Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is calling on Fairfax County Public School to hand over the school system’s independent investigation into how FCPS handled National Merit commendation notifications to students.
“Our job is to get to the truth,” said Miyares. “As you know, word got out in public reports that they [FCPS] had not notified some of our hardest working students that they were National Merit Award commendations [winners]. A lot of parents had questions. We were first told it was a one-time error at one school, Thomas Jefferson High School. Now we know it expanded to eight different schools, withheld National Merit recognition and our job as the people’s protector in the Attorney General’s office is to get to the truth whether this was withheld on the basis of race or national origin. I’d remind your viewers that Fairfax County schools hired an equity consultant out of Berkeley, California. Paid this person $455,000 worth of work to come up with this equity strategic plan and in the equity strategic plan, it said that they should strive for equal outcomes for every student without exception. And in the same equity strategic plan, it said you had to be willing to treat some students purposefully unequally. Well, we want to determine whether by that definition, treating some students ‘purposefully unequally’ it meant they were withholding National Merit recognition.”
Miyares said that’s the purpose of his investigation.