Fairfax School District Prioritizes ‘Green Initiatives’ Over Academic Proficiency

As Virginia’s largest public school district continues to decline academically, Fairfax County Public Schools’ environmental and sustainability program has exploded in scale since 2020, transforming from a small initiative into a heavily-staffed central operation.

Meanwhile, despite a $197 million increase from the fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget, Fairfax County’s school board members voted last month toreduce school reserve staffing by $8.8 million, eliminating 70 positions in FY2027.

Parents, teachers, and school administrators are increasingly concerned about the reduction in school reserve staffing and the general shift of resources from schools to central administration under Superintendent Michelle Reid’s leadership.

Fairfax Schools, which was once lauded as one of the highest performing districts in the country, has declined precipitously in recent years.

As per-pupil expenditures have increased from about $15,000 in 2020 to $24,000 in 2026, academic outcomes are in steady decline. Since 2019, for example, the district’s average SAT score has decreased by 35 points, from 1218 to 1183.  

The Standards of Learning tests, Virginia’s standardized tests administered across multiple grade levels, also show that jaw-dropping numbers of students are not proficient in reading, writing, math, science, and history. About a quarter of the district’s students are not proficient at grade-level in reading, math, and science. The results in writing and history are even more abysmal. Despite a strategic plan that puts “equity” at the center, the district’s most vulnerable students are failing standardized tests at even more alarming rates, as noted in the table below.

Failure Rate of FCPS SOLs 2024-2025

Substantial budget increases—from $2.9 billion in FY2019 to $4.1 billion in FY2027—should mean that district officials allocate increased resources to improving students’ declining academic performance. But the budget suggests that is not the priority.

There are many areas in central administration’s bloated budget that school board members could have cut to avoid reducing school reserve staff this year or eliminating 275 teaching positions last year. In FY2026, for example, the district spent $272 million on non-school-based administrators’ salaries.

Reid, the chief “equity” monger, earns an annual salary of $445,353, and her chief of staff, Marty Smith, earns $306,154. Their egregiously high salaries highlight yet another case of “equity for thee, but not for me.”

Perhaps equally disconcerting—as the district eliminates teaching positions, increases class sizes, and cuts school staffing reserves—Fairfax County Public Schools’ leadership has supercharged its green initiatives into a rapidly expanding administrative ecosystem spanning multiple departments and layers of staffing. Note in the table below, for example, that relevant staff associated with these initiatives had combined salaries of $2.2 million in FY2025.

FCPS Energy / Get2Green / Sustainability Salary Table (FY2025)

This growing bureaucratic monstrosity began in 2008, with School Board Policy 8542, which formally established environmental stewardship as a systemwide responsibility embedded in facilities management. A year later, the district launched Get2Green as the student-facing environmental stewardship program.

In 2019, Fairfax County’s leaders formed the Joint Environmental Task Force, which effectively precipitated bureaucratic expansion for so-called “green initiatives.” With its final report, drafted in 2020, the task force explicitly recommended coordinated “climate action” across energy, waste, transportation, facilities, and workforce development.

In FY 2023, an additional $1.4 million and six positions were included to address Phase I recommendations of the Joint Environmental Task Force. The next year, Fairfax Schools provided salary supplements for Get2Green leaders at all of the district’s 200 schools.

By 2024, and with significant expense, School Board Policy 8542 and the Joint Environmental Task Force had structured the district’s environmental efforts into three broad categories distributed across multiple departments: (1) energy management, (2) environmental sustainability and climate initiatives, and (3) green building and capital program coordination.

The district has undergone a clear structural shift over the past decade: rising expenditures and expanding central administration have not translated into improved academic outcomes. Despite significant increases in per-pupil spending, student performance is in decline, with large shares of students failing to meet proficiency standards in core subjects.

At the same time, the district has built out a growing administrative framework for environmental and sustainability initiatives. What began as a relatively modest program has, since 2020, evolved into a multidepartment structure spanning energy management, facilities operations, transportation planning, and instructional programming.

Increasing class sizes and cutting teaching positions while failing to eliminate programs that do not support academic achievement is a symptom of weak and obscenely irresponsible leadership.

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