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On a recent morning, Centreville High School teacher Zenaida Perez had a surprise visitor at the northern Virginia school where she teaches English as a second language: a high-powered lawyer investigating allegations that Perez had made public that a school social worker coaxed and funded a student’s 2021 abortion.
The Clifton school district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, responded to the allegations the next day, claiming the school system had just “learned yesterday” about the potential scandal. Last Thursday, Reid emailed Centreville High School parents, again claiming that the district had taken “immediate action to engage an external independent investigator to get all the facts.”
Perez’s visitor was Mary McGowan, a retired lawyer from Blankingship & Keith, a longtime go-to firm for Fairfax County Public Schools. In a nearly three-hour interview, Perez told McGowan how she had blown the whistle seven times about the abortion scandal since May 2022, only to be ignored and then retaliated against.
Zenaida Perez, an English-as-a-second-language teacher at Centreville High School in Clifton, Va., says she tried to expose a school social worker who arranged and paid for a student’s abortion, but her warnings were ignored.. (Fairfax County Public Schools)
School district officials were “covering up” the alleged abortion scandal, Perez said she told McGowan. in the interview.
“Your recollection is outstanding,” McGowan acknowledged at one point, according to Perez. Indeed, a detailed review of hundreds of pages of documents, emails and records confirm Perez’s timeline.
Perez told McGowan that she issued her first warning on May 5, 2022, in a meeting with then-principal, Chad 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.
FCPS policy states that “every effort shall be made to encourage and support students suspecting pregnancy to discuss their concerns with their parents or guardians.” However, it does not say FCPS employees should…
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