May 2026 School Board Update

Hey everyone

It’s been a while since I last updated y’all, and there are several things the board has been up to. I’m recovering from ankle surgery and don’t have access to my usual workstation, so the update will lack some detail that is just more convenient to collect when not working solely on a laptop. 

We have finalized a new cell phone policy due to a change in Virginia law (which requires schools to ban student cell phone use during the school day). We have begun work on an AI policy to guide the schools in AI usage. We have developed a budget for the 2026-2027 school year, and while revenue looks healthy and is predicted to be higher than what was thought in December, the City Council seems poised to break its revenue share agreement, meaning that the schools may not be able to engage in the enhancements for student learning and more operational efficiency that we left out of the budget in order to meet city council guidance. Read on for more details. 

Budget

In early January, the schools presented a first draft budget to maintain current levels of effort, which called for a 5.1% increase in what the schools receive from the city over the 2025-2026 school year. Due to low projected revenue in December, the schools revised the budget to come within the 4.1 percent local transfer increase guidance from the city council. The ~$500,000 in reductions from the proposed budget come from leveraging attrition of instructional and support staff and reducing contractual budgets (like software, repair and maintenance, labor relations). This will be the lowest increase in local transfer since at least FY22. The total budget increase for FY27 is 3.15 percent (which includes state and federal revenue sources). As you can see below, this keeps the inflation-adjusted per pupil spending within the range of the last 6 years or so. 

The latest projections suggest that revenue will be ~$700,000 higher than initial projections. Under the usual revenue share, the schools would expect to receive $350,000 for the FY2027 operating budget. In the latest city council meeting (April 27), several council members expressed reluctance to provide the schools with more money, and some suggested that they wouldn’t support funding more staff, which is close to blurring the line of authority set by the municipal code, wherein the “action of the council on the school budget shall relate to its total only and the school board shall have authority to expend in its discretion the sum appropriated for its use”. 

Over the past few years, the number of students receiving special education services, students who receive ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) services, and advanced academics students has increased. Approximately 28 percent of FCCPS are receiving some form of special education. That’s nearly twice as many as Arlington (15%) and nearly three times as many as Fairfax (10%). These students require services, and in education, that means staffing. 

AI Policy

Over the past several months, the school board has been engaged in diving deep on the topic of AI. We tasked the existing committees to consider how AI will impact the students within the committees’ purviews. We also created an ad hoc committee tasked with providing the board guidance around AI in schools. We have also held two town halls for wider community feedback. The board is committed to creating a policy that addresses the complexities of this topic, including around student and teacher usage, academic integrity, data privacy, AI literacy and understanding, and age appropriate use. The committees provided their feedback at our April 28 meeting. You can find the committee reports as well as video of the presentations at our AI policy webpage.

Cell Phones

The Virginia legislature recently passed (with near unanimity) a law requiring school boards to develop and implement policies that ban student cell phone usage during the school day. You can find a discussion of how the schools plan to implement this new policy here.

HTG

Congrats to the Mt. Daniel/Jessie Thackrey team for bringing home the Golden Pencil.