OPINION:
The Hayfield Secondary School football recruiting scandal has shown us that there is absolutely no oversight of Michelle Reid, superintendent of the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia, from our elected school board members, the county’s Board of Supervisors or the internal auditor general.
It has also highlighted that Ms. Reid is either incompetent or ill-intended. Addressing Hayfield’s mass recruiting violation was a test of Ms. Reid’s leadership, and she failed.
What began as a local injustice regarding fairness in high school sports has echoed in warning nationwide. The scandal is not just about school athletics; it’s about poor district leadership.
After school administrators hired coach Darryl Overton this past January, 31 students transferred to Hayfield Secondary School in time for football season. Many of them were Mr. Overton’s former players from across county lines. Hayfield students, parents and staff posed questions about the many student-athlete transfers to their school. Such a significant number of talented football players transferring to one public school within months of one another is undoubtedly suspicious.
Fairfax County residents looked to the district’s senior leaders to investigate the matter. Ms. Reid announced that the district would conduct an internal investigation in early May.
Two months later, when Ms. Reid’s internal “confidential investigation” regarding residency checks was still ongoing and summer training had already begun, other high school football coaches drafted a letter to raise their concerns about fairness in Hayfield’s recruiting process.
At the end of August, mere days before the season opener against West Springfield High School, Ms. Reid announced that her investigation had cleared Mr. Overton and school district administrators of wrongdoing.
One school board member, Mateo Dunne, didn’t buy it. He said, “To preserve the integrity of our athletics programs, I am calling for a comprehensive and independent investigation of the allegations raised by the community.” He continued, “I am not satisfied with the ad hoc internal review that was conducted by FCPS, which was inadequate given the breadth and seriousness of the allegations.”
The motion for an independent, external investigation failed among school board members in an 8-3 vote.
In mid-November, despite a poorly handled recruiting scandal and provably declining academics, school board members voted to extend Ms. Reid’s contract to June 2028 and offer her a pay raise. Her renewed contract offers her an annual salary of $424,146 and an annual $12,000 car allowance. The incompetent superintendent of Fairfax County’s public schools now makes more than the president of the United States.
In terms of the district’s athletic scandal, truth prevailed despite what increasingly appears to be a district leadership cover-up. Following the regular football season, during which the Hayfield superstar team devastated the other teams in its conference, texts proving impropriety eventually surfaced. Monty Fritts, Hayfield’s athletic director, sent text messages indicating his intent to exploit homeless student status to get the desired football players on the Hayfield roster. It’s odd that Ms. Reid’s residency checks in her investigation didn’t raise red flags for district leadership.
Ms. Reid learned about those text messages, perhaps for the first time, at a meeting on Nov. 19. After being backed into a corner, she waited six days to act on the information and pull Hayfield from the postseason playoffs. During that time, Hayfield crushed Edison in its first playoff game (75-7).
How can we possibly expect a bad actor like Ms. Reid to handle a massive district boundary overhaul honestly and professionally? Since Ms. Reid has been the superintendent, test scores have been down, and scandals have been up. How can we trust Ms. Reid with our children’s education and well-being at school when she is incapable of handling a straightforward athletic scandal?
Our elected school board members must fulfill their oversight responsibilities and replace Ms. Reid with a competent administrator.
• Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner and The Federalist, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.