FCPS proposes school-based traffic and pedestrian safety assessments; six‑school pilot planned

Fairfax County Public Schools staff presented a plan to establish an annual school traffic and pedestrian safety assessment program that relies on school‑level self‑assessments, with a six‑school pilot proposed in the spring and countywide implementation targeted for school year 2025–26.

The working group said the approach replaces an earlier central‑office assessment pilot and is intended to produce standardized data from all ~200 FCPS schools, steer limited central resources to the most urgent needs and provide a mitigation toolkit schools can use immediately.

The shift grew from a March pilot the working group ran at Fairfax High School. Andy Muic, chief operating officer, said the joint working‑group assessment showed the central‑office model was too slow and resource‑intensive to scale across the division. “The formal assessment write up that they put together was very detailed, but it took several weeks, and a couple visits to the school to pull it together,” Muic said. The team concluded a central‑office team could not reliably assess 200 schools in a year and moved to a school‑based self‑assessment process.

How the school‑based approach will work: school leadership teams will use a standardized questionnaire to collect quantitative and qualitative data (counts, crossing timings and narrative concerns) during a 30‑day window. Schools will submit a matched electronic form plus scanned field notes and supporting documents. Central office will then consolidate submissions to find divisionwide trends and prioritize which schools need direct central support.

Janice Symansky, chief of facilities and capital programs, described three deliverables: the questionnaire, an electronic submission form built to match the questionnaire, and a living mitigation toolkit that offers examples and “how‑to” steps for common issues such as kiss‑and‑ride flow, cones and signage. Symansky said the toolkit is intended to help schools address lower‑complexity issues without waiting for central office intervention.

Brian Lambert, chief safety and security officer, underscored planned collaboration with Fairfax County Police Department and crossing‑guard placement. “The police department’s the only folks who have the authority to stop traffic, or their designee through a crossing guard,” Lambert said, adding that the department and VDOT are already regular partners on site assessments.

A community speaker who introduced himself from the Fairfax High School area summarized why Fairfax High was selected as the initial joint working‑group site: “Fairfax High School has a notorious traffic problem that we've been dealing with for years. The buses and the cars are commingled coming into and exiting the school. It creates significant delays for the buses.” That account was offered during board discussion as a local example of the kinds of site‑level nuance the self‑assessment is intended to capture.

The working group recommended a pilot of six schools — one from each of FCPS’s six regions — to test the questionnaire, submission workflow and mitigation toolkit before expanding divisionwide. If the pilot confirms the approach, staff proposed a countywide roll‑out in the 2025–26 school year and a first consolidated report back to the board in June 2026.

Board members and staff discussed principal workload and community engagement. Several board members expressed concern that the questionnaire could be an additional administrative task for building leaders; staff representatives said they had briefed regional superintendents and instructional leaders and plan direct principal outreach, principal association briefings and additional training before countywide deployment. Symansky said one benefit of the standard form is that schools will have a template and examples to speed work rather than starting from scratch.

Staff asked the board to allow the pilot and directed central staff to return after the pilot with results and recommended next steps; no final policy or funding decision was taken at this meeting. The board discussed stronger county coordination, including a potential joint task force with county transportation partners and VDOT, and ways to route items that schools cannot address (state roads, traffic signals) to the proper agency in a single, consolidated request from central office.

Votes and formal actions recorded during this portion of the meeting are limited to administrative business; the board approved a request for one member to attend virtually (see “Actions” below). The traffic and pedestrian plan is a staff proposal and, if adopted, would proceed through pilot, review and a later board approval step for any central resources or policy changes.

What’s next: staff will run the six‑school pilot in spring, refine the questionnaire and toolkit based on pilot findings, and return to the board with pilot results and any recommended resource needs in a June 2026 report. Staff said the pilot will capture completion time and principal workload data to refine timing and supports before a divisionwide roll‑out.