The Fairfax County Public Schools system (FCPS) is a school division in the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. It is a branch of the Fairfax County government which administers public schools in Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. FCPS's headquarters is located in the Gatehouse Administration Center in Merrifield, an unincorporated section of the county near the city of Falls Church; the headquarters has a Falls Church address but is not within the city limits. With over 185,000 students enrolled, FCPS is the largest public school system in Virginia and one of the largest in the country. The school division has been led by Division Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid since July 2022. History The public school system in Fairfax County was created after the Civil War with the adoption by Virginia of the Reconstruction-era state constitution in 1870, which provided for the first time that free public education was a constitutional right. The first superintendent of Schools for Fairfax County was Thomas M. Moore, who was sworn in on September 26, 1870. At the time of its creation, the Fairfax County Public Schools system consisted of 41 schools, 28 white and 13 colored schools. In 1886, Milton D. Hall was appointed superintendent. He would serve for 44 years until his retirement in 1929. Fairfax County Schools, like most school systems in the south, schools practiced de jure segregation. There were local elementary schools for black students but no high schools. Although Fairfax was a densely populated area, there were proportionately few black high school students. Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun, Arlington and Fauquier Counties shared the high school for black students. The school was centrally located between the counties in Manassas. Others attended high schools in Washington, D.C., where many had relatives. Those schools were Armstrong High School, Cardozo High School, Dunbar High School, and Phelps Vocational Center in Washington, D.C.. In 1951 Fairfax County, at the request of residents for a black high school, began construction of the Luther Jackson School. The opening coincided with the Brown decision passed in 1954. In 1954, FCPS had 42 elementary schools and 6 high schools. That year, the Luther Jackson High School, the first high school for black students, opened in Falls Church. In 1961 FCPS began administering the schools in the City of Fairfax. Massive resistance The Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ordered an end to racial