Failure Rates ‘Shockingly High,’ County Parent Writes
Fairfax County resident Stephanie Lundquist-Arora sent the following open letter to Superintendent Michelle Reid on May 2, 2025:
Dr. Reid and School Board Members,
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has a branding problem. I’m sure that any Marketing 101 teacher would agree that the district’s leadership’s current branding attempt, “Excellence at a Crossroads,” sounds nice, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of Fairfax County’s students’ academic performance.
Standardized testing scores show that student performance is poor and declining. From 2019 to 2024, FCPS students’ SAT scores have decreased by 40 points, even though funding has increased by $600 million over the same period. Meanwhile, according to the most recent data, as shown in the table below, 2024 Standards of Learning (SOL) failure rates are shockingly high.
| Subject | % Failure Rate |
| Reading | 22% |
| Writing | 72% |
| Math | 24% |
| Science | 27% |
| History | 59% |
* Data provided by the Virginia Department of Education
To refer to such high student failure rates as “excellence” or to suggest that FCPS provides a “world class education” is delusional and manipulative.
Dropout rates are also troubling and reflect something other than “excellence.” As you well know, there are disparities among the district’s high schools and between multilingual learning students and their English proficient counterparts. Below is a table detailing the nine most problematic high schools in the district that includes dropout rates and numbers for multilingual learners in each school.
Dropouts in Fairfax County’s Public High Schools – Class of 2024
| High School | % Dropouts from 2024 Cohort | # Dropouts | # ML Dropouts | % of Total ML Students in 2024 Cohort Who Dropped Out |
| Herndon | 8.07% | 43 | 40 | 22.73% |
| Justice | 5.42% | 29 | 27 | 12.80% |
| WestPo | 5.39% | 34 | 24 | 26.97% |
| Mt. Vernon | 4.41% | 21 | 15 | 14.56% |
| Centreville | 4.35% | 28 | 26 | 27.66% |
| Falls Church | 4.33% | 20 | 18 | 12.33% |
| Annandale | 4.20% | 28 | 20 | 11.49% |
| Westfield | 3.26% | 23 | 16 | 12.90% |
| Lewis | 2.89% | 11 | 9 | 9.38% |
* Data released from the Virginia Department of Education, “Class of 2024 Graduation Detailed Outcomes,” September 30, 2024
When comparing these rates to the overall dropout rates in high schools such as Langley (0.20%), Robinson (0.48%), and West Springfield (0.59%), the disparities among the district’s schools are clear. It is also evident that the vast majority of the dropouts, 82%, in fact, in the nine most problematic schools are multilingual learners.
On April 24, at the last school board meeting, in response to a question from school board member Mateo Dunne, Dr. Reid said that the district had plans to improve graduation disparities, but that she would not share them publicly at this time. What are these plans and why not share them with parents and taxpayers?
Is the plan, as mentioned in the past, to redistrict our schools for equity? Would such measures include moving multilingual learning students and other low-performing students to higher performing schools, and shuffle high-performing students to these problematic schools? Why are you trying to keep it a secret?
As you consider the answers to the above questions, I also hope district leaders will be more introspective about FCPS students’ performance and the district’s leadership. When that happens, I look forward to seeing your new branding scheme that better reflects the reality of the state of our public schools. You also need to be sure that all budgetary considerations are based on student outcomes because it is abundantly clear that they are far from excellent.
Thanks again for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
Ms. Lundquist-Arora is a Fairfax parent and leads the county’s Independent Women’s Network chapter.