Virginia’s Biggest School District Violates New Pro-Parent Rules

CV NEWS FEED // Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) announced that they are defying new educational guidelines that call on schools not to push “trans” pronouns on students and to keep boys from entering girls’ bathrooms.

The school district is the largest in the state, and one of the largest in the country, serving over 181,000 students. Encompassing many affluent suburbs of Washington D.C., Fairfax County has been ranked in the top five wealthiest counties in the U.S. with a median household income well into six figures and nearly double the national average. 

Pro-family and parents’ rights groups have praised Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new guidelines for siding with parents concerned with gender ideology in schools.

In a statement Tuesday, FCPS superintendent Michelle Reid said “We have concluded our detailed legal review and determined that our current Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) policies are consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws as required by the new model policies.”

“Let me be clear that FCPS remains committed to fostering a safe, supportive, welcoming, and inclusive school environment for all students and staff, including our transgender and gender expansive [sic] students and staff,” Reid added, however:

We believe that supporting our students and working with parents and caregivers are not mutually exclusive; we already do both and will continue to do so. We know that students can only learn effectively when they feel safe and supported. 

In clarifying that the “existing” FCPS “policies still stand,” Reid said that her district’s students 

will continue to be addressed by their chosen [sic] names and pronouns, …will continue to be provided with access to facilities, activities, and/or trips consistent with their gender identity, …[and] will continue to have their privacy respected regarding gender expansive or transgender status, legal name, or sex assigned at birth.

The Post Millenial reported that Youngkin’s guidelines “were adopted in September 2022” and “require facilities and activities to be segregated based on biological sex.” Furthermore, they “do not mandate the use of preferred pronouns, as had previously been the case.”

The Youngkin administration responded to the affluent district’s move by saying that in defying the guidelines, FCPS might be infringing upon the rights of Fairfax County parents.

Macaulay Porter, a spokeswoman for the governor, told FOX News:

The law requires the Virginia Department of Education to provide model policies and requires school boards to adopt policies consistent with those provided by the Department.

The Fairfax County Public Schools policies diverge from VDOE model policy guidance and perpetuate a false notion that FCPS knows what’s better for a child than a child’s parent. The Fairfax County school board is expected to follow the law.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a mother of three school-age sons in the county, weighed in on the district’s decision to break with the governor.

“My sons are just like other children across the county who feel extremely uncomfortable with the idea that they could be walking into their school bathroom and seeing a member of the opposite sex,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a private space.”

Lundquist-Arora is also a local parents’ rights activist and chapter leader of the conservative women’s group Independent Women’s Network.

The Washington Examiner on Tuesday published an op-ed by Lundquist-Arora in which she argued that Youngkin should take a page out of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s playbook and fine school districts that disobey his guidelines.

In her piece, she cited an example of Newsom fining a school district in a more conservative area of the state. The district had refused to honor Harvey Milk, a revered figure among LGBTQ activists.

“Temecula Valley Unified School District board members rejected California’s curricula materials for this reason,” Lundquist-Arora wrote:

Joseph Komrosky, the school board president, referred to Milk as a “pedophile,” and relayed that he instructed the district to reject any materials shipped from the state. Shortly afterward, Newsom fined the district $1.5 million for what he said was a “willful violation of the law.”

Newsom has a clear political agenda, which does not include parents’ rights or decency in public education. But maybe other states, such as Virginia, can learn from his intervention as they wage education battles of their own.

Last year, the Fairfax County mother made headlines when all of her sons were suspended by the district for “dress code violations” after they did not wear masks to school.

“The masks had given them headaches,” Lundquist-Arora said in an interview with FOX News at the time. “They didn’t like wearing them. So they found them problematic.”

Her two younger sons, who both received 15-day suspensions, attended Hunt Valley Elementary School. Her older son was enrolled at Irving Middle School, where he got a nine-day suspension.