All Fairfax County Public Schools Accredited
We are proud to have all Fairfax County public schools accredited by the Virginia Department of Education.
FCPS is in year two of our 2023-30 Strategic Plan, which focuses on expectations around student opportunities and achievements. Through our Goal 2 - Safe, Supported, Included and Empowered, we have seen marked improvement with 191 of our schools improving the rates of chronic absenteeism. Our Goal 1 focuses on a strong start for preK-12. In that area, our multilingual learners meeting expected growth made 11% gains from our baseline to the 2023-24 data.
The strategic plan and our data-driven work shows how public schools are making a positive impact on the lives of our students. FCPS has a high number of students taking rigorous courses — far higher than the national average.
FCPS continues to see other state indicators improving, including SOL pass rates reported earlier this month and graduation rates to be reported in the coming week.
Only three schools have been accredited with conditions. Of those schools, Justice High School has made incredible progress in improving dropout rates, chronic absenteeism, graduation and completion index (GCI) and college career civic readiness index (CCCRI) Only four FCPS schools received federal identification for Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) for 2024, which is a 56% improvement from 2023.
Our committed staff and engaged students are doing excellent work, while at the same time, Virginia school divisions continue to receive less K-12 funding per student than the 50-state average, the regional average, and three of Virginia's five bordering states including West Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland.
This information comes from a 2023 study commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly, which directed Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to study the cost of education in Virginia and assess the costs of the Standards of Quality. The results of that study are contained in JLARC’s 2023 report Virginia’s K-12 Funding Formula, which outlines both the inadequacy of state funding and the flaws in current state funding formulas.
School divisions in other states receive 14% more per student than school divisions in Virginia, on average, after normalizing for differences in cost of labor among states. This equates to about $1,900 more per student than Virginia. The JLARC study estimates Fairfax would receive an additional $568.7 million annually in state revenue based on all JLARC recommendations.