The Fairfax County Public Schools system (abbreviated FCPS) is a branch of the Fairfax County government which administers public schools in Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. FCPS' headquarters is located in the Gatehouse Administration Center in Merrifield, an unincorporated section of the county near the city of Falls Church; the headquarters has a Falls Church address but is not within the city limits.
With over 180,000 students enrolled, FCPS is the largest public school system in the Baltimore-Washington and Northern Virginia Metropolitan Area. The superintendent of schools is Jack D. Dale. The school division is the 11th largest school system in the nation and maintains the largest school bus fleet of any school system in the United States.
The most notable commitment the county makes to its school system is the allocation of 53.5% of its 2011 fiscal budget to the school system. Including state and federal government contributions, along with citizen and corporate contributions, this brings the 2013 fiscal budget for the school system to $2.4 billion. The school system has estimated that, based on the 2013 fiscal budget, the county will invest $13,564 in each student during the 2012-2013 school year.
Read more about Fairfax County Public Schools: History, No Contact Rule, Debate Over Grading Policy, Controversy Over Disciplinary Policies, Schools, Transportation
Famous quotes containing the words county, public and/or schools:
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“Bath twice a day to be really clean, once a day to be passably clean, once a week to avoid being a public menace.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)
“In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)