FCPS superintendent Dr. Karen Garza announced her resignation this Monday, Sept. 20. for mid-December.

Her resignation was unexpected by many but she is moving onto a news tage in her life and will become the president and chief executive of Battle for Kids, a non-profit organization that provides devices, solutions and products to empower teachers and improve schools to advance student learning.

She commented in an interview that she saw this organization as a big opportunity and that she will not leave the district because she “was not interested in being superintendent anywhere else”.

Garza is a Native Texan, born in Canyon, Texas, she started her career teaching English and Math and then moving to be a superintendent in Lubbock County.She moved to Virginia to be the new superintendent in Fairfax county and was the first woman to ever become a superintendent in Fairfax County.

Dr. Garza had many accomplishments as FCPS Superintendent, she held many listening tours to hear the problems that schools are having, which, was something that her predecessors didn’t focus on. She changed the high school start hours to start at 8:00 a.m. so that students could have more hours of sleep, she eliminated the half-monday in elementary schools and with her new 2.67 billion budget she proposed to have more school funding, increasing staff salaries and creating smaller classes without making cuts.

Dr. Garza made her name known in the county with many impacting changes. She will be missed. FCPS has not announced a temporary superintendent or their plans for the next person to take the position.