FCPS Case Study in Hiding the Ball
FCPS can make life difficult for those seeking transparency, as this story illustrates. The facts will eventually emerge, although at significant cost, time and effort.
Back in February, the School Board decided to allow each of its members to hire additional staffers for themselves. Perhaps they truly needed more help. The problem, though, is that the Board wanted to remain under the radar because the proposed salaries for their personal employees would exceed those of almost all FCPS teachers, and because FCPS was in the midst of a difficult budget process, which meant that raises for teachers would be reduced. The situation could be embarrassing and controversial.
The solution: Make the decision quietly and hope no one will notice.
Someone did notice. The hirings were reported in the Fairfax County Times on May 9. See Asra Nomani, “School Board Secretly Added Staff ‘Director’ to Payroll with $121,535 Salary.”
Fairfax Schools Monitor decided to probe further because Virginia law prohibits public bodies from deciding or discussing matters like this in meetings that aren’t open to the public. The first phase of our investigation was reported here on June 20. School Board members refused to respond to simple inquiries, and FCPS stonewalled requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
FCPS’s conduct necessitated a lawsuit and a second FOIA request. Finally, after four months, the facts (or at least some of them) have been uncovered
The outcome is summarized in an article in today’s Fairfax County Times, reprinted below.
Fairfax County Times, September 19, 2025, Mark Spooner, “FCPS School Board Secretly Pads Its Payroll: Update“
After this paper reported on May 9 that the Fairfax County School Board had voted in a closed meeting to provide its members with additional, highly-paid “staff directors,” I decided to probe further. It seemed that the Board had violated the open-meeting requirement of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I was also struck by the reported salary for the new “directors,” which, at $121,535, would exceed the salaries of all but a handful of the longest-tenured teachers in FCPS.
I sent an email to my Braddock Board member (Heizer) and the three at-large members (McDaniel, McElveen and Moon), asking two simple questions: Were new staff positions approved and, if so, was this done in an open meeting? All four refused to answer.
So, I submitted a FOIA request for documents relating to the issue. In response, I was given a notice of a February 25 nonpublic session of the Board, but nothing more. FCPS asserted that the subject of that meeting, and the documents considered in it, were exempt from disclosure under FOIA. FCPS ignored my attempt to negotiate. I reported on these developments in an article in this paper on June 20.
I then sued the School Board in Fairfax County Circuit Court. A hearing was scheduled for July 28. On the eve of the hearing, FCPS disclosed that a document entitled “School Board Staffing Considerations – Key Considerations” had been prepared for the closed meeting in February, but its substance was entirely blacked out under a claim of attorney-client privilege.
The chief in-house lawyer for FCPS, John Foster, testified at the hearing. He claimed the School Board did not vote on, or even discuss, additional staffing for itself at the February closed session. The sole thing that occurred, he said, was a presentation by him about certain legal “risks” that might be involved. He further testified that I misperceived what was being considered. He said that whereas my FOIA request had asked for “all records reflecting the rationale for creating staff director positions,” there was never a proposal to create any new positions. The proposal, he said, was simply to “upgrade” the status of the existing personnel to be “staff directors” rather than “staff aides.” Thus, he testified, no documents responsive to my FOIA request existed. Based on this testimony, the circuit court judge ruled there were no further documents that FCPS needed to disclose.
On July 30, I submitted a new FOIA request. This time I asked for the name, job title and salary of each FCPS employee who worked for each School Board member as of (a) December 31, 2024, (b) June 30, 2025, and (c) the 2025-26 school year. I also asked for any documents relating to the Board’s evaluation of the proposed “upgrade” of “staff aides” to be “staff directors.” I paid the $227 demanded by FCPS to process the request.
FCPS responded on September 4. I was told that FCPS has no documents relating to the Board’s consideration of the “upgrade.” But the response also revealed that, contrary to Mr. Foster’s testimony, FCPS did create new, highly paid, support for the Board members.
The documents disclose that at year-end 2024, each School Board member was assisted by one staffer. The job title for most of them was “staff aide.” Their salaries ranged from $86,299 to $125,531. The total of the FCPS salaries paid to these assistants was $1,198,340.
Currently, however, because of the decisions made in February, eight of the twelve Board members have a second employee on their personal staffs. These members now have both a “director of district board operations” and a “staff assistant” or “staff aide.” The initial salary of each “director” was $121,535, but they quickly received 5% raises on July 1 and are now paid $127,612. The total of the salaries is $2,226,831 – almost twice as much as at year-end 2024. It remains a mystery how this dramatic increase was approved without any paper trail (assuming FCPS has accurately denied the existence of any relevant documents).
Why did FCPS try to misrepresent the facts and stonewall public inquiries for so long? The probable answer is that FCPS was engaged in difficult budget discussions when this staffing was being considered. Pay increases for teachers were being pared back. In this environment, it would have been highly embarrassing and controversial to disclose that the Board members would be getting additional, highly-paid assistants whose salaries would greatly exceed those of most FCPS teachers. So FCPS tried to hide the ball in every possible way.
Mark. Thank you so much for your doggedness. Unfortunately, this stuff is a full-time job as well as an expenditure of personal resources.
Question is – will this disclosure change anything? How can we create a more responsive board? How can we get voters to care about this?
I hate to say it but as long as public schools don’t have competition for our dollars, it’s hard to see a catalyst for change.
But thank you for your hard work and exposure.
Thanks. They do need competition.
Well done, Mark!
One way of fixing this dysfunction would be to eliminate the Fairfax County public school system and replace it with nine school systems based on the current magisterial districts. The Fairfax County system has 180,000 students, twice as many as the next largest system and roughly 20 times the average Virginia school district. The new districts would have around 20,000 students apiece. Their school boards would be more responsive to the specific needs of their districts. Candidates for the school boards would not have to expend time and money comparable to running for the Virginia House of Delegates. School board members would likely not require $2,2 million in administrative assistance.
Thomas: Thanks for your response. It’s an interesting idea.
I had once during snow days advocated splitting it into west Fairfax and east Fairfax but like your idea even better.
Great article, Mark! A prime example of FCPS complaining about their rising legal costs, while at the same time reducing transparency (leading to more FOIAs and lawsuits). It’s become a bureaucracy that’s more interested in maintaining the bureaucracy than in being responsive to its constituents – the tax payers of FFC!
Thanks for shining the light on their behavior.
Mark, thanks once again for staying on top of these things thoroughly and methodically. It appears rather clear that they did wrong, were caught, and refuse to confess. And we know this is the tip of the iceberg of such constant attempts at subterfuge and non-transparency (see https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/may/18/democracy-dies-darkness-fairfax-county/)
When I wrote to the school board asking them about this report of secret hiring, I received only one response, and that from the only board member who has ever responded to me: Dr. Ricardy Anderson. When I had previously contacted the board on another issue, Dr. Anderson took the initiative to reach out to me by phone even though I was not in her district, and we had a rational and friendly conversation for about an hour. In response to my later question to all the school board members regarding the report of the secret hiring of new staff, Dr. Anderson responded thus: “Thank you for your email. Please be informed that at current, I am the only board member with an Executive Administrative Assistant. I will not be changing this position into a Director position and I have no plans to add a junior staff member. Thank you. Ricardy J. Anderson, Ed.D.” No one else responded.
Relatedly, I have appealed to numerous entities through federal, state, and Fairfax County government to investigate Kyle McDaniel, who was sued by his former business partner for embezzlement and who sat as chair of the FCPS school board budget committee, for any financial improprieties. If anyone thinks that this would raise alarm bells for the leaders of the County regarding County funds and stir them to action, think again. The fact that I, a private citizen, had to request this, and not a single Fairfax leader or government employee initiated the request, speaks volumes about our state of affairs.
After repeated attempts through various channels I was finally able to extract a statement from the Auditor General of FCPS that at my request they had initiated a review. When the review was complete, the AG then refused to release to me the results of the review claiming attorney-client privilege. I pointed out that the AG’s office were not attorneys. They responded that they had involved the attorney in the matter. I requested that the attorney contact me. This never happened. Has McDaniel also been embezzling millions from County taxpayers? Is everyone who should be overseeing this process getting paid a kick-back for their silence? Who knows? Add this to the long list of FCPS’ attempts to blockade, stonewall, and hide from public examination of matters in which the public clearly has aninterest.
I’m currently attempting to extract from FCPS a clear answer as to their plan for complying with the recent Mahmoud decision by the US Supreme Court. It’s now day 77 and the answer is still being held hostage. I finally received a response from Reid’s office that they “will continue to provide updates to the community on this legal process, which we believe is important for the safety and well-being of every one of our students.” But I didn’t ask about the legal process–I asked about the compliance. The most reasonable answer I can infer, then, is this: “We have no plan because we refuse to comply with Mahmoud, just as our party has historically refused to comply with a host of other federal decisions, including Brown vs. the Board of Education.” I have asked for a date certain by which the public will be informed of FCPS’ compliance with federal law (we did, after all, already resolve in 1865 the question as to whether states must comply with federal law). The crickets chirp without interruption.
A majority of FCPS may flunk writing and history (https://ednewsva.org/letter-fairfax-county-schools-branding-problem/), but in their efforts to evade transparency and public accountability, FCPS itself gets an A+.
Let’s keep asking, looking, demanding, suing, and exposing them until they do their duty or we replace them with those who can and will.
Jeff: Thanks for your comment. You’ve learned, as I have, that getting information from FCPS can be very difficult when they want to avoid transparency. Humorous sidenote: At the July 28 court hearing on my FOIA request, FCPS’s in-house lawyer, John Foster, told the judge that he and his staff go out of their way to be cooperative and to provide even more information in response to FOIA requests than requesters ask for. I had to restrain myself from breaking out in laughter in response.
Your reference to Dr. Ricardy Anderson is interesting. She isn’t one of the four Board members I contacted regarding this matter. From the information that I recently obtained, I can confirm that the information she gave you is correct: She has only one staff assistant, not two.
Mark
To all of you who are dedicating your time and resources to addressing the serious issues with your school board, I truly applaud your efforts.
Although I do not live in the district—nor even in the state of Virginia—I am a childhood friend of Mark Spooner and had the pleasure of attending school with him over the years. Mark has graciously included me on the mailings, and I am grateful to be kept informed.
I pray that Mark, along with all of you who are seeking answers and solutions, will be successful in your efforts and emerge victorious.
Thank you for your hard work on this. I don’t know what we would do without you.
Thanks!
Thank you for bringing all this to our attention!!!
I’ve tried reaching out with simple questions to my school board and reps over the years and never get responses. I was once told by an administrator that they are instructed to ignore parent emails. So sad.
On top of that they initiate these absurd lawsuits about bathroom usage that hardly a person cares about and waste money that could be used to pay teachers more or equip the school with basics. My kids elementary doesn’t even have enough instruments for kids to play and the cost to commercially rent a strings instrument is like $400 a school year. Think of how they could use this wasted money in so many meaningful ways for the children.
Thanks for all you do Mark. If there is a way we can all step up to help and support please let us know.
Sadie: Thanks for sharing your personal experiences in trying to get info from FCPS. I doubt that having these new aides will make most of them any more responsive.
Mark, incredible work.
Let’s say an NFL team plays in the Superbowl And loses. Six months later it comes out they had bribed the refs, albeit to no effect. What should happen?
I’m a mere layman, but this feels like illegal behavior, not to mention the coverup. Where are the legal authorities?
Thank you for continuing to investigate this. There were no job descriptions when these were posted in the FCPS jobs website. I know that some staff aides were promoted after an interview process going from 70k to 120k. We need transparency in FCPS hiring practices across the board. Appreciate your efforts!