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The history of the Fairfax Education Association is one of long and proud service to the educators of Fairfax County. For over 50 years FEA has served as the voice of Fairfax teachers with our legislators at home and in Richmond, with county officials, with members of the School Board, the Superintendent and his staff. Throughout its history, FEA has stayed true to the mission of service to educators and to demanding the highest standards of education for the children of our county. In 1886 Milton Dulany Hall began his 42-year career as School Superintendent in Fairfax County--he was 37 years old. When his administration began, there were 73 schools operating. Only six of these had more than a single room, less than 35 percent of the county's youth attended, and teachers' salaries averaged about $27 a month. Hall's salary was $420. The school system cost the taxpayers approximately $40,000. That year, Fairfax County's school population was 6,237; by 1890 it was 6,403. Fairfax received $1,984.93 from the state to educate the children or 31 cents per pupil.Hall was an innovator for his day. One change he made in 1890 that was nearly revolutionary for its time was giving teachers a six-month contract. Hall's administration also saw for the first time teachers retiring and receiving a pension. The first teacher retired in 1909, receiving a quarterly pension of $27.56, and another in 1916. Her quarterly pension was $100. Another one of Hall's innovations was summer Peabody institutes for teachers. (These were the educational innovations of and funded by Georgia-born philanthropist George Peabody. Today these would be called in-services.) These institutes lasted five days; and in addition to the reading of essays, public addresses and a general discussion by the teachers and the county superintendent of the most approved methods of teaching, model classes were organized to demonstrate new methodology. To ensure the new methods he stressed were being employed, Colonel Hall, as he affectionately was called, wearing a top hat, traveled in his horse and buggy from school to school. Anxious teachers made sure their pupils were well scrubbed, classrooms were swept and student spelling bees conducted to impress the superintendent. At the same time, the Virginia State Board of Education established a State Teachers Association, urging counties to establish local associations as well. Hall melded this state mandate for local associations with his institutes. This evolved into the Fairfax Education Association, recognized as an existing entity by the Virginia State Teachers Association as early as 1902. (That year the state organization noted in its Journal that forty-two jurisdictions, including Fairfax, had local teacher associations.) By 1914 annual Virginia Educational Conferences were held in Richmond, Fairfax being assigned to state district 8 along with Alexandria County (now Arlington), Culpepper, Fauquier, King George, Loudoun, Louisa, Orange and Stafford. In 1920 the state association Journal listed for the first time a president of FEA, Mary M. Snead. By that time Fairfax had 100 percent membership in the State Association. The reason for that was quite simple. Membership was a requirement for employment. The Fairfax County School Board took state and local association dues directly out of teachers' salaries. Throughout the next half-century FEA remained essentially a company union, one in which membership is a requirement for employment, dues are taken out of paychecks by the employer, and management preapproves elected leaders. But even in this era of complacency, there were ripples. FEA members certainly read an article in the May 1928 edition of the Virginia Journal of Education, the voice of the State Association renamed the Virginia Education Association, that proclaimed that 'The teachers of Virginia have hardly realized the power [that] could be exercised if [they] chose not to endure perpetual bullying by ignoramuses. (sic.) The teachers will be slaves if they act like slaves. Weakness always tempts the bully. If they cower, they will be bullied. Nothing can excuse or explain away spinelessness.' This may have inspired Fairfax teachers meeting in Falls Church in 1930 as part of VEA's District 8 to have the courage to call for, among other things, a more adequate retirement, a nine-month school term, and free textbooks. The following year, the same group moved that sex education be included as a regular part of teacher training courses at the state teacher colleges.
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