FCPS School Board Elects Sandy Evans as Chair

The Fairfax County School Board has a new chair and vice chair.

The school board has elected Sandy Evans (Mason District) as chair and Jane Strauss (Dranesville District) as vice chair for a one-year term. The chair and vice chair assumed office at the July 14 School Board meeting; they are elected by School Board members during the Board’s annual organizational meeting.

This ends the one-year term of Hunter Mill rep Pat Hynes, who was elected as chair in July 2015.

Evans, who was elected to the School Board in March 2010, served as vice chair during the 2015-16 school year. She is the former chair of the School Board’s School Health Advisory Committee and served on the Board’s Transportation Task Force.

Evans is a member of the steering committee of the Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition; founding member of the Fairfax Education Coalition; and co-founder of Start Later for Excellence in Education Proposal (SLEEP).  She served as the legislation committee chair of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs and as president of the Sleepy Hollow Elementary School PTA, and is a former staff writer for the Washington Post.  Evans earned her bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Maryland-College Park.

Strauss has been active in education for over 30 years. She is a former elementary and preschool teacher. She obtained an M.A.T. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and her B.A. in history from George Washington University. Strauss is past president of the Franklin Sherman PTA and the Fairfax County Council of PTAs and past chair of the council’s education and budget committees.

She has served on numerous education and youth affairs committees including the FCPS Career and Technical Preparation Task Force, the Division Planning Committee, the Citizens Bond Committee, and the Fairfax Framework for Student Success. She served as Board vice chair in 2000 and Board chair in 2001 and 2011.

Next up for the FCPS board: a work session on Thursday to review new procedures for protecting transgender and non-gender conforming students. The school board will also discuss a teacher and administrator compensation study at a work session today.

Photo: Sandy Evans/Credit: FCPS