FCPS Discipline Reform Group Plans for Monday's School Board Session

Parents, teachers and neighbors plan to pack a Monday work session to encourage Fairfax County School Board members to put an immediate end to involuntary school transfers and "interrogations" on the way to a complete system overhaul.

"We are taking this to the school board and will be there on Monday," said Caroline Hemenway, a South Lakes High School parent and director of Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform, advocates for more student rights and fairer punishments. "We have more than 80 families involved now. We are working with state and national organizations to get meaningful change done here."

Reform supporters will be at the 9 a.m. meeting in Falls Church with these seven demands:

• Stop all involuntary school transfers of students (except when a threat to others).
• Record disciplinary hearings.
• Respect due process rights and involve parents from the get-go.
• Allow students to continue their studies during the disciplinary process. 
• Consider mitigating circumstances.
• Respond and fill FOIA requests as required by law.
• Use an objective third party to mediate during disciplinary hearings. 
• Make principals accountable for reductions in suspension and expulsion rates at their schools.

This is only the first in three-month's worth of School Board review sessions. Superintendent Jack Dale will lead Monday's discussion. Click here to get a glimpse of what topics to expect.

Meanwhile, the parents of Nick Stuban, a Woodson High student who committed suicide while he was going through the FCPS discipline review in January, wrote a letter to county PTSA members this week to thank them for their support in demanding the process be reviewed.

"To date, Superintendent Dale has been generally non-responsive if not in outright denial that any shortcomings exist with the FCPS disciplinary - a process that is still being conducted, unchanged today," the letter reads.

"Just as our belief that we would encounter reasonable people at some step of the FCPS disciplinary process with Nick was dashed, so too are we now finding that the Superintendent and many (perhaps a majority) of the School Board are reluctant to admit that there are any problems with their disciplinary process - despite our own experience and the testimony of dozens of other families who have come forward and revealed that they too endured similar brutal treatment.

"It is because we do not want any other family to endure the same kind of tragedy we did, nor even to be put through the same kind of humiliating and mean-spirited process that causes wounds that affect a child's view of the world (especially a child's view of adults in positions of trust and responsibility)."

 The Stubans urge parents to attend upcoming school board discussions on the matter. To read the entire letter, click

Not familiar with the issue? Check out these links for more information:

The meeting will be held at Gatehouse Administration Center, 8115 Gatehouse Road, Rm. 1600, Falls Church.