Fairfax County Public Schools is the ninth largest school division in the United States, with more than 177,000 students in 200 schools and centers. It buys everything from scientific instruments and classroom furniture to roofing, HVAC and student-data software.
Most firms assume FCPS is part of Fairfax County Government. In some ways it is: the two share a contract register, some contracts are joint, and FCPS links to the County's supplier diversity program. In the places that decide whether you see a bid, they are separate.
FCPS has its own Bonfire portal
Both FCPS and Fairfax County Government run their formal bidding on Bonfire, and they are two different portals:
- fcps.bonfirehub.com carries FCPS solicitations.
- fairfaxcounty.bonfirehub.com carries Fairfax County Government solicitations.
An account on the County portal does not put FCPS bids in front of you. On October 22, 2026, the FCPS portal listed a maintenance management system, electrical work for portable classrooms, a Medicare Advantage plan and a roof replacement at Gunston Elementary. None appeared on the County portal.
The Office of Procurement Services (OPS) asks every prospective vendor to do four things:
- Register with eVA, the Commonwealth of Virginia's e-procurement portal.
- Register on the FCPS Bonfire portal to be notified of active FCPS solicitations.
- Attend the Selling to FCPS workshop, which covers procurement law, purchasing authority and methods of procurement.
- Attend the Fairfax County Government workshops if you also want County work.
Do all four. The workshop registration form asks whether you are already an eVA vendor, and when we checked in October 2026 it listed virtual sessions on January 29, 2027 and April 16, 2027. Our Virginia vendor guide walks the eVA registration.
Three offices, three front doors
OPS is the central procurement office, and its scope is goods and services, excluding construction. Construction and building work run through two other offices with their own rules.
| Office | What it buys | How bids come in |
|---|---|---|
| Office of Procurement Services | Goods and services for schools and departments | Bonfire (FCPS portal) |
| Design and Construction Services | New schools, renovations and additions under capital bonds, minor improvements | At Gatehouse Administration Center, Suite 3400, dated and time-stamped, unless the ad says otherwise |
| Office of Facilities Management | Maintenance and repair projects, roofing, turf, energy work | Bonfire only. Paper, phone, fax and email bids are refused |
The County's Purchasing Resolution, adopted July 14, 2026, explains the split: under Virginia Code § 22.1-79 the School Board, not the County Purchasing Agent, is responsible for school construction, design, maintenance and repair. Read the submission method in each advertisement before you assume Bonfire, and on Bonfire a bid that never reaches the "Submit & Finalize" step does not count.
Neither FCPS nor the County certifies anyone
The "Supplier Diversity" link on the FCPS procurement page goes to Fairfax County's Department of Procurement and Material Management (DPMM). The County says plainly that it does not certify businesses. It recognizes small, women-owned, minority-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned (SWaM) classifications certified by the Virginia Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity (SBSD).
Two details matter here:
- No set-asides at the County. The County's business classification form states that certification is not required and that Fairfax does not set preferences or set-asides for specific classifications. The data is aggregated to report spending patterns.
- FCPS still asks. The FCPS contractor application for facilities modification work has a line for your SBSD SWaM certification number, and DPMM's annual SWaM report tracks County and FCPS purchase-order spend together.
SBSD certification is the credential that travels: Fairfax recognizes it, and it qualifies you for Virginia's state procurement programs. Our Virginia state programs page lists the SBSD certifications. SBSD also houses the Virginia Small Business Finance Authority, which offers loan programs if a first contract needs working capital.
The thresholds, and where small firms start
FCPS publishes three competitive thresholds:
- Small purchases: under $10,000
- Informal bids: $10,000 to $199,999.99, with four quotes required
- Formal bids or competitive negotiation (RFP): over $200,000
The Purchasing Resolution also lets principals designated by the School Board buy instructional materials and office supplies not on an existing County contract, each purchase capped at the small purchase level. For a small supplier, a school-level sale under $10,000 is often a more realistic first contract than a formal bid.
Check the cooperative contracts too. FCPS is one of 26 member agencies in the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA), whose contracts are pre-bid. If AEPA already covers your category (school supplies, furniture, technology catalogs, custodial supplies), FCPS may buy from the AEPA holder rather than bid it, and your realistic route is supplying or subcontracting to that holder.
Forecast from the lists FCPS publishes
OPS posts two forecasting lists worth checking every month:
- Current Expiring Contracts. Contracts expiring within six months, with no renewal option and a total value of $200,000 or more. OPS says procurement action starts three to six months before expiration, and each row notes whether the contract is joint County and Schools.
- Anticipated New Opportunities. New requirements of $200,000 or more where no contract exists yet, updated monthly. Values are shown in bands: $ is $200,000 to $499,999, $$ is $500,000 to $999,999, $$$ is $1 million or more.
The Fairfax County Contract Register covers active County and Schools contracts. Search it for your category, find who holds the work and when it ends, and have your capability statement ready before the solicitation drops. It excludes FCPS capital construction contracts; construction firms should read the bid results the two construction offices post.
Construction and trades: prequalification and bonding
Capital improvement projects are bid only by prequalified general contractors. The FCPS prequalification application covers projects from about $3 million to $50 million and assigns each approved firm a value range. It requires:
- Applications emailed to CBIPrequalification@fcps.edu at least 60 days before the advertised bid opening
- Evidence you can get performance and payment bonds from a surety on the U.S. Treasury's list of acceptable sureties
- A Class A Virginia contractor license, a State Corporation Commission ID and a Fairfax County BPOL number
- At least five years as a full-time construction contractor, and at least three general-contractor projects of $3 million or more in the past five years, with phased renovation of occupied schools
- A project manager and site superintendent with at least 10 years on comparable projects
For most growing contractors, bonding capacity is the requirement that takes longest to meet. Our surety bond guide for small contractors covers how sureties size it.
Smaller trades have a different door. Facilities modification jobs are generally under $5,000 and can reach $50,000, often through direct quote requests to approved contractors. To get on that list, email the FY2027-28 contractor application to facilitiesimprovements@fcps.edu with a certificate of insurance (general liability of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate, $100,000 employer's liability, $1 million auto, FCPS named as additional insured), a Fairfax County BPOL, a W-9 and three references from the past year. Roofing and synthetic turf contractors have separate prequalification forms.
If you sell software, find an internal sponsor first
The FCPS resource evaluation team accepts requests only from FCPS staff and refuses unsolicited Vendor Acceptance Questionnaires, so a teacher, principal or central office lead has to sponsor you. Once FCPS sends the questionnaire, return it as an Excel file, or give notice that you will, within 30 days to keep your place.
FCPS sorts data into four levels. From Level 2 up, student-facing tools must offer single sign-on, must not do targeted advertising to students, and must leave data ownership with FCPS. At Levels 3 and 4, which include FERPA-protected records and IEP data, a data privacy agreement is mandatory, as is a current VPAT or Accessibility Conformance Report showing WCAG 2.1 AA or Section 508 conformance. School-based purchases are not eligible for Clever or Schoology LTI 1.3 rostering, so a single-school sale means manual rostering.
Two warnings before you sign
Prices are firm. All FCPS purchase order and contract pricing is firm and fixed. A price increase for tariffs or anything else needs a formal written request with documentation, and an unauthorized increase can lead to termination.
Fake compliance emails. On October 7, 2026, FCPS warned of emails impersonating school and County staff that demand payment to clear "compliance" flags. FCPS does not charge fees to resolve compliance issues or request payment by email. Real mail comes from fcps.edu or fairfaxcounty.gov; the fake domains named were fairfax-county.us and fairfaxcountyva.org.
Contacts
- Office of Procurement Services: procurement@fcps.edu, 8115 Gatehouse Road, Suite 4400, Falls Church, VA 22042-1203. The Selling to FCPS page lists 571-423-3555.
- Design and Construction Services (buyer supervisor): 571-423-2414
- Office of Facilities Management bid documents: 5025 Sideburn Road, Fairfax, VA 22032, 703-764-2457
- Fairfax County supplier diversity (DPMM): supplierdiversity@fairfaxcounty.gov, 703-324-3201
Where this fits
FCPS is one registration among several in Northern Virginia, alongside Fairfax County Government, the Commonwealth through eVA, and Washington, DC across the river. The NYC Public Schools guide shows the same pattern at the largest district in the country: a district portal kept separate from the city's.
