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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 inform parents about those conversations.
“As this is an ongoing personnel matter, we are not able to comment at this time,” a spokesman for Fairfax County Public Schools said when asked about Perez’s account.
Born in Cuba, Perez migrated to the U.S. in 1990 after earning a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language, often called “ESOL.” After teaching at Sarasota Public Schools in Florida, she moved to Virginia, ultimately landing a coveted job as a teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools.
Nearly 20% of students at Centreville High School, in Clifton, Va., take English as a second language. (Fox News Digital)
The high school is “majority-minority.” Almost 20% of students are learning to speak English, according to school demographic data. About one in four students live in low-income homes and qualify for free or reduced-fee meals.
In the spring of 2022, Perez told the school board investigator she was blindsided when Lehman asked her if she’d given a pregnancy test to a student. She hadn’t, but she did learn that a teen student from Guatemala told her that the school social worker had made an appointment for the student to get an abortion at a Falls Church, Va., clinic in November 2021, and paid the expenses.
In a statement written later that fall, the student detailed what allegedly happened when she saw the social worker. “She helped me with a pregnancy termination, or abortion,” she wrote, according to a translation from its original Spanish. “[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 if they knew about my pregnancy and the abortion.”
“When the abortion was performed, I was only 17 years old,” she concluded. The student and her guardian couldn’t be reached for comment.
Perez told Fox News Digital the student’s guardian, an uncle, didn’t know about the abortion and was “livid.”
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A week after the May 2022 meeting with Lehman, Perez says she sent the then-principal a follow-up email, dated May 13, 2022, reiterating that the school social worker had allegedly helped the student “solve the pregnancy issue.”
Perez had another meeting with Lehman in November, a recording of which she shared with Fox News Digital. Perez asked what he had meant when he had previously told her 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.”
She 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.
Julie Perry, a teacher at Centreville High School, recalled how she met Perez for the first time that fall, as Perry stood outside Room 222A on the school’s second floor. It was about 7:45 a.m., as students scurried into classrooms for their first period. Perry had just run on the Republican ticket for state House of Delegates, losing in a district that is majority Democratic.
“I feel strong. I have truth and God on my side.” – Zenaida Perez
“God bless Zenaida for fighting through this,” said Perry. “What’s so sad are the higher-ups. They’re not concerned about the truth. They’re concerned about keeping silent about these abortions.”
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.
In May, Perez says she learned more shocking news: A teen told her that the social worker had offered to help her get an abortion when she was five months pregnant. The teen didn’t have an abortion and is now a young mother, Perez said.
The young mother wrote a statement about her experience, according to a copy of the letter, written in Spanish, saying a school health provider “gave me the option to have an abortion.” Perez said the student told her the same social worker had given her the advice.
Last week, as news of her allegations spread, Perez watched in disbelief as the school superintendent, Reid, claimed that school district officials had just learned about the concerns Perez had raised three years earlier and many times over.
Early Monday morning, Perez returned to Centreville High School from summer break, armed with new resolve now that her warnings have been heard beyond Fairfax County Public Schools.
“I feel strong. I have truth and God on my side,” she said.
