Fairfax County Schools’ legal bills: $12 million and counting
by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
Image credit: Chat GPT
On March 23, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Michelle Reid announced that she is enlisting the services of yet another law firm, McGuireWoods, to “investigate” the district’s latest scandal — allegations that an 18-year-old illegal immigrant fondled the genitals of several female students in Fairfax High School. The district’s legal bills are mounting.
In her announcement, Reid said she retained “an independent outside law firm to conduct a comprehensive review of this matter.” The district’s contract with McGuireWoods, however — authorizing attorneys’ fees of up to $1,850 per hour — suggests a role less “independent” than described.
“McGuireWoods was retained by Client on March 19, 2026, to conduct a confidential, attorney-client privileged investigation concerning allegations of sexual harassment and/or assault of students at Fairfax High School,” the contract states. “The investigation has been undertaken for the purpose of providing legal advice to Client.”
Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Virginia’s gubernatorial election last November by a large margin by campaigning as a moderate dealmaker. Five months later, she faces an impasse: A bill on her desk allowing state agencies to discriminate against businesses owned by white men when dishing out certain government contracts. Spanberger has a choice to make—either bend the knee to the far-left faction in the legislature or live up to the moderate mandate which put her in office.
HB 61, the “Small SWaM Business Procurement Enhancement Program Act,” passed both houses of the legislature along party lines and directs state agencies to take the race and sex of business owners into consideration when awarding contracts. The act establishes a statewide goal of 42% of SWaM—that’s Small, Women, and Minority owned businesses—utilization in all discretionary spending by executive branch agencies. The act requires agencies to increase their SWaM utilization by 3% each year until the 42% goal is reached. Lastly, the act allows state agencies to exclude non-SWaM businesses, presumably those owned by white men, from certain government contracts under $200,000.
HB61 is not an anomaly; many other states have similar pieces of legislation. A look into those states can show Virginians what example their legislature is following.
Governor Spanberger has issued her first veto. To add some drama, it was of a high-priority bill sponsored by one of the top Democrats in the Senate.
Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), the Senate Majority Leader, introduced legislation that would have authorized a referendum in Fairfax County on the establishment of a casino at Tysons. The bill passed by comfortable margins in both the House and the Senate and was supported by both Democrats and Republicans.
Although the bill was a high priority of one of the leaders of her party in the General Assembly, the Governor has some cover. Unlike casino legislation in the past, which the city councils of the cities authorized to have casino referendums were strongly in favor of, the governing body of Fairfax County is opposed to establishing a casino at Tysons. As a result of such opposition, a majority of the General Assembly delegation from Fairfax County opposed the legislation. Spanberger cited these factors in explaining her veto, “Local governing boards should lead on proposed casino development, as has happened in every locality that now has a casino. But in Fairfax County, the Board of Supervisors has explicitly opposed this legislation, and an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly members who represent Fairfax voted against it.”
Tuesday’s column discussed some of the reasons Governor Spanberger should amend or veto the public employee collective bargaining bill headed to her desk: the local and state taxpayer costs, the creation of new bureaucracies, the opposition of local Democrats and a majority of local government and school board leaders and, perhaps most persuasively, the use of a “dues skimming” scheme that would put the union between family members providing help to their relatives.
But there are other concerns, as well … starting with the bill’s revocation of Virginia’s Secret Ballot Protection Act, which declares “the right of an individual employee to vote by secret ballot in such a procedure is a fundamental right that shall be guaranteed from infringement.”
By eliminating that language the legislation ends protections for employees by allowing a new “Public Employee Relations Board” to declare a winner on the basis of union claims that more than half of employees have signed up with a union.
It’s a conscious effort to avoid the democratic process of elections. As Bruce Raynor, once president of a Service Employees International Union declared “There’s no reason to subject the workers to an election.” Mike Fishman, when he was president of Local 32BJ of SEIU, echoed the sentiment, saying “we don’t do elections.”
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” — Dalai Lama
Less than three weeks ago, we wrote about transparency’s obituary in RVA, but few would have ever guessed that City Hall was apparently not only serving as funeral director but also continued to keep throwing dirt on top in hopes that it will never be seen again. That might seem a bit hyperbolic, but consider that while many people welcomed a new administration into City Hall last year anticipating a new attitude and an eagerness to rebuild trust with the people, the public is instead being treated like the dirt.
Mayor Avula has made it clear in the last 15+ months that transparency is not a priority but merely a political pawn and tactic to prevent the public from getting the impression that anything is wrong and merely keeping a positive effort and attitude will cure all our problems. City Hall has for too long been insecure about sharing what’s really going on and worried that bad news might lead to discord, a reputation for futility, or political exile. However, when you lead by example and are honest with the hurdles you face, you create trust and buy-in and that engenders goodwill and people are more likely to have patience with city government. Keeping people in the dark only breeds distrust and resentment, but some political actors and those driving the policy are clueless to that reality.
The Avula administration seems to believe transparency is something to limit (or shut off) because it could lead to unfavorable news that highlights problems that are in need of solutions.
Abigail Spanberger is in deep trouble. She’s not only squandered almost all of the goodwill that came with her election but there’s more.
Sitting down?
She’s lost The Washington Post.
In a Tuesday editorial that attempted to explain the new governor’s plummeting poll numbers, The Post accused her of being a spineless hypocrite and a tool of the radical elements in her party.
Worse, they accuse Spanberger of compromising public safety with her executive order that ended cooperation with ICE and of being complicit in a redistricting power grab “she knew to be wrong.”
The honeymoon ended quickly because Spanberger allowed herself to become the face of a hyper-partisan power grab that she knew to be wrong. The governor signed off on a proposed map that will give her party a 10-1 edge in the state’s congressional delegation if voters approve an April 21 referendum. There are currently six Democrats and five Republicans, which is fair in a blue-leaning swing state.
This has turned off independents and repulsed moderate Republicans who helped her win three competitive congressional races. Spanberger has come across as a hypocrite, one of the characteristics voters most dislike about politicians. Commercials and mailers highlight her past support for the 2020 constitutional amendment she’s now trying to unravel and previous condemnations of the tactics she’s now employing.
Some have been banished or destroyed, and others are threatened, while one is slated for reinstallation.
The Stonewall Jackson monument in Richmond’s Capitol Square, which faces likely banishment, with the Old City Hall in the background. (Photo: Catesby Leigh)
by Catesby Leigh
For a vocal minority, the memory of 2020’s “Summer of Love,” with its orgy of “Black Lives Matter” sloganeering, occupied zones, and statuary vandalism, shines brightly. It’s not hard to see why. The expulsion of Confederate monuments from the streets, squares, and parks of cities across the South, mostly during the disturbances that followed George Floyd’s killing, marks a historic victory for wokedom’s cancel culture.
Though 2020 is a year most Americans would be happy to forget, the theatrics of statuary excommunication still attract politicians on the Left. President Trump may have resurrected Christopher Columbus’s effigy in the nation’s capital, but Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia, is now in the crosshairs. With three Confederacy-related statues still in place, including an outstanding figure of Stonewall Jackson (1874) by the distinguished Irish sculptor J. H. Foley, the square also includes a Virginia Civil Rights Memorial, a monument to the state’s Indian tribes, and a Virginia Women’s Monument that reflect more recent political concerns and artistic sensibilities. Capitol Square—site of the statehouse, governor’s mansion, and a multi-figure nineteenth-century monument focused on a mounted George Washington—has thus offered a display of the common sense that lost traction during the Summer of Love.
The crusade against Confederate statues, which has enjoyed the unflagging support of the nation’s progressive media, reflects a flattening rather than a broadening of historical and cultural understanding. We’re no longer encouraged to ponder the loyalties or virtues of great commanders like Robert E. Lee and Jackson. We’re supposed to view them as nothing more than “traitors who killed American soldiers to defend slavery”—poster boys for white supremacy. Regarding them as role models, as many a Southern-born warrior now engaged in the campaign against the Iranian mullahs surely does, is unthinkable. All that matters about Confederate monuments is that they stood or stand for the racial oppression that stains the history of the South. Wokedom thus thrives on a perversely simplistic, Manichean outlook. Its impact on the South’s public realm, as a vacuous exhibition of banished Confederate statues in Los Angeles attests, has been disastrous. The sooner Americans—North and South, black and white—see this authoritarian mindset for what it is, the better.
The past five years have seen a massive migration of Americans out of heavily Democratic counties and into ones where Donald Trump won majorities in each of the past three elections. … Most analyses of internal migration patterns look only at state-level data. And what they show is that blue states are losing population to red states, and have been for many years.
I&I wanted to go deeper, so we used the latest Census data on migration between counties, and compared that with how these counties voted in the past three presidential elections. What we found was that millions aren’t just moving out of blue states, but are moving out of blue counties within states.
Virginia’s blue counties lost nearly 160,000 to net migration, while its solidly red ones gained more than 122,000
As Virginia’s public schools fail at their core mission—educating children—state legislators are expanding their role in ways that encroach on parental rights.
Debra Gardner, a former social worker who was first elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates in 2023, introduced HB 355 in January. Beginning in the 2028–2029 school year, the bill would require Virginia’s public schools to administer annual mental health screenings to all students in grades 6–12, unless parents choose to opt out their children. The legislation has passed both chambers of the General Assembly and is now awaiting action from Governor Abigail Spanberger, who faces an April 13 deadline to sign, veto, or amend the bill.
Virginia’s public schools are failing at teaching children basic subjects. The table below shows that over a quarter of children in the state’s public schools are failing their Standards of Learning (SOLs) tests. Rates of failure are significantly higher among economically disadvantaged students.
If the current polls showing a close contest are correct, history says the redistricting referendum will be defeated. As a general rule, support for a controversial referendum diminishes as election day approaches. This is due to the unique dynamics of issue referendum politics: if the polls showing the pro-side lead barely higher than the statistical margin of error are accurate, the historical data says the late deciding voters will sink the referendum on Election Day.
As I wrote last year, such a devastating loss would leave Spanberger a hobbled loser at home at the start of her term and a knee-capped sinking star in national Democratic politics. Around the country, fellow Democrats would be scratching their heads asking: how could she win a 57% victory a few months ago, but fail in her effort to help the party nationally combat Trumpism? Their likely answer: She won last year as a lucky recipient of the anti-Trump vote not due to any pro Spanberger constituency. A fatal political analysis.
My view: Whether you agree with her or not on the constitutional amendment, it serves no useful purpose to turn the Democratic Governor of Virginia into a lame duck nationally in the fight against Trumpism. The President has made clear he’s trying to remake our republic in his own image by whatever electoral means possible. He’s playing political hardball to achieve it
Credit for AI-generated image of Steve Descano: Grok
More than 1 million people live in Fairfax County, Va.
They aren’t like the rest of us.
For reasons no one can explain, voters in this wealthy suburb repeatedly vote for a chief prosecutor who coddles criminals and has an absolutely bizarre philosophy about crime and punishment. Elected first in 2019 and re-elected in 2023, Steve Descano is the worst commonwealth’s attorney in Virginia, and it isn’t even close. Naturally, he’s backed by George Soros money.
Here is Descano’s morally indefensible theory of crime and punishment:
“If two people commit the same crime, but only one’s punishment includes deportation, that’s a perversion of justice and not a reflection of the values of Fairfax County. – Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s website.
This perverse fondness for illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes – including murder – has resulted in the release of scores of illegals and lenient plea deals for others.
Normal Virginians are outraged when someone who is in the country illegally turns out to be a predator. Not Fairfax’s top prosecutor.
Fairfax prosecutors coddle illegal alien criminals and go to great lengths to keep them in their community, even as the body count rises. They also show compassion for males who sexually assault girls in public schools.
This insane attitude toward crime will spread across the commonwealth if voters approve the April 21 referendum to gerrymander congressional districts. Continue reading.
Virginia’s move toward cellphone-free schools has now become a bipartisan through-line across two administrations.
Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger yesterday signed Senator Stella Pekarsky’s (D-Fairfax County) follow-up school cell phone legislation, which had unanimously passed the Senate and overwhelmingly passed the House of Delegates. The law tightens the existing ban by replacing the word “restrict” with “prohibit,” making unmistakably clear that the ban applies from the first bell to the dismissal bell — including lunch and passing periods.
In July 2024, then-Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order directing the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to issue guidance for Virginia schools on school cell phone bans, launching Virginia’s push toward phone-free classrooms. That VDOE guidance issued in September 2024 defined the state’s approach as the bell-to-bell model. And last year, then-Gov. Youngkin signed the Commonwealth’s first statewide student cellphone law with that bell-to-bell model, which was almost unanimously approved by the General Assembly.
But some districts had used creative lawyering around the original law’s use of the word “restrict” to allow for exceptions in lunch and/or passing periods. For those school divisions that treated the prior language as flexible, the General Assembly’s intent is now impossible to miss. It is officially a bell-to-bell prohibition written into state law.
Members of the Service Employees International Union at a recent Loudoun County board meeting.
There are many reasons why Governor Abigail Spanberger should veto the collective bargaining bill headed to her desk, a bill requiring local and state governments to bargain with union bosses even if less than a majority of public employees want the union or the bargaining.
There is the fact that it will force major spending increases on local governments, just as it added $350 million to Richmond City’s costs when that city voluntarily approved collective bargaining four years ago, and to Fairfax County, which giddily adopted collective bargaining, only to find it’s driven a $300 million shortfall this year.
Then there is the fact that the state estimates the bill will create new bureaucracies, add 333 new state employees to the payroll and require additional spending of up to $92 million over the next five years before any salary increases. Those costs will only grow.
They are also the ones who must make local government work, as opposed to those worthies in the General Assembly who are happy to impose their idea of governance on others but not have to take responsibility themselves. Which explains why General Assembly Democrats specifically exempted their own employees from the legislation, an example of “Mandates for thee, but not for me.”
Dick Sizemore-Hall’s Mailing It In caught this author’s attention. So did the comments. Neither somehow mentioned four Democratic elephants in the room on voting rights:
federal intervention into the voter education and assistance processes,
voting by the mentally disabled,
ballot harvesting, and
Voting by non-citizens.
The left looks at that list and sees opportunities, not problems.
The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….
This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.
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