Fairfax County Public Schools spends more than $5.76 million on DEI budget

Incidents


On January 25, 2025, Mark Spooner of the Fairfax Schools Monitor reported that “there is no visible sign, however, that the power of DEI in FCPS will decline anytime soon.” The Fairfax Schools Monitor submitted a public records request to Fairfax County Public Schools to uncover what the district spends on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The group received documents including an organizational chart, salary information, and the current year budget.

The organizational chart details the district’s DEI staff from the “Chief Equity Officer” all the way down to administrative assistants and a “Curriculum Resource Teacher.” Mark Spooner detailed the salaries of DEI staff:

The Chief Equity Office is headed by a Chief Equity Officer (salary: $258,641). She directly supervises an Executive Director for Equity & Student Relations ($191,634), a Chief Administrative Hearings Officer ($189,569), and a Thomas Jefferson High School Admissions Director ($122,717).

He continued to report:

The Executive Director for Equity & Student Relations supervises a Director of Equity ($181,288), a Special Projects Administrator ($177,276), an Administrator of Equity Programs ($169,127), a Title IX Coordinator ($151,041), a Senior Manager for Equity & Student Conduct ($133,473), and a Data Specialist ($98,914). These employees supervise other employees under them. For example, the Director of Equity has a Senior Manager of Equity & Cultural Responsiveness ($155,921), who, in turn, supervises several Educational Specialists for Equity & Cultural Responsiveness (salaries between $121,000 and $150,000).

He explained that “there are 56 authorized full-time positions in the Chief Equity Office according to the FOIA documents.” Mark Spooner then revealed the full DEI budget for fiscal year 2025 at FCPS:

The FOIA documents disclose that the budgeted salaries of Chief Equity Office personnel total about $5.25 million and that the total budget of the office is about $5.76 million. Again, however, the numbers significantly understate FCPS expenditures because the office’s official budget does not include (i) any amount for rent, utilities or other overhead attributable to the DEI office, or (ii) DEI expenditures in the hundreds of schools in Fairfax County.