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Lake Braddock teachers push back against weapons detection duty with union grievance

Published September 30, 2026 at 3:45PM | Updated October 6, 2026 at 11:21AM

Lake Braddock staff rally outside the school during Back to School night Sept. 1. (courtesy of FCFT)

Some teachers at Lake Braddock Secondary School are pushing back against a relatively new job duty: weapons detection.

The staff members say that they are not qualified nor the appropriate personnel to screen for weapons as students pass through OpenGate security systems at the Burke school. As part of the ongoing dispute, the Fairfax Education Unions — a partnership between the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers and Fairfax Education Association, the labor unions representing non-managerial employees — has filed a formal grievance against FCPS.

FCPS updates digital literacy lessons, but state law complicates kindergarten device limits

By Mary Stachyra Lopez

Published August 21, 2026 at 10:00AM

A Fairfax County School bus (staff photo by Mary Stachyra Lopez)

As Fairfax County Public Schools students prepare for their first day of school next Monday (Aug. 24), the Fairfax County School Board is making its own back-to-school to-do list. Near the top of the agenda: an updated digital literacy curriculum.

A work session on Tuesday (Aug. 18) provided a glimpse of the tasks ahead for the school board this year, and staff’s efforts over the summer to implement high-profile mandates around the curriculum, including updates related to artificial intelligence literacy.

Fairfax County School Board jumps regulatory hurdles to OK solar panels for nine schools

By James Jarvis

Published July 17, 2024 at 10:30AM | Updated July 18, 2024 at 9:56AM

A solar panel demonstration project outside Luther Jackson Middle School (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

In a bid to cut energy costs by tens of thousands of dollars, the Fairfax County School Board finalized a deal with a local solar developer last month to outfit nine elementary schools across the county with 250-kilowatt (kW) solar panels.

The solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) comes years after the school board approved a series of much larger solar projects that were halted after Dominion Energy introduced new interconnection rules that substantially increased project costs, rendering the projects economically unfeasible.