The Fairfax County School Board has lost its way

Dear Editor, 

I’m a lifelong Washingtonian and went to PG county public schools.  I’ve been a FCPS parent for 16 years.  My husband and I have always been involved in our kids’ school and sports activities.  Sadly, I never paid attention to the school board.  Naively, I thought they had the best interest of educating students as their sole focus.

When the pandemic happened, I quickly became aware of the school board’s failings.  I started watching school board meetings and paid attention to everything they said and did or didn’t say and do.  I was horrified watching the school board ignore and snicker at parent’s pleas to open schools.  Five-hour school board meetings were replete with speeches and resolutions patting each other on the back.  They never showed concern for students who were suffering behind computer screens even when students came to school board meetings begging to go back to school.

Since being sworn in January 2020, the school board prioritized:

• Keeping students out of school for 1.5 years

• Changing the admissions standards for TJ High School

• Renaming schools

• Hiding sexual assault cases in schools

• Denying special education students FAPE

• Pushing mass vaccination and Covid testing on healthy kids 

• Punishing students for not wearing a mask citing a dress code violation

• Spending millions of taxpayer dollars to pursue lawsuits against parents

• Changing the school calendar to accommodate every possible holiday making it so students spend half the year going to school less than 5 days a week

• Altering grading standards making it easier to attain an A for only putting in effort

• Removing expectations like turning in timely assignments or doing homework

• Lowering graduation standards to ensure students graduate whether they are actually ready 

• Addressing learning loss from virtual learning by offering more virtual learning via Tutor.com

• Seeking to punish students at the same level as a sexual assault for using another student’s legally given name or not using a student’s preferred pronoun

Since Jan 2020, the school board’s priorities have been everything EXCEPT educating students and the results are in:

• 38% of fourth graders are at grade level in reading

• 42% of second graders scored below reading benchmark on 2021 PALS

• Math performance dropped 7 points more than the national average

• 45% of black third-grade students passed their 2021 reading SOL compared to 61% in 2017 

• 43% of Hispanic third graders passed their 2021 reading SOL compared to 62% in 2017

Adding to these failures, school violence is on the rise.  High schools are grappling with drug abuse and overdoses, attempted suicides, and actual loss of life of students in the care of FCPS.  I’ve never seen such a dramatic decline in educational standards or in school safety in my life.  The school board doesn’t care about the emotional or academic well-being of students. They care more about pursuing political agendas.  Parents, it’s time to fire these school board members in November 2023.  Every single one of them needs to go! 

Sincerely, 

Kim Putens

Fort Hunt