About
Introduction
Melanie Kadlic Meren is a public education champion! Melanie’s vision is that children thrive.
Melanie’s work to improve education spans decades. As a middle school student growing up on Long Island, NY, she gathered hundreds of peer signatures to oppose school district budget cuts – her first foray into education advocacy. Near the same time, during a family trip to Washington, DC, Melanie envisioned returning to that city one day to promote education policies that help all children.
Melanie achieved that goal when she began her career at the US Department of Education in 2002, Master’s degree in hand from the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. Employed in the Elementary and Secondary Education Office, she worked as a civil servant in the heart of the sweeping change ushered in by the No Child Left Behind Act. Traveling to states and meeting with educators showed Melanie the power that education policy has on educators, students, systems, and communities. Seeking a more holistic and effective approach to education became the core tenet to all her future work, including in communications and advocacy.
Advocate and Connector, Doing the Work
Now in her second elected term on the Fairfax County School Board, and seeking a third in 2027, Melanie is responsible for $4 Billion in annual public spending to deliver excellent public education to nearly 180,000 children. Her work also includes oversight for systems supporting 25,000 full time employees, and for stewarding $9 Billion in public facility assets.
Melanie’s education policy and program experience spans early childhood and K-12. She works to empower the public to be stewards, proponents, and protectors of children and public education. Melanie aims to bring joy and build collaboration with her public service.
Joined by her husband, Drew Meren, the two are active in their children’s schools, including being PTA members, and in supporting the community.
Melanie completed the prestigious Sorensen Institute Political Leaders Program at UVA in 2018, after exploring public policy issues across Virginia throughout the prior year.
Learn more about Melanie’s career on LinkedIn.
“Not On My Watch”
In 2015, Melanie’s daughter began Kindergarten in Fairfax County Public Schools. Just two months into the school year, a budget cut to FCPS of up to $75 million was proposed. Melanie’s response: “Not on my watch.”
Melanie began co-leading the #IamFCPS grassroots campaign to fully fund the budget.
That effort was a significant part of reducing what began as a $67.8 million funding shortfall, to just over $15 million (source: Washington Post).
After this advocacy effort, Melanie saw how her experiences as a policy and program professional, parent, and grassroots advocate uniquely prepared her to serve the community on the School Board. Service on the Fairfax County School Board was a natural step for her to promote the strongest education in our community.
Melanie has since won two Democratic endorsement elections and two general elections (2019 and 2023) to serve on the School Board as the representative of the Fairfax County Hunter Mill District.
