A new federal grant will enable Fairfax County Public Schools to upgrade more than three dozen school buses to more environmentally friendly models.
Virginia’s largest public school system will receive $12.9 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant Program — enough to replace 43 buses with electric or zero-emission vehicles, Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced last week.
As Fairfax County Public Schools considers revising its cell phone storage policy, students are calling for a more consistent approach across classrooms, citing concerns about uneven enforcement.
The school system is currently testing a phone-free pilot program at select middle and high schools to evaluate the impact of stricter limits on student cell phone use. Once the pilot concludes, the school board plans to use the collected data to develop an updated policy aligned with new Virginia Department of Education guidelines, which must be adopted by school boards statewide by Jan. 1, 2025.
A plan to renovate and expand Herndon Elementary School got an enthusiastic vote of confidence from the town’s Architectural Review Board (ARB) last month.
At its meeting on Nov. 20, the Town of Herndon ARB unanimously approved Fairfax County Public Schools’ site design application for the project, which will update the existing building at 630 Dranesville Road and add another 25,000 square feet of space to better accommodate the growing student body.
Fairfax County Public Schools is set to allocate an additional $3.4 million to safety and security upgrades, drawing from surplus revenue identified in its mid-year budget review.
The funding includes $1.5 million from a class-action settlement with Juul, as well as higher-than-expected sales tax revenue and tuition payments from the City of Fairfax.
A right-wing group’s lawsuit challenging Fairfax County Public Schools policies designed to be inclusive of transgender and other gender non-conforming students will be allowed to move forward.
Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Brett A. Kassabian issued an order last Friday (Dec. 6) mostly overruling an attempt by the Fairfax County School Board to dismiss the civil suit, which argues that policies requiring students to be identified and treated based on their gender identity violate the rights of students who don’t want to follow those policies.
A Fairfax County School Board member’s desire to affirm the defined rights of student journalists in the wake of the Hayfield Secondary School athlete-transfer uproar died on a 9-3 vote at the Dec. 5 board meeting.
At-large board member Ryan McElveen introduced the measure as part of a broader discussion of the Hayfield athletics matter. He said it was in reaction to allegations, which have not been independently confirmed, of student journalists at Hayfield having their work on the issue censored.
Fairfax County School Board members and Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid took formal steps last week to address the alleged athletic recruiting irregularities at Hayfield Secondary School that have roiled the entire community.
At the school board meeting on Thursday (Dec. 5), Reid offered her first public mea culpa for the crisis of confidence in Fairfax County Public Schools leadership sparked by its handling of the controversy around Hayfield’s football program.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Dec. 3) honored students and teams from the county’s public high schools for state-championship performances this fall.
“We have a long list of champions, which is fantastic,” Board Chairman Jeff McKay said during a presentation that helped kick off the body’s final meeting of 2024.
With Fairfax County facing another major budget shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year, local public school leaders are once again confronting difficult decisions regarding teacher pay raises.
This time, though, there’s a twist: Fairfax County Public Schools has a tentative agreement with the Fairfax Education Unions representing teachers and other employees that includes a roughly $150 million request for a 7% across-the-board pay hike for educators and support staff.
Leaders of Fairfax County Public Schools are under growing pressure from both the Fairfax City School Board and their own school board to shed light on accusations of recruiting violations at Hayfield Secondary School.
The City of Fairfax School Board approved a resolution on Monday (Dec. 2) formally requesting that FCPS contract an independent investigator “with expertise in athletic ethics and compliance to conduct a thorough review” of Hayfield’s football program.
