When a private company is failing at its core mission, investors do not throw more money at the problem. Why, then, would anyone accept Fairfax County Public Schools’ argument that it would be more successful if only the state and local government allocated more funds to it?
From fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2025, the district’s budget has increased from $3 billion to $3.7 billion, but that increase has not improved educational outcomes for our children. In fact, while the number of overpaid administrators at the district’s headquarters has increased significantly, there has been a steady decline in school performance and student test scores.
One of the bureaucratic departments the school district created in fiscal 2024 is the Chief Experience and Engagement Office, headed by Lisa Youngblood Hall, which earns an annual salary of $239,468. The district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, announced Hall’s new position on July 15, 2022.
In fiscal 2025, the budget for Hall’s new office is more than $8.2 million and includes 70 non-school-based, full-time employees.
The Chief Experience and Engagement Office’s mission is unclear, except that it seems to have taken some of the equity office’s responsibilities from the questionably competent chief equity officer, Nardos King, who also still enjoys an annual salary of more than $230,000. Meanwhile, the district’s equity office continues to hold a non-school-based budget in fiscal 2025, totaling $5.6 million.
The public has a general idea of what an equity office does, but the “experience and engagement” office is new packaging.
According to the fiscal 2025 budget, “The Office of the Chief Experience and Engagement Officer works collaboratively to plan strategies for a stronger, more cohesive division where each and every student, staff, and community member is engaged in positive experiences.”
It seems that $8.2 million is a high price to pay per year for such an arbitrary, difficult-to-measure goal. When a reporter asked the district what effect the office has, the answer was even less clear.
“Getting students registered for school and showing up on a regular basis is the first step towards student achievement. The Chief Experience and Engagement Officer has modernized our registration process and led districtwide collaboration on attendance awareness and immunizations,” a district representative said.
The Experience and Engagement Office and Equity Office are just two of many administrative examples in the county. But are they improving student educational outcomes with their $13.8 million combined annual non-school based budgets?
A look at Fairfax County’s students’ failure rates of Virginia’s Standards of Learning test suggests not.
Fairfax County students’ failure rate of Virginia SOLs
| Year | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 |
| English Reading | 21% | 22% | 22% |
| English Writing | 22% | 43% | 72% |
| Math | 26% | 25% | 24% |
| Science | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| History | 23% | 38% | 59% |
Reid and the district’s school board members incessantly complain that they need a larger percentage of the state and local budget to go to the schools, or really, the non-school-based administrative positions taking up an indefensible share of the district’s budget. What they actually need, though, is an external audit forcing them to cut their costs and focus on the core mission and purpose of public education: to educate our children in the fundamentals in a clearly measurable way.
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Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.