As a tumultuous year of school closures and virtual learning inches toward a close, students in Fairfax County Public Schools say they are exhausted and feel forgotten by the administration and school board.

Their frustrations bubbled over during a school board meeting on Dec. 3. Two students took issue with recent headlines about upticks in failing grades and the board’s focus on how to resume in-person classes over how to improve the distance-learning experience.

John R. Lewis High School student Kimberly Boateng, who previously served as the school board’s student representative, chastised the board, saying its members have not demonstrated that they have turned the comments and criticisms she has submitted by letter, email and tweet into action.

She urged the county to do better, saying that she is tired of “aspirational goals” and wants the board and FCPS administrators to take concrete actions.

“I’m tired of the ‘we see you’ emails, the ‘we hear you’ tweets,” she said. “…Students are surrounded by so much grief, trauma, and death, and we are expected to continue on as if this is normal. This is not normal.”

As the board’s current student representative, South County High School student Nathan Onibudo said he is caught between knowing the extent of the county’s efforts to address the challenges caused by COVID-19 and experiencing the reality of student life.

“I see what’s possible and I see the hard work being put in,” he said. “[Many students] feel like somehow, they’re being forgotten even though all the conversations are about them.”

He told the school board that, for many students, the debate over whether they should learn virtually or in-person has become secondary to the struggle to survive each day.

“Students are simply suffering,” he said.

Boateng echoed that sentiment, saying that she feels unable to take a mental health day because it would bury her deeper under tasks.

“Students are sitting in front of their computer screens wondering when they’re going to catch a break, and the break never comes,” she said.

During an open comment period later in the school board meeting, FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand and a handful of board members promised to take action.

“Nathan, I heard you. Our leadership team heard you, our principals heard you, our staff heard you,” Brabrand said. “Kimberly, I sat with you here last year. I heard you. We want your voice and your input as we continue through this year, and we will use your recommendations to make the changes necessary to be sure students are heard, listened to, respected, valued.”

Mount Vernon District Representative Karen Corbett Sanders noted the board is also hearing about the impact of the pandemic on the county’s school children from parents, parent-teacher associations, neighbors, and relatives.

Springfield District School Board Member Laura Jane Cohen told the students that the board is “trying to get better answers.”

“I know sometimes it rings hollow, but please, hang in there and just know that we’re trying to make things better right now,” Cohen said.

Fairfax County Public Schools is looking for contractors to replace the roof and synthetic turf field at McLean High School.

The projects were introduced at the Fairfax County School Board’s Dec. 3 meeting as new business, meaning they were not up for a vote yet. Instead, the board will take action at a future meeting.

According to FCPS, plans and specifications have already been prepared for both projects, and they are scheduled for construction bid openings this month. Bids on the turf field replacement will be received on Dec. 9, while bids for the roof replacement project will come in on Dec. 16.

Bid tabulations and recommendations for which contractors should be awarded the projects will be presented to the school board prior to its Jan. 7, 2021 meeting.

FCPS Director of News and Information Lucy Caldwell says the actual construction work on the new field and roof will take place over about a month in the summer of 2021 “due to seasonal and occupancy coordination.”

McLean High School had its existing synthetic turf stadium field installed just eight years ago in July 2012.

“This location hosts a single field, resulting in greater wear and tear and a shorter life span than schools with two fields,” Caldwell said.

Stadium field replacements, including the installation of new goal posts and soccer goals, are typically estimated to cost between $500,000 and $550,000, according to Caldwell.

Largely built in 1997 with some additions in 2001, McLean’s roof will be more time-consuming to replace. The project could potentially span up to four years, with construction taking place for one month each summer.

The first year of work will address just over 30,000 square feet of roofing. With each square foot costing between $15 and $20, total estimated costs range from $450,000 to $600,000.

“This project will bid and be constructed in phases each year,” Caldwell said.

Photo via McLean HS Athletics/Twitter

The Fairfax County School Board is postponing its decision to rename Mosby Woods Elementary School to solicit more community engagement.

“We have not had the level of public participation that we had hoped for, and therefore, we are working with staff to come up additional options and to solicit additional community input,” Providence District School Board representative Karl Frisch said during the school board meeting last night (Thursday).

“More information about these two items will be announced as details are worked out with staff,” he said.

Frisch and at-large member Karen Keys-Gamarra proposed renaming Mosby Woods Elementary School on June 18 with the support of descendants of Mosby.

The school board voted on Oct. 8 to change the name so that it no longer recognizes John S. Mosby, a Confederate colonel who led a guerrilla campaign against Union supply and communications lines in Northern Virginia during the Civil War.

Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand assembled a list of recommended names in October:

• Mosaic – a nod to the school’s proximity to the Mosaic District
• Five Oaks – the name of the road where the school is located
• Katherine Johnson – a mathematician who helped make spaceflight and the Apollo 11 moon landing possible as a “computer” for NASA
• Mary McBride – a teacher who helped start a school near Fairfax Court House for the children of freed slaves after the Civil War
• Barbara Rose Johns – a student civil rights activist who led a strike in protest of conditions at the all-black Moton High School in Farmville, Va., paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education

Five Oaks currently has a slim lead in Tysons Reporter’s poll on the subject.

During a public hearing on Wednesday (Dec. 2), Mosby Woods teachers Nikki Hudson and Jenny Smith endorsed Mosaic.

“Every teacher on our staff, every enrolled student, all have colorful pieces within themselves that represent their nationalities, religions, heritage and beliefs, and so much more,” Hudson said. “These pieces come together to create an atmosphere that is conducive to acceptance and learning.”

Smith said that sixth-grade teachers had the opportunity to share the recommended names with all seven classes. Students “overwhelmingly” voted for Five Oaks and Mosaic, which received 56 and 74 votes, respectively.

While students said Five Oaks was “simple” and “sounds good,” their answers for Mosaic went deeper.

“They said things like, ‘We are all different cultures, and when we are all put together, we are a beautiful picture where we all belong,'” she said.

They were very concerned, however, about the mascot: “The mascot of mustangs is very important to these sixth graders,” Smith said. “Mosaic Mustangs seems to fit.”

Speaking for unionized Fairfax teachers, Fairfax County Federation of Teachers President Tina Williams recommended Barbara Rose Johns because of how “her dedication, perseverance and hard work contributed to the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.”

“Unfortunately, racial segregation is still alive and present in Virginia,” she said. “A recent report found that racial segregation has gotten worse over the last 15 years, especially in Virginia metro areas, due to overt and covert racist policies.”

A few people suggested names not on the list, including civil rights icon Ruby Bridges and L. Douglas Wilder, the first African American governor in the country and the Commonwealth.

“He was a man who brought so much service and dedication to our Commonwealth and the country as a former war hero, governor and state senator,” student Teddy Geiss said.

Photo via FCPS

The Fairfax County School Board will select a new name for Mosby Woods Elementary School in Fairfax around 8 p.m. during its regular meeting tonight.

The board voted on Oct. 8 to rename Mosby Woods after at-large member Karen Keys-Gamarra and Providence District Representative Karl Frisch proposed replacing the moniker of Col. John S. Mosby, who led a Virginia calvary battalion for the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War.

Feedback collected from a community meeting on Oct. 1 suggests the renaming has widespread support, as commenters said Mosby’s role as a Confederate officer clashes with Fairfax County Public Schools’ current values of diversity and inclusivity. Some descendants of Mosby also wrote a letter to the school board advocating for a change.

Here are the possible names that FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand recommended on Oct. 22:

• Five Oaks — the name of the road where the school is located
• Mosaic — a nod to the school’s proximity to the Mosaic District
• Mary McBride — a teacher who helped start a school near Fairfax Court House for the children of freed slaves after the Civil War
• Barbara Rose Johns — a student civil rights activist who led a strike in protest of conditions at the all-black Moton High School in Farmville, Va., paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education

Brabrand also suggested the late NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, but that has presumably been taken out of the running after the City of Fairfax got to it first for Lanier Middle School.

The school board held a public hearing on the possible new name yesterday (Wednesday).

Which of the recommendations would you prefer to replace Mosby Woods? Do you think the board should choose an entirely different name, or do you object to changing the school’s name in the first place?

Photo via FCPS

Fairfax County Public Schools may have to consider extending the school year into the summer of 2021 to help students who have fallen behind while trying to learn virtually this year.

FCPS Assistant Superintendent of Finance Leigh Burden raised the possibility during a joint Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board meeting on Tuesday (Nov. 24) that focused on projections for the county and school system’s Fiscal Year 2022 budgets.

While some have managed to adapt to online education, a report released by FCPS this week confirmed fears that many students have struggled to learn during a year of uncertainty and disruptions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has largely kept school doors closed since March.

Conducted by the FCPS Office of Research and Strategic Improvement, the study found that failing grades increased by 83% from the first quarter of 2019-20 to the first quarter of the 2020-21 school year, making up 11% of all marks given to students since the year started on Sept. 8.

The uptick in “F” grades was especially pronounced for students with disabilities, who saw an 111% increase, and English-language learners, who saw a 106% increase.

“All groups showed increases in the percentage of F marks received during Q1 of the current year as compared to the prior year, indicating that more students were failing courses during the (primarily) virtual instruction period than had occurred when instruction was delivered in-person,” ORSI said in its report.

Members of both the school board and the Board of Supervisors expressed support for the idea of adding a fifth quarter to this school year to make up for lost learning, but given the current surge in COVID-19 cases in Fairfax County, exactly when FCPS will be able to provide in-person instruction to all students again is difficult to predict.

Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck says he will be advocating for an extended school year for in-person learning.

“I think there’s no other way to make up for what our students have lost over the past year,” Storck said. “…We need that time to help them recover their learning, and the educational needs are unmet, particularly of our neediest students. That student-teacher bond, we need to help reaffirm and build that back.”

Karen Corbett Sanders, who represents the Mount Vernon District on the school board, agreed that this option should be discussed now so the costs can be taken into account as the county prepares its budget for the next fiscal year.

“We cannot continue to surprise our community with new initiatives on how we’re addressing this pandemic. It would be better for us to upfront address this,” Corbett Sanders said.

FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand is scheduled to release a proposed FY 2022 budget on Jan. 7, though the county and school board will not adopt final budgets until May.

The possibility of a summer school expansion is among several potential expenses not incorporated in the fiscal forecast presented on Tuesday.

Other unfunded expenditures on the FCPS side include $5 million for 50 additional English Learner teachers, $3.5 million to add technology support specialist positions at 51 elementary schools, and $2.8 million to cover the final year of a three-year plan to raise instructional assistant salaries.

Several school board members emphasized that mental health services, employee compensation, improvements in technology access, and supports for students with disabilities and English-language learners should be priorities for funding.

“Supporting our children with learning losses due to COVID-19 and looking at creative ways to measure what those losses are and creative ways to alleviate that is going to take staff time and resources,” Dranesville District School Board Member Elaine Tholen said. “So, we need to pay attention to that.”

Photo via Fairfax County government

Fairfax County Public Schools will host a community meeting to discuss a potential boundary adjustment for McLean High School at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, Dranesville District School Board Representative Elaine Tholen said in a newsletter sent out on Tuesday (Nov. 24).

The proposed boundary adjustment is intended to address overcrowding at McLean High School, which currently has 2,292 students in a building designed for 1,993 students, according to FCPS.

With enrollment at McLean High projected to increase over the next five years, FCPS has been exploring the possibility of moving the school’s boundary to instead send some students to Langley High School, which increased its capacity to 2,370 students after being renovated in 2018.

As of this October, Langley High School has 2,004 enrolled students.

Plans to adjust McLean High’s boundaries have been in the works since at least early 2019. FCPS even held two boundary scope community meetings last December, but the process was put on hold as the Fairfax County School Board’s focus shifted to challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tholen says FCPS staff will use the upcoming community meeting to present information and options for the boundary adjustment to community members, who will then give feedback that will be shared with the school board.

Public input from the previous meetings convinced the school board to expand the study’s scope to include the boundaries for Longfellow Middle School and Cooper Middle School as well as McLean and Langley High, according to Tholen.

“If we move forward with a boundary adjustment, the plan will be for students to move from their elementary school to Cooper and then to Langley, or to Longfellow and then to McLean,” Tholen said.

In the meantime, FCPS hopes to “increase the comfort and efficiency of educational spaces” at McLean High School by replacing trailers on the school’s tennis courts with a modular unit that has 12 classrooms and restroom facilities.

Tholen says the unit has been placed at the school and will be ready for use in late December, though whether any students will be allowed to use it at that point remains to be seen.

FCPS staff has also been working with staff from Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust’s office, Providence District staff, and members of the McLean Citizens Association “to enhance data analysis for Tyson’s area development and the impact on schools.”

“We are fortunate to have John Foust as a member of that work group,” Tholen said. “I will be working with these groups to look at our next steps for further capacity work at McLean High School and the surrounding areas.”

Photo via McLean High School PTSA

Updated at 3:30 on 11/24/2020 — Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand announced today that plans to start in-person learning for more students, including kindergarteners, preschoolers, and special education students, on Dec. 1 have officially been put on hold.

“We understand that the pandemic’s disruption to your children’s education, to your jobs and incomes, and to your other caregiving responsibilities has been tremendous,” Brabrand said, stating that the school system will restart phasing students into in-person instruction again “as soon as our specific health metrics indicate that it is safe.”

Earlier — An ongoing local surge in COVID-19 cases has forced some Fairfax County Public Schools students to revert to online learning for the first time since FCPS started phasing in-person learning back in on Oct. 5.

FCPS announced on Monday (Nov. 23) that administrators had notified families that students in Group 4 would return to all-virtual instruction that day after Fairfax County’s health metrics surpassed the threshold that determines whether they should continue learning in person.

“The health metrics that guide our return to school in person reached a threshold yesterday that indicated we must dial back our Group 4 cohort in order to comply with the metrics we had stated to our community,” FCPS Director of News and Information Lucy Caldwell said in a statement.

Group 4 consists of 2,900 students, including elementary students at Burke School and students in specialized high school career preparatory programs. Affected classes range from culinary arts and musical theater to robotics, veterinary sciences, and the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC).

These students had been permitted to learn either virtually or through a hybrid model with two days of in-person instruction and two days of online instruction since Oct. 26.

Based on metrics recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FCPS determined that Group 4 could continue in-person learning as long as Fairfax County’s COVID-19 caseload did not exceed 200 cases per 100,000 people for seven consecutive days.

The county’s positivity rate for novel coronavirus testing also had to stay at or under 10%.

Fairfax County officially passed the 200-case threshold on Sunday (Nov. 22). At 289.8 cases per 100,000 people, Monday marked eight consecutive days of the county exceeding that limit.

The county’s cases-per-100,000-people and testing positivity rates must both fall under the established thresholds for seven consecutive days for students to resume in-person learning.

“As soon as these metrics indicate that it is safe to return to in-person instruction, Group 4 students will be phased back into schools,” FCPS said on Monday.

This is the second consecutive week that Fairfax County’s COVID-19 spread has required FCPS to revise its Return to School timeline.

Superintendent Scott Brabrand announced on Nov. 16 that FCPS would pause plans to welcome back an additional 6,800 kindergarten, preschool, and special education students that had been scheduled to return to classrooms on Nov. 17.

FCPS has set Dec. 1 as a possible new day for those students to start in-person learning, but with health experts anticipating the pandemic to worsen over Thanksgiving break, that date looks extremely tentative.

“As far as Group 5, we had indicated we would be communicating their in-person return closer to the December 1 date,” Caldwell said. “The numbers right now have not decreased as we have been hoping.”

With FCPS closed for the week starting on Wednesday, Caldwell says the school system will share more information on what Group 5 students can expect either today (Tuesday) or at the end of the break on Nov. 30.

Roughly 5,500 FCPS students are still attending in-person classes. Most of them are in special education, English Learners, career preparation, and other specialized programs.

Though their established thresholds are looser, those cohorts could potentially join Group 4 students in transitioning back to learning exclusively online.

“Given the COVID-19 infection rates in our community, we do anticipate that it may be necessary to dial up and dial back our in-person cohorts,” Caldwell said.

Photo via FCPS

Due to rising COVID-19 cases, Fairfax County Public Schools decided to delay bringing more students back for in-person learning this week after previously preparing to expand in-person instruction to an additional 6,800 students on Nov. 17.

In-person learning has continued this week for the roughly 8,000 students who had already returned to the classroom since early October.

FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand will hold a Return To School Town Hall today to discuss the decision and next steps. The town hall will take place virtually on the FCPS website from 6-7 p.m. Participants can submit questions to [email protected] or call in to 1-800-231-6359.

A second Spanish-language town hall has been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 30.

The Fairfax Education Association, alongside other Northern Virginia education associations, has urged Gov. Ralph Northam to fully return to virtual learning. The association also wrote a letter to FCPS on Nov. 12 demanding virtual learning.

Gov. Northam, however, exempted educational settings from the 25-person limit on social gatherings that he imposed when tightening COVID-19 restrictions on Nov. 13.

Do you believe delaying the return of students is the right decision? Do you think FCPS should continue with its roll-out of hybrid learning or return to a completely virtual model?

Photo via FCPS 

Fairfax County Public Schools will no longer bring additional students back into the classroom this week for in-person learning, FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand announced today (Monday).

6,800 kindergarten, preschool, and special education students had been set to resume in-person instruction tomorrow under the timeline that FCPS established with its Return to School plan, which gives students the option to remain virtual or to enter a hybrid model that combines in-person and virtual learning.

However, the Virginia Department of Health reported today that Fairfax County has recorded 211.2 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people within the past 14 days, exceeding the 200-case threshold that FCPS set as a metric for determining whether a new group of students can begin in-person instruction.

At 7.4%, Fairfax County’s current seven-day positivity rate for PCR-RT tests remains below the 8% limit required by FCPS to start in-person instruction.

The students who were scheduled to go back into the classroom on Nov. 17 will now remain all virtual until at least Nov. 30, and all new concurrent learning pilot programs that were supposed to start then have been put on hold.

“We made this decision as soon as new health metrics were released and are communicating it to you immediately as promised,” Brabrand said in a letter to the FCPS community. “We always anticipated the need to potentially adjust our return to school plans as necessary during this ongoing pandemic.”

The 8,000-plus students that have already returned to physical classrooms since students started getting phased in on Oct. 5 will continue with hybrid learning, though that could change in the future if COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the county.

The Fairfax County Federation of Teachers called FCPS’s decision to pause its return-to-school plans “a good step in the right direction” but expressed concern that the school system has moved the possible resumption date to Nov. 30, immediately after the Thanksgiving holidays.

“Experts have said this period will be a hot bed for new cases because of expected small group gatherings,” FCFT President Tina Williams said. “We need real metrics from FCPS. We urge FCPS to transition all students and staff to virtual learning immediately until there is controlled community spread of COVID-19.”

The Fairfax Education Association joined other teachers’ unions in Northern Virginia for a press conference this morning to urge Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to dial the entire Commonwealth back to Phase Two of his reopening strategy and recommend that public schools return to virtual learning.

Northam tightened restrictions on social gatherings, mask-wearing, and alcohol service in restaurants starting Nov. 15, but educational settings were explicitly exempted from the new 25-person limit on gatherings.

FEA President Kimberly Adams says the union was “very happy” to see FCPS pause its return-to-school plans in accordance with its established metrics, but the association will continue pushing for Virginia to issue stronger restrictions and provide additional support for school districts that return to all-virtual learning.

Adams says the FEA is still hearing from staff members who say they have not received the personal protective equipment that they need to work in-person, but district-level administrators have stepped in to address many concerns, including ensuring that face shields are available at a school where the principal had initially declined to provide them.

Of the 214 COVID-19 cases that FCPS has recorded since Sept. 8 based on self-reporting, 177 of the people infected have been employees.

“Educators want to be with their students,” Adams said. “Right now, they’re very torn between wanting to be there for their kids but having to protect their own health and that of their families. This unfortunately is setting us up for a clash between those two feelings.”

Fairfax County Public Schools administrators reaffirmed their commitment to bringing more students back for in-person learning during a Fairfax County School Board work session last night (Thursday), despite increasing levels of COVID-19 transmission in Northern Virginia.

After introducing more than 8,000 students to hybrid learning – which consists of two days of in-person instruction and two days of virtual instruction – over the past month, FCPS is preparing to welcome an additional 6,800 students back into classrooms on Nov. 17, Superintendent Scott Brabrand told the school board.

Under a newly revised timeline, another cohort of approximately 13,500 students, including first and second-graders as well as students with disabilities, will start hybrid learning on Dec. 8, a week later than previously proposed.

Students in grades three to six will now be phased in on Jan. 12 instead of Jan. 4. Middle and high school students are still scheduled to return on Jan. 26.

“As we make preparations for additional students and staff to return, we are very mindful of the national, state, and local COVID trends,” Brabrand said. “COVID remains a fluid situation, and I want to emphasize these are my recommendations as of today, this evening.”

For now, FCPS will forge ahead with its Return to School plan even as COVID-19 cases rise in Fairfax County at a rate not seen since early June and the public school system reports its first outbreaks of the pandemic.

According to FCPS, Justice High School in Falls Church and Woodson High School in Fairfax had outbreaks on Nov. 10 that involved staff members, but no students. An outbreak is defined as more than two cases of COVID-19 that are epidemiologically linked.

FCPS sent out letters reporting the outbreaks to the affected school communities and is working with the Fairfax County Health Department to support its contact tracing investigations.

“Those outbreaks are concerning to us, and we take that seriously,” FCPS Department of Special Services Assistant Superintendent Michelle Boyd said. “We’re following up on what may have contributed to the transmission in our schools.”

As of this morning, FCPS has recorded 192 COVID-19 cases since Sept. 8, including 28 cases involving students, though the vast majority of infected individuals have been employees. 40 cases have been reported just this week starting on Nov. 8.

The unions that represent FCPS educators have argued that the school system should halt its plans for bringing in more students. Read More