“We want to hear your input . . . to make sure we are headed in the right direction.” Such was a comment from Fairfax County Superintendent Michelle Reid in asking the public to take part in an online survey related to its draft strategic plan, “Goals for Student Success.”
The newish superintendent is saying what a half-dozen of her predecessors have said since the 1980s – they value input from the public. And whether it’s been a superintendent who is of the my-way-or-the-highway vintage (RIP, Bud Spillane) or those who took the rope-a-dope approach in trying to hide from the public whenever they could, the reality is FCPS has not, for a long time, been all that interested in public input, unless it can be used as ratification of policies already decided upon.
We scrolled through the online survey, and you’d have to have an advanced degree in government-speak in order to uncover all the ticking time bombs embedded in the verbiage. Those who went into the process with blinders on, ticking off “agree” or “strongly agree” to statements that, to their eyes, appear benign, are going to have quite the awakening to see how those responses are actually interpreted by the current, activist Fairfax School Board, for whom education not only is no longer the main priority, but in some cases is actually the enemy of the causes they espouse.
Each and every county School Board seat is up for grabs this fall, and while we’d hope that the public would be more engaged in these bottom-of-the-ballot races owing to what has transpired over the past four years, we have our doubts. The only people truly interested in running for such posts these days appear to be activists pushing agendas, not those desiring that a Fairfax County Public Schools diploma again carries the cachet it once did.
