Virginia’s Secretary of Education sends letter to superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools requesting information on Thomas Jefferson High School’s connections to Chinese Communist Party

Update as of 2/12/2024: The superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools has since indicated in a letter sent on August 29, 2023 that the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology received $3.6 million from groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party—a much larger sum than what we were able to report earlier.

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On March 10, 2023, Virginia’s Secretary of Education and Acting Superintendent of Public Instruction Aimee Guidera sent a letter to the superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools regarding a school’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Parents Defending Education previously reported that Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology had “received over $1,000,000 worth of donations from Chinese interests since 2014.”

In Aimee Guidera’s letter to FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid, she stated that on his first day in office “Governor Youngkin signed Executive Order One which solidified our commitment to banning political indoctrination in our children’s classrooms and emphasized teaching our children the value of freedom of thought and diversity of ideas.” She added that this latest news “raises significant concerns regarding these principles.” She then requested the following information from the district:

• Since the commencement of the Fund, how much money was accepted from CCP-linked entities?
• For what purposes have the funds from CCP-linked entities been used?
• Have any of the CCP-linked entities that contributed to the Fund provided any guidance, influence or instructional materials related to content taught at TJHSST?
• Were any instructional materials, class schedules, and individual performance or evaluation indicators provided to these CCP-linked entities?
• Was any non-public student information, individual or in aggregate, provided to the CCP-linked entities?

Aimee Guidera then requested that Michelle Reid “direct schools within your division to cut ties with CCP-linked partners.” She continued: “Furthermore, I have asked the Virginia Department of Education to investigate the prevalence of such relationships between CCP-linked partners and local school divisions across the Commonwealth.”