection to a July 24 incident at NVCC’s Loudoun Campus. NVCC and Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the campus around 12:30 p.m. for a report of a robbery” involving a theft of $580 in cash from a car belonging to a college employee. [Loudoun Now]
New Mural Celebrated in Annandale — “The artwork, featuring the Statue of Liberty, was installed on July 24 on the fence around a construction site on John Marr Drive. Several volunteers painted the mural on June 27 at an Asian Night Market in Annandale under the direction of Omaid Sharifi, the president and co-founder of the ArtLords international art collective.” [Annandale Today]
RCC Seeks Board Candidates — “Reston Community Center (RCC) is seeking interested candidates to run for seats on its Board of Governors, a nine-member body responsible for oversight of RCC … Statements of Candidacy will be available at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, July 31 at both RCC Hunters Woods and RCC Lake Anne locations and online” until a filing deadline of Aug. 14 at 5 p.m. [RCC]
Thumbs Up for Vienna Ice Cream Shop — Frozen custard is “not an easy thing to find these days, so this summer’s opening of Whistler’s Ice Cream Extraordinaire in Vienna has brought a welcome change to my frozen dessert game. Made with an egg-yolk base, custard may be the antithesis of gut-friendly yogurt, but when treating myself, I see nothing wrong with going for it full force.” [Northern Virginia Magazine]
It’s Wednesday — It will be sunny and warm with a high of 84°F. Expect northwest winds of 10 to 13 mph, with gusts reaching up to 25 mph. Wednesday night will be partly cloudy with a low of 68°F, and northwest winds around 11 mph, gusting up to 20 mph. [NWS]
There’s more local news to explore. Check out WSHnow, with stories from around the region.
Event location
Caboose Commons
2918 Eskridge Rd
Fairfax, Virginia 22031
Join the Do It for Dan Foundation for our annual fall fundraiser supporting lung cancer research at Inova Schar Cancer Institute. Enjoy live music, trivia, raffles, foundation updates, and a special presentation from thoracic oncologist Dr. Janakiraman Subramanian. Help us raise $10,000 to advance research and better treatment options for people facing lung cancer.
Good Tuesday evening, Fairfax County. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Jul 28, 2026.
Here is what’s going on Wednesday throughout the county, from our event calendar.
Expect a sunny day with temperatures reaching a high of 84°F. Northwest winds will blow at 11 to 13 mph, occasionally gusting up to 23 mph. Tonight will be mostly clear, with temperatures dropping to around 67°F, and northwest winds continuing at about 11 mph with gusts up to 20 mph. See more from Weather.gov.
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.
Skies look sunny where FFXnow is working in Vienna, as of press time, but the National Weather Service thinks that could change fast this evening.
The NWS has issued a Tornado Watch for Fairfax County and the rest of the D.C. region. Scheduled to stay in effect until 10 p.m. today (Wednesday), the alert replaces a Severe Thunderstorm Watch issued earlier this afternoon.
Fairfax County has installed new wayfinding signs on the 66 Parallel Trail to make it easier for cyclists and pedestrians to navigate, but county officials say more improvement is coming on key gaps to improve overall trail connectivity.
The Fairfax County Department of Transportation recently installed directional signs at locations throughout Centreville, Fair Lakes, Fair Oaks and Oakton.
An expansion that would more than double the size of the Lofts at Reston Station has secured Fairfax County’s approval, but not everyone was convinced the project is ready to move forward.
At its July 14 meeting, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved home builder Pulte Group’s rezoning application for a second phase of the condominium development, which opened in 2019 with 44 units at the corner of Reston Station Blvd and Michael Faraday Drive.
A police officer fired his weapon three times after a man hiding in the woods allegedly tried to grab the gun from the officer’s hand at his side, the Fairfax County Police Department said.
One of the shots hit the man, whose name has not yet been disclosed, and he was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the police.
