News Brief: Superintendent Reid recommends against Regional Governing Board
April 11, 2023
In a presentation to the Fairfax County School Board on March 30, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Michelle Reid recommended an Advisory Group for Jefferson rather than moving to a Regional Governing Board. This recommendation was prompted by an Oct. 8, 2020, school board motion, directing the FCPS superintendent to create a plan for implementing a Regional Governing Board at Jefferson.
Jefferson is one of 19 Academic Year Governor’s Schools (AYGS) in Virginia, and is a part of the FCPS system. While Jefferson enrolls students from neighboring counties Loudoun, Prince William, Arlington, Falls Church City, as well as private and homeschooled students, all students and staff are a part of FCPS.
All of the AYGS schools in Virginia, except Jefferson, have a regional governing board. A regional governing board would change Jefferson’s jurisdiction, so staff members would no longer be FCPS employees.
Superintendent Reid’s executive summary to the School Board suggested potential consequences of moving to a Regional Governing Board, such as a smaller percentage of FCPS students being accepted, increased costs of operation, and rehiring both instructional and non-instructional staff at Jefferson.
Instead of a Regional Governing Board, Reid recommended an Advisory Group that would collaborate with FCPS and Jefferson administration, eliminating the possible consequences of moving to a Regional Governing Board.
![Student outreach representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) visit Jefferson to talk about career paths involving STEM in the CIA and student opportunities. “[Another CIA representative] invited me to join her because this is a STEM school and both of my degrees are in computer science and systems engineering. If any questions about CIA fields [arise] that contain those sciences, I could answer them,” CIA officer Michelle said.](https://www.tjtoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/cia-600x380.png)
![I had three team members working on [the finance tracker]. It creates a pie chart to show you your expenses and where you should cut down on costs. We also had a [tool] to recommend stocks to invest in, and an AI chatbot to ask [additional questions] about finances, freshman Kamel Elshaer said.](https://www.tjtoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/430737706_1197841344513170_8186491334261173802_n-600x400.jpg)
![Running for over 34 years, the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation has awarded a total of $73,800,000 in scholarships to students around the nation. “It was pretty cool [to receive the scholarship.],” senior Brian Zhou said. “Its a great honor to be one of the few from TJ.”](https://www.tjtoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-03-at-4.35.08-PM-600x337.png)
