Fairfax County Public Schools staff appeared to undercut principal regarding partnerships with China-affiliated groups; principal appeared to lie about partnerships

Parents Defending Education previously discovered through public records requests that Fairfax County Public Schools allowed the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology to let China-affiliated groups use the school’s name and likeness to create similar schools in China. This deal involved these China-affiliated groups paying the school and its nonprofit arm $3.6 million for intellectual property, professional development, and records including layouts of the school, in-depth photos of school labs, and research projects created by students.

PDE has received additional records regarding China from the school district. In an email dated July 26, 2019, an employee of the district (who later worked for “Thomas Schools of China”) asked if he could speak with the principal to discuss a “proposal.” Another school employee responds in a manner that appears to undercut the principal: “She made it clear that she has concerns about outside financial influences at the school. It’s not clear to me that a meeting with you would help advance the conversation around these larger issues (much bigger than just limited to Ameson).”

In an email dated July 30, 2019, the principal of Thomas Jefferson appears to make a false statement in saying that the school did not have a relationship with Chinese entities while previous records showed otherwise: “However, TJHSST does not have any ongoing relationship, communication or affiliation with those individuals or Thomas Schools. Any suggestion or promotion of such a relationship would be highly inaccurate.”