By Shirleen Guerra | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – Fairfax County Public Schools says new evidence shows allegations that Centreville High School staff arranged or paid for student abortions without parental consent are “likely untrue.”
The findings come from a 61-page report prepared for Fairfax County Public Schools by outside counsel Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and sent Oct. 16 to the U.S. Department of Education and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Superintendent Michelle Reid said the district hired the law firm to independently review the 2021 allegations, which were first reported in August by The W.C. Dispatch.
The report concludes that the claims made by teacher Zenaida Perez do not match school records, student statements, or Fairfax County health procedures. Investigators wrote that Perez may have written or altered letters she claimed were from students and that her version of events “appears to be false and predicated upon partially fabricated evidence.”
According to the report, one student interviewed this month said she was never pressured to get an abortion and never discussed the topic with the school social worker. The student said she spoke with the county health nurse about her options and was told parental consent would be required for any procedure.
The law firm’s review also states that Perez was previously disciplined in 2022 for buying a pregnancy test for a student and exchanged documents and communications with another teacher, former Republican candidate Julie Perry. Emails and social media posts included in the report show the two were in contact as early as 2022, before the allegations became public.
The report says the coordination, along with handwritten student statements that appear to match Perez’s handwriting, raised concerns about the documents’ authenticity.
Those findings have now been sent to both federal and state investigators. The U.S. Department of Education launched an enforcement review in September to determine whether the district violated federal parental notification requirements under education law, which require schools to notify parents before minors receive non-emergency medical procedures.
The same materials were shared with the Virginia State Police, which opened a criminal investigation at Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s direction in August. That investigation is still active.
Reid said the district will continue cooperating with all agencies, noting that the new findings “provide a clearer picture of what happened.”
The report also states that Attorney General Jason Miyares’ Office and Youngkin’s Office “may have known” about the Centreville High School allegations as early as 2023.
In a statement to The Center Square, the governor’s office said the Virginia State Police investigation remains ongoing and that Youngkin learned of the allegations in August 2025 when they became public.
After the report was released, Walter Curt, who first reported the allegations for The W.C. Dispatch, dismissed the findings in a post on X, writing, “We don’t have to give even a remote bit of credibility to the ‘findings’ of multimillion-dollar law firms hired to try and get FCPS and Michelle Reid out of hot water.” He added that “the State Police will be the ones to answer that question.”
Both the state and federal reviews remain open.