American school districts are losing students, and the hard part is deciding what to cut. Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), Virginia’s largest public school district — which used to be considered one of the nation’s strongest systems — shows one way that choice can go wrong. To balance its reduced budget, it cut its school staffing, increased class sizes, and continued to let administration staffing grow.
FCPS is shrinking. As of Sept. 30, 2026, Virginia’s largest school division enrolled 171,936 students, about 4,200 fewer than the 176,133 projected in its fiscal year 2027 budget. Since fall 2019, the division has lost about 17,000 students, roughly 9 percent.
Decline in public school enrollment extends far beyond Fairfax County. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data show that public school enrollments in 40 states dropped by an average of 3.8 percent, or almost 1.5 million students between 2019 and 2024.
Fairfax is not a struggling rural district. It is affluent, about 15 miles from Washington, and spends roughly $23,800 per student ($4.1 billion in operating funds across about 172,000 students). Yet many families are opting for private schools and homeschooling.
Fairfax’s steeper-than-average decline may also be partly explained by its status as a sanctuary county, since families without legal status may be withdrawing their children or leaving the area in response to stepped-up immigration enforcement under the Trump administration.
The Results Problem
The slide began years ago, when district leadership stopped prioritizing academics in favor of leftist curricula and “equity.” The decline accelerated during prolonged pandemic closures. Most students did not set foot in a classroom for about a year. Over the past decade, the district has also moved steadily toward screens. Its FCPSOn program has put laptops in students’ hands since 2019, and this year the district extended use of a digital social studies text because a planned return to print was delayed by budget cuts. By standard measures, the results are weak.
According to the Virginia Department of Education, about 1 in 5 Fairfax County students failed the reading and math Standards of Learning (SOL) tests in 2025-26, and about 1 in 4 failed science. The failure rates were close to double for economically disadvantaged students, about 2 in 5 of whom failed each subject. In addition, FCPS’s average SAT score fell from 1218 in 2019 to 1183 in 2025.
In December 2025, Superintendent Michelle Reid told the school board that 40 of the district’s 199 public schools, about 20 percent, were federally identified for support and improvement. In October 2026, the Virginia Department of Education published data showing 28 Fairfax County schools were given that designation this year.
The Budget Choices
Falling enrollment squeezes every district, because buildings, central staff, and salaries do not shrink as fast as the student body. Fairfax has balanced its $4.1 billion operating budget by cutting its school staffing reserve this year, after increasing class sizes last year through a staffing-formula change.
Meanwhile, non-school-based, administrative staffing has grown faster than staffing in schools. From fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2027, non-school-based positions grew 5.7 percent, while school-based positions grew 3.3 percent. And according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, its top administrators are paid well. Superintendent Michelle Reid is paid $469,936 a year, more than the president’s $400,000 salary, plus a $12,000 car allowance, and has around-the-clock personal security. Chief Equity Officer Nardos King will make $288,064 this year, more than any member of the president’s Cabinet. In all, 71 senior administrators make more than $200,000.
The perks extend beyond salaries. A FOIA request found that the district sponsored15 administrators to attend the Leaders Developing Leaders Summit, organized by the Men of Color in Educational Leadership (MCEL) network, held June 29 through July 1, 2026, at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.
Taxpayers are also funding a doctoral program for central administrators. On Aug. 5, 2025, Geovanny Ponce, then FCPS’s chief of schools and now superintendent of Champaign Unit 4 Schools in Illinois, emailed hundreds of district administrators to announce the program. “FCPS is launching a district-sponsored doctoral cohort program in partnership with George Mason University,” he wrote. “This program will lead to an Education Leadership PhD concentration, providing an opportunity to deepen your expertise and advance your career.”
Why the Small Things Matter
These items may seem small compared to a $4.1 billion budget. A quantum computer for the new Skyview High School, approved in September at a cost of up to $850,000, is about 0.02 percent of it, and cutting every perk listed here would not close the gap. The point is credibility. A district that asks classrooms to absorb larger classes and thinner staffing has to show that the central administration is absorbing cuts too, and so far, it has not.
The larger decision is Skyview itself. The board voted to spend $150 million on a high school after years of declining enrollment. A school purchase is a capital expense, separate from the operating budget that pays for teachers, but it is still a planning failure: the district bought capacity for demand that has not materialized, and families are not enrolling at forecasted levels. Other district high schools, such as Lewis and Mount Vernon, are also under-enrolled.
The National Lesson
Every district facing falling enrollment will face this choice: shrink the central office along with the student body, or ask classrooms to absorb the cost. Strong public schools also underpin home values and local tax bases, so families leaving is a risk to the revenue base as well as to the schools.
With that in mind, FCPS leadership is particularly weak and irresponsible considering that SAT scores are down since 2019, about 2 in 5 economically disadvantaged students are failing state tests, and 28 schools are federally identified as needing academic support, but administrators are still collecting generous salaries, conference travel, and taxpayer-funded PhDs while classrooms absorb the cuts.
Fairfax had substantial resources, a strong reputation, and years of warning. As enrollment fell, it still protected the central office first. Every district facing the same decline should study it, then do the opposite: Instead of increasing class sizes, trim bloated administration.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor to The Federalist and the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.