Virginia school district investigating claims of staff-arranged abortions

Fairfax County Public Schools on Thursday said it was investigating allegations that officials at one of its high schools arranged and bankrolled abortions for students without parental knowledge. The district had engaged an external investigator to get the facts, a representative told WORLD in an email.

The W.C. Dispatch Substack page on Tuesday first broke the news of the alleged abortions at Centreville High School, located in northern Virginia about a 30-minute drive from Washington, D.C. Writer Walter Curt said he reviewed testimony from two female students, both of whom were minors at the time of the incidents. One alleged that school social worker Carolina Díaz arranged and paid for the student’s 2021 abortion without notifying her parents, in violation of Virginia law. The second girl ultimately decided not to go through with an abortion allegedly arranged by the same social worker, who did not notify her parents, according to Curt.

What else did the school district have to say? Fairfax County Public Schools told WORLD that the situation described in the allegations was completely unacceptable. The school’s policy on counseling pregnant students, originally obtained by ABC7 News, directs its employees to encourage students to tell their parents. The policy also says school staff members can’t promise to keep such information confidential—but doesn’t specifically ask them to notify parents.

Dig deeper: Read my recent report on the Education Department’s warnings to Virginia school districts, including in Fairfax County, over their transgender policies.