Fairfax County School Board | FFXnow

Amid changing COVID rules, FCPS discusses mandating vaccines for all students later this year

Published September 22, 2021 at 3:30PM

McNair Elementary School students pick up lunch on their first day of school for the 2021-2022 academic year (via FCPS)

Fairfax County Public Schools is revising a number of procedures around COVID-19 contact tracing, quarantining, and pausing, even as it maintains that case numbers remain proportionally very low in schools.

School officials are actively exploring their options for expanding student vaccination requirements, including a possible mandate once the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorize it for kids 5 and older, which could happen as early as the end of October.

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FCPS special education review finds inequitable discipline, transparency concerns

By David Taube

Published September 22, 2021 at 9:30AM

The Fairfax County Public Schools board discusses a first-year interim report of a two-year review of the district's special education program (photo via FCPS)

Fairfax County Public Schools is conducting the first public review of its special education services since 2013 after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional learning with remote classes that disproportionately affected students with disabilities.

Presented to the school board at a work session yesterday (Tuesday), findings from the first year of the review highlight families’ frustrations with the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process and suggest the school system disproportionately disciplines special education students, especially Black and Hispanic children.