Fairfax County
Virginia Counts 5,429 Homeless Students as Chronically Absent, but Its Public Files Do Not Support a Rate
Virginia's 2022-23 chronic absenteeism file reports 5,429 students identified as homeless who missed at least 10% of the school year. The same file reports 234,822 chronically absent students statewid...
118 Virginia Divisions Had Higher Chronic Absence in 2022-23 Than in 2019-20
Correction, July 28, 2026: An earlier version of this article listed Radford City among the divisions whose chronic absenteeism improved. Radford's published rate fell because a large, low-absence vir...
Virginia's Chronic Absenteeism Rate Remained at 18.6% in 2022-23
Virginia counted 234,822 chronically absent students in 2022-23, or 18.6% of public-school enrollment. That was 9,231 fewer students and 0.9 percentage points lower than in 2021-22.
185,000 Virginia Students Now Have IEPs
Virginia's public schools enrolled 185,155 students with Individualized Education Programs in 2024-25, a 6.3% increase from 174,223 just two years earlier. Total enrollment fell by 1,947 students over...
One in 14 Virginia Students Now Identifies as Multiracial
Correction (July 21, 2026): A July 3 fact-check corrected multiracial students' 2011 rank from second-smallest to third-smallest but did not add the required visible notice. This audit also found that...
Fairfax County Graduates 93% of Its Students. Three of Its Schools Tell a Different Story.
Fairfax County is Virginia's largest school division and one of its wealthiest. Its 2023 graduation rate of 93.4% places it comfortably above the state average. Its reputation as a high-performing sub...
Fairfax County Lost 8,371 Students While Its Population Grew
Fairfax County Public Schools enrolled 188,930 students in 2019-20, the culmination of 17 years of nearly unbroken growth. Five years later, the division enrolled 180,559, a loss of 8,371 students, or...
One in Five Virginia Students Is Now Hispanic
In Manassas Park, seven of every 10 students are Hispanic. White enrollment has fallen to 9.8%, down from 19.8% eight years ago. Two hours south in the Shenandoah Valley, Harrisonburg crossed the majo...
In One Virginia Division, 79% Earn an Advanced Diploma. In Another, 17%.
Virginia offers two main paths to a high school diploma. The Advanced Studies diploma requires 26 credits, including more rigorous coursework. The Standard diploma requires 22. Both satisfy graduation...
Three in Four Virginia Divisions Never Recovered from COVID
Stafford County added 1,872 students between 2020 and 2025. It is one of 34 Virginia school divisions, out of 130 after reconciling the Alleghany/Covington merger, that can say enrollment has returned...
White Students Are Now 43% of Virginia's Schools
In 2014, white students dropped below half of Virginia's public school enrollment for the first time. Eleven years later, white students make up 43.4% of the state's 1,261,501 public school students, ...
Virginia's 19% Recovery
For 15 consecutive years, Virginia's public schools grew. From 2003-04 through 2017-18, enrollment climbed by 116,921 students, driven by Northern Virginia's suburban expansion and steady immigration....
Virginia Publishes 2024-25 Enrollment Data
Virginia's public schools enrolled 1,261,501 students in fall 2024, according to the latest Fall Membership data from VDOE. That is 608 fewer than the year before, 36,511 below the 2019-20 peak of 1,2...