Fairfax County Public Schools: By The Numbers

One more week of summer vacation . What are your students planning on dong wit it?

An estimated 177,629 Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) students will begin the 2011-12 school year on Tuesday, Sept. 6.

 What's New: Full day kindergarten at all elementary schools.  That  will be a change for Reston's Sunrise Valley Elementary School and Armstrong Elementary School.

The entire Fairfax County School Board faces election in November. Many incumbents, including Hunter Mill board member Stuart Gibson, are not seeking reelection making the school board races some of the most exciting this year. Running for the Hunter Mill seat are Democrat Pat Hynes and Republican Nancy Linton.

FCPS students will attend 138 elementary schools (grades K-6), 19 middle schools (grades 7 and 8), three middle schools (grades 6-8), four secondary schools (grades 7-12), 21 high schools (grades 9-12), seven special education centers, two alternative high schools, and 48 alternative programs. 

Three of these schools are magnet schools: Bailey’s Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences, Hunters Woods Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST).

Fairfax County schools will cost county taxpayers $2.2 billion for the fiscal year that started July 1. School employees received a one- percent pay increase (the first in several years) and step increases for employees as part of this year's budget.

Fifty-two percent of the county's budget goes to the schools. The schools budget also includes $38 million in state funds.

The majority of students in county schools are now minorities, a testament to the sweeping changes to the county's population in the past 40 years. Seventy percent of the county residents have no children in the schools.