Fairfax County in Virginia has become a lightning rod for explosive political stories, whether it’s about secret gender transitions in public schools or crimes committed against Americans by illegal immigrants. It’s a bastion of progressive policies.
Now we are learning that the superintendent makes significantly more than the President of the United States, and she is not the only employee making a small fortune.
The Daily Signal reports:
When Local Bureaucracy Pays Better Than the Oval Office: Fairfax County’s Salary Problem
Fairfax County Public Schools Chief Equity Officer Nardos King makes $288,064 this year—more than every single member of the president’s Cabinet—Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, all of them—each of whom earns $253,100 to run a federal department.
King’s job is to oversee equity initiatives for one county’s school system. Virginia’s largest public school district holds “equity” at the center of its strategic plan, and King is just one of ten district “chiefs” whose salaries clear that bar. A public records request revealed that 13 Fairfax County Public School employees earn more than the U.S. Secretary of Education.
By comparison, Virginia’s Secretary of Education, Jeffery Smith, makes $229,136. In other words, it is more lucrative to be an assistant superintendent overseeing a small region of one Virginia county than to run the Virginia Department of Education.
At the top of the heap, Michelle Reid, Fairfax schools’ superintendent, is paid $469,936 a year—nearly $70,000 more than the President of the United States makes to run the executive branch, command the armed forces, and set foreign policy for 340 million people. Reid, by contrast, runs a declining school district with about 180,000 students.
So the district is losing students, too? Apparently, so.
The Washington Times reported back in May:
In August 2025, Fairfax County Public Schools purchased the former King Abdullah Academy in the western part of the county for $150 million. The purchase adds to a growing set of data points highlighting the district’s irresponsible leadership.
Skyview High School, the name school board members unanimously approved for the new school in February, has been in the district’s capital budget planning since 2015 to address overcrowding and expectations of an increasing student population.
Those projections, however, didn’t account for the mass exodus of students fleeing from a public school district in significant decline.
From 2015 to 2025, Fairfax County Public Schools experienced the largest decrease in student enrollment of any district in the state. It lost 6,894 students, according to the University of Virginia Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. From 2020 to 2025 alone, enrollment fell by 11,348 students.
The district’s enrollment is expected to decline by an additional 6.6% from 2025 to 2030, according to Weldon Cooper Center projections.
Just stunning.
MY GOSH: When Local Bureaucracy Pays Better Than the Oval Office: Fairfax County’s Salary Problem
“Fairfax County Public Schools Chief Equity Officer Nardos King makes $288,064 this year—more than every single member of the president’s Cabinet—Secretary of State Marco Rubio,… pic.twitter.com/BxIlu8kkmW
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) September 27, 2026
When did public school administrator jobs become a path to such wealth?
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