Virginia State Police are investigating allegations that officials at Centreville High School arranged for minor students to obtain free, secret abortions — charges that one teacher raised repeatedly with school and district officials to no avail.
Frustrated, that teacher, Zenaida Perez, went public with her allegations last week, whereupon Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) claimed to have just learned of them.
In a Wednesday press release, Governor Glenn Youngkin said:
I am deeply concerned with the allegations that Fairfax County Public Schools officials arranged for minors to get abortions without parental consent and may have misused public funds to pay for them. I am directing the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation to open a full criminal investigation into the matter immediately.
The alleged incidents supposedly occurred in 2021 and involved two pregnant, underage students who confided in Centreville High social worker Carolina Diaz. Allegedly, Diaz, with the full knowledge of then-Principal Chad Lehman, made appointments for the girls to get abortions at a health clinic, paid the clinic’s fees, and told the girls not to tell their families. One girl proceeded with her abortion. The other, allegedly told by Diaz that she “had no other choice,” proved otherwise by leaving the clinic and, months later, delivering a baby.
Both students eventually told Perez of their dealings with Diaz. Perez then began seeking answers from her superiors.
Recognizing the explosiveness of the allegations and the threat to her career if she spoke up about them, Perez wisely got written statements from the students and kept “hundreds of pages of documents, emails and records,” including audio recordings, proving that she had done her due diligence in reporting the charges, Fox News reported Tuesday.
Perez detailed the allegations and her attempts to get school officials to investigate them during a recent three-hour interview with Mary McGowan, a retired attorney from Blankingship & Keith, a Fairfax-based law firm often employed by FCPS. According to Perez, who recounted the interview for Fox News, McGowan told her, “Your recollection is outstanding.”
According to Fox News:
Perez told McGowan that she issued her first warning on May 5, 2022, in a meeting with [Lehman] and an assistant principal. She said that a school social worker had allegedly facilitated and financed a 17-year-old student’s abortion the year before, without her guardian’s knowledge.
Perez said she raised her concerns a second time in a letter sent on May 13, 2022, and she met again with Lehman in November 2022 to revisit the issue a third time, confirmed by an audio recording of the meeting.
At that meeting, Perez asked what Lehman had meant by his remark during their May meeting that the abortion allegations were “concerning.”
Lehman responded: “I don’t remember the statement or the context of it, so I couldn’t answer that question with you right now. I don’t remember there being a conversation about that specifically.”
Apparently, conversations about staff members’ procuring secret abortions for students, potentially at taxpayer expense, were so commonplace in Lehman’s office that he completely forgot about the one with Perez.
However, wrote Fox News:
[Perez] reminded the principal she had repeated her concerns in a letter. When she raised her concerns again about Diaz facilitating an abortion, Lehman responded that he didn’t believe the social worker in question would have arranged an abortion for a student.
By this time, Lehman had to be worried that the truth would come out. Perez later told FPCS investigator James Mackie that Lehman made a big show of looking into the matter but didn’t actually do anything about it. Moreover, according to “written statements by multiple students” reviewed by journalist Walter Curt, “school administrators tried to muzzle [Perez] once she learned the truth — pressuring classmates to bait her into minor policy violations that could justify firing or force a quiet resignation.”
Unfazed, Perez kept right on talking. Penned Fox News:
On March 7, Perez told McGowan that she raised her concerns again — now, for a sixth time — in a Zoom call with Heidi Siegmund, an attorney at McGuireWoods, a law firm based in Richmond, Va., investigating a separate issue of alleged workplace harassment at the school.
On March 19, Siegmund wrote to Perez and said: “We will also make sure the Division Counsel’s office is aware of your concerns,” according to a copy of the email.
The division counsel’s office has for years hired lawyers from Blankingship & Keith as outside counsel.
Perez only learned of the second girl’s brush with abortion in May. That same month, she met with Mackie and relayed the allegations and Lehman’s responses to her reports of them. Naturally, she kept an audio recording of their conversation.
Still, despite Perez’s best efforts, nothing came of her reports until she took the story to the media. Then, suddenly, FCPS decided to open an “external independent” investigation into the matter, according to an August 7 letter from Superintendent Michelle Reid. In that letter, Reid asserted that FCPS had only learned of Perez’s allegations last week.
Even Burger King doesn’t sell whoppers that big.
Given recent events, Perez, who continues to teach at Centreville High, feels confident that something will finally be done about the alleged abortions.
“I feel strong,” she told Fox News. “I have truth and God on my side.”
Virginia State Police are asking anyone with information concerning the allegations to contact them.