What you need to know:
This boundary review directly impacts where our children go to school and who makes these critical decisions. When government officials manipulate the selection process and shut out parent voices, it threatens our ability to influence local education.
This is exactly why conservatives must stay vigilant about school district decisions – because unelected bureaucrats are making choices that affect our families without proper oversight or transparency.
Getting involved now can protect your family’s educational choices and ensure parent rights aren’t trampled.
By Samir Ali Nomani / Fairfax County Times
Amid concerns that the Fairfax County School Board (FCPS) boundary review committee selection process has been allegedly rigged by school district officials, FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid went into damage control mode this past week, acknowledging to one parent that the process has “not been as smooth as we had hoped” and meeting with parents on a Saturday morning in a private, closed-door meeting at the Great Falls Library to appease concerns.
Still, data-crunching on the selection process by parents has raised new questions about the process.
For months, questions about transparency have swirled around Reid’s effort to redraw the boundary lines for where children go to elementary, middle, and high school. Recently, the controversy hit a crescendo as a video emerged showing FCPS officials allegedly removing a boundary-project critic—known only as parent No. 35—from a list of possible candidates for its boundary review committee.
As a result, Reid agreed to an 8 a.m. meeting on March 8 in a meeting room at the Great Falls Library, not far from books with titles like The Three Musketeers and The Party Crasher. First, Donna Nelson-Schneider, an FCPS staffer in the superintendent’s office, arrived, and Reid arrived at 8:09 a.m., carrying a blue folder and settling into a seat in a circle of folding chairs, with about 10 parents around her, near to-go carafes of Starbucks coffee.
Great Falls father Aaron Miller, a resident of the Colvin Run neighborhood, who met Reid with a group of parents, told the Fairfax County Times, “Our community was pleased to host Dr. Reid this past Saturday and found the meeting an important step forward. We voiced concerns about the review process and asked members of the school board to engage with communities in a genuine dialogue.”
“Dr. Reid both responded to our request for real engagement and showed up in person. The meeting with Dr. Reid was informative. It is our hope that the school board will follow suit to engage with the communities they represent,” Miller said.
Although the exact details of the meeting haven’t been revealed, the Fairfax County community is searching for answers amid new revelations surrounding the boundary review committee selection process uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request.
FairFACTS Matters, a local organization that advocates on education issues, obtained various documents and videos surrounding the boundary review committee selection process.
In a Nov. 20 newsletter, emailed from FCPS, it was stated that “1600 parents/caregivers applied” for the committee. However, from an analysis of selected members from different school pyramids, FairFACTS Matters disclosed that FCPS officials only listed 717 names when duplicate names were eliminated. Online sources said that some people thought that when both parents applied to be a member, one of the parents’ names had been removed from the list.
FairFACTS Matters said in a social media post that “the FOIA documents show FCPS declared nearly 1,000 parents/caregivers ineligible.”
Of those 717 names, parents at FairFACTS Matters said their analysis showed the names also included FCPS teachers. In their study, FCPS eliminated an estimated 883 parents, despite claiming they chose from 1,600 candidates.
FairFACTS Matters published a social media post, alerting parents that 56% of “parents/caregivers were deemed ineligible ahead of selections.”
The organization said that school board members, FCPS staff, and Reid have been “dancing around revelations from the FOIA documents.”
FCPS spokeswoman Julie Allen said many duplicate names on the original list were removed, so each name appeared only once. Allen added that parents who failed to respond to emailed questions sent on two dates in November were also removed from consideration. She explained that those who answered no to two questions were also removed from consideration. Those questions asked whether they were willing to make a two-year commitment to be a member on the committee and whether they were willing to attend all meetings in person. Virtual options for the meeting were not an option, she said.
In an email to a concerned Fairfax County resident, William Denk, Reid said, “The school board has been clear with me about their expectations for this boundary review and the importance of a fair and transparent engagement process. This committee is but one aspect of a layered multi-year endeavor. We have held 12 prior open community meetings on this topic and will have more open community meetings scheduled moving forward.”
Reid acknowledged problems with the process, saying, “I acknowledge that while we went to great lengths to provide a randomized objective process for the boundary advisory committee selection, the process was not as smooth as we had hoped.”
Critics say this lack of a “smooth” process has jeopardized the boundary review.
As reported, one video released in the public-records request revealed that school district officials, including Lisa Youngblood Hall, FCPS chief experience and engagement officer, removed a parent — identified publicly only as parent No. 35 – from a list of names used to allegedly randomly select names for the committee. In the video, Youngblood Hall sat at the table to choose committee members with two women: Debbie Kilpatrick, president of the Fairfax County Council PTA, and Julia Judkins, FCPS assistant division counsel. There was a pause while selecting names for the committee and choosing parent No. 35 in a process that is supposed to be tied to a random number generator.
In the video, Youngblood Hall saw No. 35 pop up and whose name it was linked to. “Do we have a 35?” Judkins asked. “We’re going to have to go and get that spreadsheet redone. That’s why we have someone out there. Can we skip to the next one?” said Youngblood Hall. Kilpatrick said, “We can clear that.” Youngblood stood up and left the room.
In the email to Denk, Reid said, “After taking time to visit with staff and reviewing the video you and others have described, I assure you that no advantage or disadvantage was in any way assigned to any applicants.”
She continued, “FCCPTA President and Division Counsel as well as other central office staff, worked hard to complete a complex task as efficiently as possible, while also transparently recording it for public scrutiny.”
In response, FairFACTS Matters said in a social media post that “despite knowing issues existed, FCPS staff went on to mislead the community.” Despite claims of transparency and efficiency, FairFACTS Matters suggests that FCPS fumbled the process and that the discrepancies are enough to warrant a restart.
Of the 717 members from whom FCPS officials selected its final list of committee members, FairFACTS Matters itemized the number of parents that FCPS officials deemed eligible from each school pyramid: Annandale, 16, including parents from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology; Centerville, 6; Chantilly, 34; Edison, 23; Fairfax, 16; Falls Church, 10; Hayfield, 17; Herndon, 14; Justice, 16; Lake Braddock, 30, Langley, 143; Lewis, 17; Madison, 32; Marshall, 20; McLean, 28; Mount Vernon, 16; Oakton, 34; Robinson, 26; South County, 18; Westfield, 13; West Springfield,117; West Potomac, 31; and Woodson, 40.
FairFACTS Matters said that parents who contacted the school system, asking why they were deemed ineligible despite responding to all emails, were told “there was a known error in the system.”
FairFACTS Matters called on Reid to recall the current boundary review committee and “re-select all the members” fairly and transparently.
“The school board may refuse to hold Dr. Reid and her staff to any ethical standards, but we must hold them all accountable,” said the group.