Fairfax County Public Schools pulls student from class over answers to survey that was supposed to be confidential

IW Features reported that Fairfax County Public Schools provided a “Student Experience Survey” to high school students in February 2025. The data collected from these surveys are supposedly confidential. However, one student was pulled from his history class by a counselor over the answers he provided on the survey. IW Features reported:

Adam informed IW Features that he was not provided a copy of his completed survey, but he wrote something like this: “Some of the decisions made by [Superintendent] Michelle Reid, such as the decision to keep the Hayfield Football team in the playoffs and the disobedience of [President Donald Trump’s] executive orders, have caused me stress and anxiety during the school year. I feel that these decisions made by Michelle Reid and FCPS are poorly made.”

The student also wrote on the survey that he was concerned about “FCPS’s illegal immigration policy.”

The student explained that a counselor pulled him out of his history class about a week later while holding his survey that was supposed to be confidential. The student explained: “She asked about my response, including things such as why this was causing me stress, clarification about the Hayfield football scandal, and what I meant by executive orders.”

The student’s mother explained that “when she called the school’s administrators to inquire how this happened, they said that survey answers are flagged based on district-level policies for any evidence suggesting that a student is a harm to himself or to others.” The mother was told that “they flagged him, based solely on his answers to the survey, as a potential harm to himself.”

His mother was also concerned with how the district did not reach out to her about the issue beforehand or that the counselor would be pulling him from class.