FCPS delivers college-ready graduates: markings of a premier school system

No stranger to a challenge, Fairfax County Schools Superintendent Karen Garza, Ph.D., takes great pride in working for the county’s bustling school system, a cultural melting pot of 187,000 students. “I refer to us as the United Nations of public schools,” she said. “We have every country in the world represented in FCPS. Our students speak over 200 languages.”  The school system is braced to accommodate an enrollment of 198,000 by 2020, according to her estimates.

GARZA'S MESSAGE: PRIDE, CONCERN, HOPE
In her first year on the job in 2013, Garza conducted a listening tour throughout the community, visiting nearly 100 schools to introduce her message of “Point with Pride, View with Concern and Look Forward with Hope.” After year number two, it appears that the county secured a “Best-in-Class” superintendent, as her eye toward excellence for FCPS is her commitment, her passion.
Providing innovative leadership, Garza helps to sustain FCPS’s longtime reputation for quality schools. In the 2014 U.S. News Best High Schools report, FCPS earned gold, silver or bronze medals for 14 high schools. The Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology has ranked as the nation’s highest-performing high school in the United States by Newsweek, based both on student achievement and college readiness indicators.

THE BUDGET
Achieving this comes with a hefty price tag. For the 2016 Fiscal Year, Garza oversees a $2.6 billion budget, with nearly 86 percent of the budget going to instruction.  Increased compensation for teachers is her top fiscal priority. 

“We estimate that the projected deficit will be well in excess of $100 million in FY 2017,” she said. The county has been struggling with budget deficits for several years, she noted.  The main issue is that revenues -- both county and state -- allocated to the school system are squeezed to keep pace with a skyrocketing enrollment, changing student demographics and operating expenses to run one of the biggest school systems in the country, Garza explained.    

FCPS ASSETS: TEACHERS, STUDENTS, PROGRAMS
In spite of the bottom line challenges, Garza talks exuberantly about FCPS’s great schools, exceptional teachers, resources, student services, as well as her county’s diverse and high-achieving students. “We are very fortunate in that we have strong schools,” she said. 
“All 196 schools are among the highest performing in the country. Our programming exceeds what you find in other public schools in fine arts, languages, Advanced Placement (AP) classes and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes. We have wonderful teachers, talented students, a supportive community and wonderful partnerships. I am amazed and in awe of the great things going on in our schools.”

Garza’s Tips for Home Buyers
Understanding how schools often rank high on the list of requirements when conducting a home search, Garza offers these tips:
1. Go to the FCPS website at www.fcps.edu; visit school profiles
2. Visit the “Portrait of a Graduate” at http://www.fcps.edu/supt/portrait/
3. Make a site visit to each school
4. Talk to each principal to sense the climate and culture in the school
5. Talk to prospective neighbors
6. Remember that numbers and test scores do not tell the whole story; do not judge a school by how a student performed on a test on one day of the year
7. Learn about the community.