Just moved, what is with county school districts?

[Anonymous]

I think Fairfax County would have better educational outcomes if it were split into 2 or maybe 3 school districts. FCPS already has several different clusters of schools (multiple pyramids per cluster) and a bunch of Associate Superintendents for these. So FCPS has high overhead, no savings resulted from being huge.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in the northeast with town/township specific schools, then moved to the southeast where everything is a county wide school district, and now live out west where there is a mix of county schools and town/township based schools. There are of course pro and cons to each.

In theory, you would think that county wide school districts would be more efficient in terms of administration and shared resources. The problem with us, however is that it result in no one school being particularly great. It doesn’t show her a certain level of equality in some resources, but it also means that it can be harder for individual schools to upgrade their own buildings put in special programs that may fit the people in their town, better etc. so while it may sound like a way to even the playing field in terms of property, taxes, resources, etc. it also helps to ensure that no one single school is particularly fabulous.

The town/township specific model allows for a lot more flexibility for individual schools and resources, but obviously has the ability to create more of a divide between economically advantaged and disadvantaged. So I’m not sure that one is better than the other. Countywide school district might make more sense in counties that are very sparsely populated and don’t have an economic center..