Claims that a social worker at Centreville High School pressured students into obtaining abortions without informing their guardians appear to be baseless, attorneys hired by Fairfax County Public Schools say.
A preliminary investigation found not only that the teacher who made the allegations may have withheld and fabricated evidence, but that state officials might have been made aware of the allegations well before they were publicly reported, King & Spalding partner Sean Royall said in statements sent yesterday (Thursday) to the U.S. Department of Education and Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate education committee.
While the investigation remains underway, the initial findings were shared to meet Oct. 17 deadlines for information set by the Education Department and Cassidy, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid stated in a message to Centreville High School families and staff.
“Our external investigation is still ongoing, but new details have emerged providing a clearer picture of what happened,” Reid said. “Based on the interim findings, which are deeply concerning, these 2021 allegations are likely untrue. We have an obligation to protect our staff from wrongful and unjustified accusations.”
As reported on Aug. 5 in the Substack newsletter WC Dispatch, Centreville High School teacher Zenaida Perez alleged that a social worker had offered to help two underage students get abortions in 2021 “without so much as a phone call to their parents.” The procedures were allegedly to be paid for using school funds, though one of the students decided not to go through with it, stating that she felt coerced.
After the article was published, FCPS announced the hiring of an external investigator to look into the allegations, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin directed the Virginia State Police on Aug. 14 to open a criminal investigation of the school system.
According to the newly released statements, King & Spalding found documents — specifically emails between the accused social worker and then-Centreville High School principal Chad Lehman — indicating that the social worker “followed the proper protocol” by referring the students to a school nurse, who is employed by the Fairfax County Health Department, not FCPS, and legally allowed to discuss the options available to them.
Investigators have been unable to locate the former student who obtained an abortion, but they say a statement where the student appears to confirm that the social worker paid for the procedure and kept it secret from the student’s family might have actually been written by Perez.
“Whether Mrs. Perez falsified the student’s signature or otherwise coerced the student to sign is unclear,” Royall wrote. “What is clear is that Mrs. Perez’s own actions — and a host of other facts — cast serious doubt on the credibility of the statement and the sincerity of Mrs. Perez’s claims as a whole.”
In addition, the student who didn’t get an abortion told investigators by phone on Oct. 9 that she spoke only to a nurse, not to the social worker, about their options for handling a pregnancy and “was never pressured by anyone at CHS to consider an abortion,” the statement says.
In their statement, the lawyers characterize Perez’s allegations as a form of retaliation toward Lehman and the social worker, who had served as a witness against her in a separate May 2022 investigation of claims that Perez offered to buy a pregnancy test for a student.
Perez “was cited by school administrators for unprofessional conduct relating to this pregnancy-test incident” in May 2022, according to King & Spalding.
Per the statement, Centreville High School administrators investigated Perez’s claims of school-funded abortions when she first brought them to Lehman on Nov. 21, 2022 and found no factual basis for them.
“Our public health nurse met with the student and [the social worker] to properly handle the student’s concerns, and the student’s guardian was aware,” Lehman apparently wrote in a Dec. 2, 2022 email to Perez. “From what I have gathered, [the social worker] acted appropriately and according to procedure from her standpoint.”
Royall’s team also alleges, primarily based on social media posts, that Perez appears to have been working with individuals active in conservative politics — including fellow Centreville High School teacher Julie Perry, who has run for state Senate twice as a Republican — to bring her allegations to the attention of Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares’s office.
An unsigned complaint alleging civil rights violations was apparently submitted to the attorney general’s office on March 16, 2023, Royall’s statement says.
King & Spalding also points to social media posts by Elise Brand, the founder and president of the Loudoun County-based activist group Army of Parents, who stated in August that Youngkin and Miyares’s offices were “informed” about the allegations “a year ago,” though the investigators admit in their statement that they “have not made contact” with Brand to discuss her assertions.
“FCPS finds it very disturbing that so many of the individuals who are now (in the weeks leading up to a hotly contested election) shining a spotlight on these dated (and, our investigation shows, likely false) allegations have known about these same allegations for years,” the statement said.
An attorney representing Perez blasted the claim that his client might have falsified evidence and FCPS’ decision to release preliminary findings.
“We emphatically reject the Superintendent’s reckless and false assertion that Mrs. Perez may have fabricated evidence,” Americans United for Life Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel Steven Aden said in a statement to FFXnow. “Fairfax Public Schools’s Superintendent and its attorneys acknowledge that their findings are preliminary, and we know there is much more evidence coming out. The county’s report is a whitewash, and they’ll regret they rushed this premature statement.”
FFXnow has reached out to Youngkin and Miyares’s offices for comment.
