On August 19, 2024, FCCPS Communications sent an email to parents around Falls Church City, in which Superintendent Peter Noonan announced his resignation. Superintendent Noonan has acted as head of FCCPS for the past eight years, but now states that he intends to resign to spend more time with his family.
The resignation will not go into effect until the end of the 2024-2025 school year, giving the school board time to find and hire a new candidate for the position.
Noonan has spent the past 33 years of his life in public education, and 14 of those years have been spent as superintendent at various districts. When writing his resignation announcement, Dr. Noonan discussed his desire to improve wherever he was working.
“Growing up in the west, and spending time in the mountains hiking, camping, fishing, and skiing, it was ingrained in me early on that you always leave places visited in better condition than when you arrived. My intentions and hopes for FCCPS have been no different,” Noonan stated in his email.
During his tenure as superintendent, Dr. Noonan has done his best to lead FCCPS to become a stronger, more effective school system. He oversaw the construction of a new, environmentally friendly high school, expanded the IB program, and handled the effects of a pandemic on the school system by implementing online learning and providing in school clinics to vaccinate students.
Multiple school board members expressed their satisfaction with Dr. Noonan’s performance over the past eight years.
“He’s done a lot in education, and he brings all that experience to the superintendent level … to have someone have not just the school experience, but also his community engagement is pretty unique at this level,” said School Board Chair Tate Gould.
School Board Vice Chair Kathleen Tysse expressed similar sentiments.
“It’s amazing how many names he knows around the city, how many students and teachers and parents he knows by name,” she said.
However, not everything was easy. When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, everyone struggled.
“There’s no strategic plan, there’s no budget for Covid. And I think that was a very difficult chapter for the whole community. How do you navigate that? … Hopefully we don’t ever have to go through that again,” explained Gould.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a challenging time for the FCCPS community. While many supported keeping education virtual until a vaccine was immune for teachers, some thought that schools should reopen as soon as possible, due to the impact that virtual learning was having on education, and many directed their ire at Dr. Noonan and the school board.
“He has had a very intense tenure. There’s just been so much going on. I think public schools in general just had a really stressful several years, and I think he managed all that stress really beautifully. But, I imagine, it was also very tiring,” said Tysse.
Lasso reached out to Dr. Noonan for comment and did not receive a response.
Now that Dr. Noonan has announced his retirement, the school board is considering their next steps. They are currently in the process of choosing a hiring firm that will create a job listing and suggest candidates for them to interview. From there, school board members will interview the candidates and discuss with community members to determine who will be the best fit.
The process will not be an easy one, but there are things to look forward to. Hopefully, a fresh perspective can help make FCCPS even better.
“With change comes opportunity, and I think it will be really interesting to see a new perspective and have a new person to work with and on board,” said Tysse.
