By Michael Tennant
The New American
August 14, 2025
A Virginia school district has opened an independent investigation into charges that officials at one of its high schools secretly procured all-expenses-paid abortions for minor students.
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) claims it opened its investigation last week as soon as it learned of the allegations, yet there is indisputable evidence that the district was aware of the charges months ago.
Minor Offense
According to investigative journalist Walter Curt, who broke the story last Tuesday, two Centreville High School students allege that, in 2021, social worker Carolina Diaz, with the full knowledge of then-Principal Chad Lehman, arranged for them to get free abortions. (Lehman has since been promoted to executive principal of FCPS Region 5.) Curt wrote:
A handwritten statement from the first student, translated for clarity, lays out how Díaz scheduled the appointment, paid the clinic's fees, and swore her to secrecy. The girl, an 11th-grade ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] student, says the abortion took place in November 2021 - while she was still seventeen - making the concealment a straight-line violation of state law.
That letter alone would be enough to raise the hair on the back of a patriotic taxpayer's neck, but there is more. A second Centreville minor, five months pregnant and wavering, was allegedly told by the same social worker that she "had no other choice." The girl, terrified, ultimately bolted from the clinic rather than go through with the procedure. She later confided in her teacher, Mrs. Zenaida Perez, who allowed her name to be used on the record and provided [Curt] a recording of the family confirming that no one at the school had ever informed them of the intent to terminate their daughter's pregnancy. [Emphasis in original.]
FCPS policy does not mandate that school staff inform parents of students' pregnancies. It also forbids staffers from "influencing [a] student regarding [her] pregnancy."
From Cover-up to Cop-out
Virginia law requires parental notification and consent before a minor can obtain an abortion - and it surely looks askance at using taxpayer dollars to pay for these illegal procedures. "Legal analysts tell me that if school employees indeed arranged and paid for these procedures, criminal as well as civil liability is in play - everything from contributing to the delinquency of a minor to misuse of public funds," penned Curt.
School officials clearly did not want the scandal to be revealed. Curt wrote that he had reviewed "written statements by multiple students" claiming that "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."
After the story became national news, FCPS shifted into damage-control mode. On Thursday, Superintendent Michelle Reid sent a letter addressing the allegations to Centreville High School staff and families. Reid wrote that the district "has taken immediate action to engage an external independent investigator to get all the facts" and will take "swift and appropriate action once we have the facts."
"I want to stress that at no time, would the situation described in these allegations be acceptable in Fairfax County Public Schools," she declared.
She also claimed that FCPS "learned about" the allegations "earlier this week."
Recorded History
In actuality, Perez, who was steeled rather than stymied by officials' attempts to silence her, told FCPS investigator James Mackie about the allegations on May 2 - and has a witness and an audio recording to prove it.
"The witness," Curt reported Friday, "confirmed that Mackie was present and heard the allegations in full."
The recording, which Curt included in his article, proves that beyond all doubt. In it, Perez tells Mackie how she met with Lehman in 2022 and told him of the allegations that Diaz had "facilitated the appointment and all the logistics for an abortion" for a 17-year-old student. Then she sent a follow-up email to Lehman detailing the same allegations. "And," she said, "he didn't do anything."
Later, when she mentioned the matter to him, Lehman allegedly said, "I don't remember that conversation with you."
Perez said she responded, "Don't worry about it. I have the email that I sent you... when we had the meeting here in your office."
That, of course, gave Lehman plenty of cause to worry. According to Perez, "He pretended that he was working really hard contacting the nurse and the social worker to see what they had done," but nothing happened.
Perez also told Mackie that the student had told her the abortion was "free" as far as she was concerned and that she didn't know who paid for it. "The social worker made the appointment for me," she allegedly said.
"The uncle didn't know anything," Perez said. "The legal guardian knew nothing. Absolutely zero."
Furthermore, she told Mackie, "I have evidence, and I have it all."
Curt Remarks
These shocking allegations of illegal conduct on the part of school officials should have touched off an immediate investigation. Instead, FCPS sat on them until Perez went public with them - then claimed to have learned of them at the same time as everyone else.
"This is not transparency," observed Curt. "This is a cover-up unraveling in real time."
On his Wednesday podcast, Curt called on Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares to "get involved" in the matter. He elaborated:
There needs to be investigations, subpoenas, audit every single dollar that moved from Fairfax schools into that so-called health care center. That's got to happen. If you don't do that, you're not going to convince parents that you're on their side.
Siding with parents over left-wing school officials, Curt pointed out, is part of what catapulted Youngkin to the governorship in 2021. Why couldn't it work again this year?
This article was originally published on The New American.