Loading …For three years, a high school teacher in one of the nation’s most affluent school districts tried to sound the alarm. She claims a school employee was secretly helping vulnerable, immigrant students obtain and pay for abortions. And for three years, she says, her warnings were ignored, and she was met with retaliation.
Now, her explosive allegations are public.
The story of Zenaida Perez has forced a powerful school system into damage control and ignited a fierce constitutional debate that pits the fundamental rights of parents against the actions of the state.
At a Glance: The Fairfax County Scandal
- What’s Happening: An English-as-a-second-language (ESOL) teacher, Zenaida Perez, alleges a school social worker at Centreville High School facilitated and paid for a 17-year-old student’s abortion in 2021 without parental consent.
- The Cover-Up Claim: Perez claims she warned school and district officials seven times since May 2022, but was ignored. The district superintendent now claims they only just learned of the issue.
- The School’s Policy: Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) policy encourages students to discuss pregnancy with parents but does not require staff to inform them.
- The Constitutional Issue: A major clash between the fundamental right of parents to direct their children’s healthcare and the complex legal landscape of a minor’s access to abortion.
Discussion
Dems have nothing to do with this … you are just ignorant to the facts and check the other party out before condemning
No school, faculty member, school social worker or other employee has any right to supersede a parent's authority or act as if THEY are the child's parent when it comes to making delicate decisions that will affect that child for the rest of their life. Only a Liberal Demoncrapital would consider doing what this person has done repeatedly. She should go to prison for paying services of abortion clinics for the girls who became pregnant. She is detestable!
Why don't democrats change the sex of their own kids and submit them to abortions. Why is it they only want other parents kids done in secret.
Why am I not surprised?? Democrats and their cronies in the schools think they're above the law. No regard for parental rights! This is why it’s so important to support Trump's fight against the corruption and swamp creatures. Stand up for real American values! #MAGA
This is a stark reminder of why parental rights must be upheld in our schools.
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A Teacher’s Seven Warnings
Zenaida Perez, an ESOL teacher at Centreville High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, serves a student population that is largely minority and includes many low-income and immigrant families. It was one of these students who first came to her with a shocking story.
In the spring of 2022, Perez says she learned that a 17-year-old student from Guatemala had been helped by a school social worker to get an abortion the previous year.
Perez, armed with a written statement from the student, says she immediately took her concerns to the school’s principal. That meeting in May 2022 was the first of what Perez documents as seven separate attempts to get the school district to address the issue, a campaign that she says was met with dismissal and retaliation.
The school district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, now claims officials only “learned yesterday” about the potential scandal and has launched an “external independent investigator.”
The Allegations at the Heart of the Scandal
According to a translated copy of the student’s written statement, the story is deeply troubling.
“She helped me with a pregnancy termination, or abortion… [She] made the appointment for me at the abortion clinic in Fairfax. She paid for the procedure and kept quiet about it, not letting my family know. I was worried that my family would react very badly… When the abortion was performed, I was only 17 years old.” – From the student’s written statement.
Perez says she later learned of a second instance where the same social worker allegedly offered to help another student get an abortion when she was five months pregnant. That student declined and is now a young mother.
Parental Rights vs. State Action
This case ignites a fierce constitutional debate over one of the most protected, yet contested, rights in American law: the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides a fundamental, substantive right for parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children. This includes medical decisions.
The actions alleged in Fairfax County – where a school employee, acting as an agent of the state, allegedly facilitated and funded a significant medical procedure without the guardian’s knowledge or consent – represent a direct challenge to this right.
The situation is complicated by Virginia state law, which requires parental notification before a minor can have an abortion, although it includes a “judicial bypass” option where a judge can waive the requirement. If the allegations are true, the social worker may have actively circumvented state law, using the school’s resources to do so.
A Crisis of Trust
This story is about more than just one student and one social worker. It has become a crisis of trust between parents and their public school system. The documented, years-long effort by a teacher to report a serious issue, only to be allegedly ignored until the story became public, has shattered the confidence of many in the community.
The official investigation will determine the specific facts of the case, but the controversy has already exposed a deep and painful divide over the proper role of public schools in the lives of the children they serve.
“I feel strong. I have truth and God on my side.” – Zenaida Perez
Are schools meant to be partners with parents, operating with transparency? Or are they agents of the state with the authority to intervene in the most sensitive and personal family decisions? The answer to that question will have profound implications for the future of public education in Virginia and across the country.
This is another classic example of how Dems and their system ignore real issues to push their crazy agenda! Cover-up at a school, seriously?! The right of parents is sacred and being trampled on. No wonder parents are standing up and fighting back! #MAGA