02/18/2026
I wanted to share this as it has recently come to my attention. This is blatant authoritarianism at the expense of our children. We MUST get involved. Even if you no longer have children in FCPS, it is to your benefit to speak up against this b/c they are trying to mold the next generation into compliancy instead of creating critical thinkers. Those that think critically cannot be easily controlled…
🚨🚨Did you see the survey about the SR&R changes? Observations from a very well educated friend:
I am writing to bring urgent attention to proposed changes to the Fairfax County Public Schools Student Rights & Responsibilities (SR&R) Regulation for SY26-27 that are currently open for public comment through February 20, 2026. These proposed revisions warrant community scrutiny and, in my view, organized opposition on several grounds.
The survey can be accessed through FCPS communications or by contacting Michelle Godart at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). I encourage every family to respond. Below is my analysis of the three proposed changes and an overarching structural concern.
WHAT IS BEING PROPOSED
The Chief Equity Office is proposing three changes: (1) Universal Grade-Aligned Discipline Matrices that prescribe specific sanctions for student behavior at every grade level across all FCPS schools, (2) new standards for in-school suspension of students with disabilities, and (3) language accommodations for multilingual learners during disciplinary questioning. The School Board will review these in March 2026 and vote in May 2026.
On their face, consistency and equity sound unobjectionable. In practice, what is being proposed represents a significant expansion of centralized bureaucratic control over children’s behavior, speech, and expression — with troubling implications for parental rights, student autonomy, and constitutional protections.
1. CENTRALIZED BEHAVIORAL CONTROL OF CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS FIVE
The proposed Universal Grade Matrices formalize a punitive discipline apparatus for children starting in kindergarten. Under this framework, a five-year-old’s classroom behavior will be coded, entered into the Student Information System, and follow that child through their entire FCPS career.
This is not education. It is behavioral cataloging. When the state creates a centralized system to classify, record, and sanction the speech and conduct of children who are still learning to tie their shoes, it has crossed the line from school management into social engineering. The developmental research is unambiguous: young children learn prosocial behavior through relationships, modeling, and restorative practices — not through formalized punishment regimes that label them as offenders in a government database.
The practical effect is that children are being trained from the earliest possible age to accept that authority figures have unreviewable power to judge and punish their words, their tone, their gestures, and even their silence. This is not a system that produces independent thinkers and engaged citizens. It produces compliant subjects who learn that questioning authority carries institutional consequences.
2. SUPPRESSION OF SPEECH AND COMPELLED COMPLIANCE
The proposed Category C matrices include codes that should alarm any community that values the First Amendment and individual liberty:
• RB6: “Speaking to another in an uncivil, discourteous manner” — Who defines “uncivil”? The administrator. No objective standard is provided.
• RB8a: “Swearing/cursing” — Sanctionable at every level up to 3-day out-of-school suspension.
• RB10: “Failure to respond to questions or requests by staff” — A child can be formally disciplined for remaining silent.
Read those together: a student can be punished for speaking in a way an administrator subjectively deems “uncivil,” and can also be punished for choosing not to speak at all. The regulatory framework effectively eliminates the child’s communicative autonomy. There is no safe option. Speak and risk a subjective judgment. Stay silent and face discipline for non-compliance.
This is the hallmark of authoritarian institutional control — where the individual has no permissible response to authority except agreement and compliance. In a public school system funded by taxpayers in a constitutional republic, this should be unacceptable regardless of political affiliation.
3. EXPANDING REGULATION WHILE IGNORING EXISTING FAILURES
The Chief Equity Office is proposing to expand its regulatory footprint while demonstrating no capacity to enforce the protections that already exist. Parents across FCPS have documented instances where current SR&R requirements were not followed — disciplinary procedures bypassed, records incomplete, required parent notifications omitted, disability accommodations ignored during disciplinary processes.
The proposed UGM matrices standardize sanctions at each level but preserve full principal discretion over which level to assign. This is the critical flaw: the point at which discriminatory judgment enters the process is untouched. Two students who commit identical acts at different schools can still receive dramatically different consequences based entirely on which administrator is making the subjective “totality of circumstances” determination. The matrices create the illusion of uniformity while the actual decision-making remains as arbitrary as before.
More regulation layered on top of unenforced regulation does not produce equity. It produces a bureaucratic apparatus that insulates itself from accountability by pointing to its own complexity.
4. DISABILITY PROTECTIONS DELIBERATELY OMITTED
The proposed multilingual learner accommodations for student statements establish that certain students require support to “fully understand and meaningfully participate” in providing statements during disciplinary proceedings. The proposal mandates interpretation services, explanation of voluntariness, and standardized protocols.
Notably absent: any equivalent protection for students with disabilities. A child with an IEP or 504 Plan for conditions affecting processing, communication, or anxiety can be questioned by administrators without accommodations, without parental notification, and without any explanation that participation is voluntary. The statement obtained can then be used to support disciplinary sanctions.
FCPS is proposing to formally recognize that one group of students needs support to participate meaningfully in a disciplinary process while simultaneously ignoring that another federally protected group has the same need. This is not an oversight. It is a policy choice that violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and raises Fourteenth Amendment equal protection concerns. Families of students with disabilities in our community should be particularly alarmed.
5. A $5.76 MILLION BUREAUCRACY THAT PRODUCES PAPERWORK, NOT EQUITY
The Chief Equity Office — the author of these proposed changes — employs 56 full-time staff with a budget exceeding $5.76 million. The Chief Equity Officer earns $272,867 annually. Thirty-four staff members earn over $100,000. Meanwhile, FCPS eliminated 275 teaching positions in fiscal year 2026. The starting teacher salary is $61,747.
This office has produced “Privilege Bingo” cards, “Culturally Responsive Learning Interventions,” and now a set of discipline matrices that will govern the behavioral lives of every student from kindergarten through 12th grade. What it has not produced is measurable improvement in equitable treatment of students with disabilities, students from smaller demographic populations, or any demonstrated enforcement of existing civil rights protections within the school system.
The community should demand that the School Board eliminate the Chief Equity Officer position and consolidate the enforcement functions — discipline hearings, civil rights compliance, Title IX — into existing offices at a fraction of the cost. The academic programming and curriculum development functions should be evaluated for elimination. Every dollar spent on supervisory layers that do not directly investigate complaints, conduct hearings, or enforce compliance is a dollar taken from classrooms and teachers.
I urge every family and community member to:
(a) Complete the FCPS SR&R survey before February 20, 2026. Contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for access.
(b) Oppose the Universal Grade Matrices at all grade levels, particularly K-3. These matrices formalize punitive behavioral control of young children and expand centralized authority over student speech and expression without meaningful accountability.
(c) Support the ISS disability protections with amendments requiring documented accommodation fidelity and parent notification.
(d) Demand that student statement accommodations be extended equally to students with disabilities — not limited to multilingual learners alone.
(e) Contact your School Board representative and demand a public accounting of the Chief Equity Office’s budget, staffing, and enforcement outcomes before voting on any expansion of its regulatory authority.
The fundamental question is whether FCPS exists to develop independent, capable young people who can think critically and exercise their rights — or whether it exists to produce a generation conditioned from kindergarten to accept that a centralized authority will judge their words, classify their behavior, and record their compliance in a government system. The proposed revisions move decisively in the wrong direction.
