Nearly 14 years after Clifton Elementary School shuttered, its sign has been repurposed.
The sign now serves as a bulletin for local organizations, businesses, and community groups to promote events such as farmers markets, cultural celebrations and educational workshops.
The Fairfax County School Board voted 9-2 on July 8, 2010 to close Clifton Elementary School, citing declining enrollment, high renovation costs and poor well-water quality.
Clifton-area residents filed a lawsuit to keep the school open, arguing that the school board’s decision was arbitrary and based on misrepresented facts.
After a year of legal battles, the Virginia State Supreme Court sided with the school board, allowing the elementary school to officially close on June 21, 2011 — a few years shy of its 60th anniversary.
The site has since remained empty, which didn’t sit well with recently elected At-Large School Board Member Kyle McDaniel. So, he teamed up with his colleague on the board, Sandy Anderson, as well as Clifton Mayor Tom Peterson and Fairfax County Public Schools staff to turn the school’s old sign into a community notice board.
“It was a simple thing to do that didn’t cost us any money and helped the community,” he told FFXnow. “It also was a gesture to start trying to mend fences with the community that is still upset about the school closure.”
Anderson, who represents the Springfield District on the school board, expressed gratitude for the community’s support and enthusiasm for the sign’s revival.
“I’m so glad that FCPS has been able to take the small first step to reintegrate this property back into the Clifton community,” she said in a press release. “I look forward to continued progress.”
“Clifton is a special community, and I am proud to represent it on the school board,” McDaniel remarked. “This is a first step on a journey to repurposing more of the Clifton Elementary School site for more community use.”
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors faces tough decisions ahead of next week’s budget markup session, following demands from local unions to increase county employees’ wages.
Last week, dozens of county employees from various departments gathered at a series of public hearings to protest the 2% market rate adjustment (MRA) included in the county executive’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget — asking instead for an increase of at least 4%.
Every year, the county compares its salaries against similar jobs in the area to ensure pay is competitive. Though the full market rate adjustment was estimated at over 4%, County Executive Bryan Hill proposed allocating roughly $24 million for a 2% increase for FY 2025, citing revenue constraints.
Many county employees who attended the April 16-18 public hearings on the advertised budget, which will take effect on July 1, argued that wouldn’t be enough to keep up with the cost of living.
Lauren Tumbleson, a social services worker and member of SEIU Virginia 512, a union for general county employees, said she is considering leaving her job to care for her 4-year-old son, as child care costs would be too high without a bigger pay raise.
“Not fully funding the MRA this year will have a direct impact on our daily lives,” she said during the April 17 hearing.
Other SEIU members and representatives from the Fairfax Workers Coalition (FWC) said that without the pay raises, departments will continue to experience staff turnover, reducing the quality of services to residents.
FWC member Marie Kenealy, a veteran parole officer at the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, noted that inadequate staffing and training puts at risk both the safety of the staff and their ability to help youth in the judicial system.
“We are part of the courts, but we do not have the protections afforded to law enforcement,” she said on April 17. “…At times, we escort violent offenders without adequate protection or training. At times, we are confronted with gang violence, aggression, exposed to fentanyl, and we’re often conducting home visits where we know firearms are likely present.”
Without fair wages and improved conditions, the court risks losing experienced personnel, Kenealy said.
Many local educators called on the Board of Supervisors to fully fund Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid’s $3.8 billion budget request — including an additional $254 million to adequately compensate the public education system’s employees.
Jennifer Ives, a special education teacher at James Madison High School in Vienna, said she knows several experienced colleagues who have left to take higher paying jobs in surrounding counties.
Ives argued that funding the superintendent’s request could mean less staff turnover, because teachers may be able to afford to live closer to where they work.
“The increase could help us find one of the cheaper rentals in the area and maybe I could have a 30-minute commute instead of an hour and a half,” Ives said. “I’d be able to sleep in past 5 a.m. and maybe get home an hour before dinner.”
When Hill presented his budget proposal in February, supervisors lamented that the burden of funding FCPS falls too heavily on the county due to limited funding from Virginia.
Earlier this month, Governor Glenn Youngkin proposed budget amendments that, according to WTOP, would reduce funding for FCPS by nearly $17 million for FY 2025 and $24 million in fiscal year 2026.
Regardless of the state budget, though, Fairfax County School Board Chair Karl Frisch argued the county needs to ensure the school system can pay its employees competitive wages at a time when enrollment and demand for services is increasing countywide.
“Our budget request does not include new initiatives,” Frisch said during the board’s April 16 hearing. “We are focusing on what is needed to continue ensuring excellence in our schools.”
(Updated at 1 p.m.) Fairfax County police are investigating an evidently unfounded bomb threat that forced an evacuation of West Potomac High School this morning (Wednesday).
A search of the school at 6500 Quander Road in Belle Haven revealed “no suspicious devices,” police announced at 12:26 p.m.
“Detectives continue to investigate the apparent false threat,” the Fairfax County Police Department said.
Students were evacuated from their classes after a bomb threat came in by phone from an unknown number, according to the FCPD, which sent its Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit to conduct a search.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the students have been moved from the school to an alternate location,” the FCPD said in a tweet shortly before 10 a.m.
Officers are on scene at West Potomac High School in Belle Haven for a reported bomb threat. A person on an unknown number reported the threat. Out of an abundance of caution, the students have been moved from the school to an alternate location as our EOD conducts a search. pic.twitter.com/t1ruxFCMbo
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) April 24, 2024
According to scanner traffic on Open MHz, police responded to the reported threat claiming a “student has a bomb in a backpack” around 8:46 a.m.
School security said around 9:30 a.m. that students were evacuated to the school’s athletic stadium and directed to leave their backpacks for police to search.
When FFXnow arrived shortly after 10:40 a.m., West Potomac High School’s doors remained closed, and students, faculty and police could be seen gathered behind the school. Videos shared with FFXnow show students sitting quietly on the football field and in the bleachers, while police dogs sniffed their bags.
Video From The Scene pic.twitter.com/nN5hP754s7
— Fletcher Flicks (@CondonFletcher) April 24, 2024
— John McDonald (@Debrezzy_) April 24, 2024
Fairfax County Public Schools directed inquiries to the police department, which said that its social media post contained the only information currently available.
Shortly before 11 a.m., an administrator announced on a bullhorn that teachers would be allowed back into the school first, followed by students.
“We are about to reunite you with your book bag and your lunch,” the administrator said.
James Cullum contributed to this report
(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) A counselor at Glasgow Middle School in Lincolnia is facing criminal charges after he allegedly head-butted an 11-year-old student last week.
Detectives began investigating the reported assault on April 16 and found that Craig Small, a 44-year-old Lorton resident, assaulted the student and “carried him out of the cafeteria” in response to the student calling him “a derogative name,” according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
Small has been served warrants for misdemeanor assault and battery, police said.
According to the FCPD, Small has been a school counselor at Glasgow since August 2021, but he no longer appears to be listed in the school’s staff directory or its webpage for student services staff.
“He remains out on leave,” a Fairfax County Public Schools spokesperson said when asked about Small’s employment status.
Fairfax County Public School Board members have finalized a first draft of the division’s new boundary adjustment policy, which is scheduled for a full board review next month.
The major updates to the new policy mandate that the superintendent adhere to a specific set of criteria when drawing school boundary lines and require a county-wide review of school boundaries every five years.
The new draft policy, still subject to revisions, follows several months of discussion among school board members on the best approach to address overcrowding throughout the division.
The revised policy retains elements of the existing one, such as assigning students to schools based on proximity to their homes. However, under the proposed changes, when establishing new boundaries, the superintendent must ensure that schools have sufficient capacity for future students; avoid splitting students from the same neighborhood among different schools; minimize student travel times; and provide equal access to programming.
The superintendent may also consider additional factors when setting school boundaries, including the following.
- Minimizing disruptions to teaching
- Reducing reliance on temporary classrooms
- Cutting future budget costs
- Ensuring easy access to nearby neighborhoods
- Enhancing family involvement
- Maintaining long-term stability in school attendance zones
While these additional criteria are optional, At-large school board member Kyle McDaniel emphasized the superintendent must prioritize the first four.
“The biggest difference between the current policy and the new policy is this “may”/”shall” language,” he told FFXnow. “The old policy just had 14 criteria that had no priority or no ranking or no real intentional guidance to staff in terms of what the board would prioritize over other items.”
School board members have also updated the language in the old policy concerning the superintendent’s authority to make emergency boundary adjustments.
In cases of a “catastrophic event” or emergency, the superintendent has the authority to temporarily adjust school attendance areas without school board approval, provided the affected student population is less than 15%.
The superintendent must notify the school board of any adjustments, but a vote is not required unless the changes are expected to be permanent.
Board members also revised the section on expedited boundary adjustments, adding language that authorizes the superintendent to recommend such adjustments after consulting with the school board and conducting publicly-noticed meetings, should the following situations occur.
- New unoccupied housing requires to students to be reassigned to prevent overcrowding
- Adjust for transportation needs
- Manage excess enrollment
- Respond to program changes
- Address school openings and closings
- Address unexpected construction issues or delays
The policy also ensures that future boundary adjustments will be phased in, meaning high school students currently enrolled would not be forced to transfer.
If the board adopts the new policy, expected by June or July, it would likely not take effect until the next school year, according to McDaniel.
(Updated at 4:45 p.m.) Local elected officials, including Rep. Gerry Connolly, gathered in Lorton on Wednesday to celebrate the introduction of 42 new electric buses to the division’s fleet.
These buses, which were funded by a $16.5 million federal grant announced in January, join the 18 electric buses already in operation. Although the division currently operates over 1,600 diesel buses, county officials emphasized that these new electric buses mark the start of a larger transition.
“I know that this downpayment is the beginning of something much larger, and that’s going to take many years for us to complete,” School Board Chair Karl Frisch told the crowd of attendees at Lorton Station Elementary School on Wednesday.
“But I’m confident with our continued activism by our students, their parents, our Moms Clean Air Force and our school board colleagues and our friends at the state and federal level that we can get there because we absolutely have to,” he continued.
FCPS has pledged to provide entirely carbon-neutral student transportation by 2035. So far, the division has reduced 38% of its greenhouse gas emissions from 2008, according to the 2022 FCPS Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report.
In January 2021, the division received its first electric school bus as part of a Dominion Energy-led initiative aiming to replace all diesel school buses in Virginia by 2030. However, the Virginia House of Delegates rejected the expansion of this program, opting instead to create a grant fund.
In March, VDOT announced it had allocated $11.3 million in federal funding to assist the statewide construction of electric vehicle charging stations.
FCPS received eight electric buses from Dominion in 2021 and secured a state grant for 10 additional buses through a settlement with Volkswagen, which had been sued for emissions test cheating in 2016.
The new federal grant funds come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by President Joe Biden in 2021. The grant, administered through the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, allocates $5 billion to the Clean School Bus program which is dedicated to replacing existing school buses with zero-emission and low-emission models.
“Every day throughout the United States we’re transporting 10s of millions of students on buses, and many of those buses are anything but clean,” Connolly said during the event.
“Here in Fairfax we’ve got 1,600 school buses, and today’s a great down payment toward a movement for replacing every one of them and making sure our kids are safe and in a healthy environment but also in a vehicle that is not contributing to the environmental problem,” he added.
Several Fairfax County School Board members are working to revise the division’s boundary adjustment policy, which they believe is key to addressing the school system’s overcrowding issue.
Although there is agreement that a new policy is needed, some members are cautious about the timing and methods of its implementation.
School board members call for change
Over the past few months, Fairfax County School Board members have engaged in several heated debates about adjusting boundaries for key schools across the county that are either currently facing or projected to face severe overcrowding within the next three to four years.
In February, the School Board approved boundary adjustments for Parklawn and Coates Elementary Schools, which are experiencing some of the worst overcrowding in the district, according to facilities staff.
During that same meeting, however, several elected officials, including At-Large Member Kyle McDaniel, stressed that this would be the last time they supported a one-off boundary adjustment and called for a comprehensive overhaul of the school system’s decades-old boundary policy.
“I don’t like these one-off things because this is like traffic light timing,” McDaniel told FFXnow following the school board’s February meeting. “If you time one traffic light differently, it’s going to affect the surrounding traffic lights. If you change one school boundary, it is going to change every school around it.”
Reaffirming their earlier commitment, many members, including McDaniel, voted the following month against Mason District Representative Ricardy Anderson’s motion to advance the next phase of a boundary adjustment for Glasgow Middle School—a proposal initiated in 2023 before the new school board took office.
Anderson’s colleagues argued that it would only be fair to evaluate Glasgow alongside all other schools requiring boundary adjustments simultaneously after adopting a new policy.
Too many students, not enough space
While the school system’s student population is anticipated to stay relatively stable for the next five years, staff project the county’s population could grow by nearly 400,000 people by 2050, potentially adding significant strain on local schools.
Since 2019, the student population has decreased from more than 188,000 to roughly 180,000. Still, more than two dozen elementary and nine high schools are facing or projected to face moderate to severe overcrowding.
Elementary schools in the most critical condition (over 115% capacity) include Wakefield Forest, Coates, Kent Gardens, and Pine Springs. On the high school side, Justice and Chantilly are facing a “substantial capacity deficit,” per the school system’s Capital Improvement Program report for fiscal years 2025-2029.
For years, the school division has attempted to alleviate overcrowding by adding modular classrooms (trailers), renovating old school buildings and constructing new ones.
More recently, the school board has invested millions in renovations for more than a dozen elementary schools, such as Herndon and Mosaic, with funding still needed for another eight schools.
And while these renovations will be crucial to alleviating its capacity problems in the future, McDaniel notes that the division is running out of space to build new schools and modular classrooms.
“We just can’t build the school fast enough,” he said. “We cannot keep up with the growth of the enrollment.”
McDaniel also pointed out that construction could take years, during which the overcrowding issue may worsen.
Instead, McDaniel and other governance committee members are working to develop a new boundary adjustment policy that will address school capacity issues on a more accelerated timeline.
“I’m working on a four-year timeline,” he said. “I want this wrapped up and done within the next 24 to 36 months.” Read More
Planning is well underway for a new elementary school in Dunn Loring, but some McLean residents argue that Fairfax County Public Schools still hasn’t explained why the project should be prioritized over other needs.
As part of a resolution on the proposed county and FCPS budgets, the McLean Citizens Association’s board of directors urged the Fairfax County School Board last Wednesday (April 3) to “refrain from constructing” the school if officials can’t “provide adequate data” justifying it.
“What they are expecting to do is spend $80 million-ish, and they do not have any data to support the construction of that,” Louise Epstein, who chairs MCA’s budget and taxation committee, said.
Partially funded by bond money once intended for a new school in Oakton, the proposed four-story, 125,905-square-foot building will repurpose the Dunn Loring Administrative Center at 2334 Gallows Road. In addition to relieving crowding at schools in the Dunn Loring, Tysons and Falls Church areas, the project will add new playground facilities to the 10-acre site and move the vehicle access points from Gallows Road to Idylwood Road, according to a rezoning application under review by the county.
While crowding was an issue at Shrevewood Elementary School for years, the school in Idylwood is now operating at 95% capacity, and FCPS projects that will drop to 86% in the 2028-2029 school year, according to its latest capital improvement program (CIP), which was approved by the school board on Feb. 8.
Stenwood Elementary School, which is in Dunn Loring, is utilizing 97% of its capacity right now and is projected to reach 98% in 2028-2029.
In its resolution, MCA acknowledged that FCPS will face “upward pressures” on enrollment from new residential development, including in Merrifield and Tysons, but it says the CIP and its own “independent analysis” based on data provided by FCPS don’t show any near-term impacts on elementary schools in Dunn Loring.
“The School Board’s inclusion of Dunn Loring project in the FY 2025 Advertised Budget is not supported by FCPS 5-year enrollment projections,” MCA’s resolution says, “since no elementary school near Dunn Loring has an existing or projected ‘capacity deficit,’ and elementary schools in that vicinity are projected to have an aggregate ‘capacity surplus’ of 789 seats in 2028-29.”
Per the CIP, FCPS is forecasting capacity deficits at 20 elementary schools by the 2028-2029 school year, including at Spring Hill, Franklin Sherman and Kent Gardens. Boundary changes in McLean will take effect starting this fall. Read More
Though it’s near full capacity, the Fairfax County School Board has chosen not to proceed with boundary adjustments for Lincolnia’s Glasgow Middle School.
Instead, they’re betting on a broader, “holistic” approach to boundary changes that could reduce overcrowding across all schools.
With two abstentions, the school board voted 7-3 last Thursday (March 21) to reject a staff proposal to decrease Glasgow Middle School’s population from 1,722 students to 1,350. The plan would’ve redirected incoming students to other nearby middle schools, including Poe, Holmes and Jackson.
The board’s decision came a month after they moved to prioritize boundary adjustments for Parklawn Elementary School in Lincolnia and Lutie Lewis Coates Elementary School in Herndon, which staff anticipated will exceed total capacity within four to five years.
At their Feb. 8 meeting, several board members stressed they would only back boundary adjustments for Parklawn and Coates with the understanding they will be the final instances, highlighting the need for a comprehensive review of current boundary adjustment policies.
The school board’s governance committee is actively reviewing its policies and aims to present a draft of recommendations for potential adoption by the full board later this spring.
At their March 21 meeting, several board members voted against the Glasgow boundary study based on their commitment in February to withhold support for any further adjustments until a broader strategy was approved.
“I made a commitment to all the board members here when we had that discussion that we have to look at this holistically,” Franconia District representative Marcia St. John-Cunning said.
“I know teachers at Glasgow…I understand the situation,” she continued. “I have situations like that in my district, but we have to look at this holistically if we’re going to tackle this problem. And be equitable and fair, and considerate, and look at the entire county, not just one district.”
Mason District representative Ricardy Anderson clarified that the proposal before the board members was not a final plan, but rather, a proposal to narrow the scope of the boundary adjustment, which has been under discussion since last fall. Staff had recommended taking some Advanced Academic Programs out of consideration.
Had the board approved the motion, a public hearing would have still been necessary before the board could formally adopt any changes.
Anderson — one of just three returning members after last November’s election — also pointed out that the previous school board had asked staff to look into adjusting Glasgow’s boundaries, which are in her district, and that this process has already been going on for a few years.
“Glasgow currently has 1,722 kids. Holmes has 883 fewer kids. Poe has 832 fewer kids. It’s twice the size of those other schools within a 3-mile area,” she said. “This is not a new conversation. It is not going to usurp or upset or be out of alignment with any pending future work.”
Yet, when probed about her stance on the Glasgow proposal with a more comprehensive strategy for boundary changes in motion, Superintendent Michelle Reid indicated she no longer backed it.
“If you’re asking today whether I think that this [boundary adjustment] is in our best interest to move forward with, in light of the holistic work…I would not recommend doing that,” Reid said. “I think it would be better subsumed under a more holistic work.”
Students are getting organized in response to a lawsuit challenging Fairfax County Public Schools for its LGBTQ-inclusive policies.
The Pride Liberation Project, a student-run group that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights in Virginia, will host a rally “against anti-trans hate” outside Luther Jackson Middle School in Merrifield at 6 p.m. today (Thursday). The demonstration will precede the Fairfax County School Board’s meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.
“I’m really hoping that Fairfax County and our school board will stop this attempt to hurt and degrade my fellow students,” Laura Troung, a senior at Falls Church High School, said. “LGBTQIA+ students are already disproportionately facing the youth mental health crisis in addition to bullying and harassment at schools and this is just adding salt into the wound.”
Represented by America First Legal, a right-wing legal group led by former Donald Trump advisor Stephen Miller, an unnamed high school student sued the school board on March 4 over its policies dictating that students be treated in accordance with their gender identity.
In her complaint, the student says being “compelled” to address classmates by the name and pronoun that matches their gender identity violates her religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic. She also argues that the policies discriminate on the basis of sex because of her discomfort with using the same bathroom as transgender girls.
Students with the Pride Liberation Project, however, describe FCPS’ regulation 2603 as critical to creating a safe, welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ individuals.
Transgender youth whose peers affirmed their identities, including by using their correct names and pronouns, reported significant reductions in symptoms of severe depression, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in a 2018 study conducted by University of Texas at Austin researchers.
In contrast, reported school-based hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people have soared since 2015, particularly in states with laws that restrict the rights of transgender students or prohibit education on gender and sexuality, according to the Washington Post.
The Virginia Department of Education’s model policies directing schools to treat students based on their “biological sex” spurred protests and school walkouts across the state in September 2022, including ones organized by the Pride Liberation Project.
Students also rallied outside Luther Jackson Middle School last year after FCPS pledged not to adopt the state policies.
“The fact that so many of my friends and teachers respect my pronouns and my name is life-saving to me,” Moth DiNizzo, a McLean High School junior, said. “I know that they care about me and trust my own self-perception. It’s wonderful and I want everyone to experience that same joy of being known and trusted.”
The planned rally comes shortly after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors designated March 31 as Transgender Visibility Day. The International Transgender Day for Visibility was created in 2009 to celebrate the lives and achievements of the transgender community.
At its meeting on Tuesday (March 19), the board approved the proclamation 9-0 with Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, the board’s only Republican member, away from the table.
Supervisors said the designation is an important acknowledgement of the county’s diversity and their commitment as elected officials to support all residents.
“We have an obligation to do everything we can not just to protect [the LGBTQ+ community], but to use our voices to stand up and support them and to make sure that the rest of our community sees that that’s what their government is doing,” Chairman Jeff McKay said. “Regardless of what’s happening in Richmond, we will always stand up and fight to protect every single person in this county.”
