Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, Author at Independent Women's Network

Fairfax County supervisors want to raise our taxes — and their own salaries

Posted on April 25, 2024April 25, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on Washington Examiner.

This week, concerned Fairfax County citizens spoke for several hours about increasing taxes and affordability problems at the Board of Supervisors’ budget hearings. A mother holding her infant child, for example, told the board, “We are certain we cannot afford to expand our family here in Fairfax County.”

The board is currently considering a budget that would increase taxes, on average, another $524 per household in 2025. This is notably on the heels of the excessively generous pay raises the board offered themselves last year. Chairman Jeff McKay, for example, voted in favor of his nearly 40% annual salary increase — from $100,000 to $138,283 — which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. He also has a taxpayer-funded vehicle.

According to the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, since fiscal 2000, property taxes have increased three times higher than household income. The increase in tax burden is making Fairfax County less affordable each year — but not for people such as McKay, apparently, who can just raise his own salary. In fiscal 2025, the average household tax in the county will be $8,700.

More than half of the county’s revenue goes to its public schools. But looking at test scores, Fairfax County’s taxpayers are not getting a good return on their investment. In 2023, 25% of the district’s students failed their math standards of learning test, 22% failed reading, 43% failed writing, and 38% failed history.

Clearly, throwing money at the district’s education problem — learning loss caused by closing the schools for more than a year — does not solve it. But that doesn’t seem to stop the overpaid district administrators from asking for more. This year’s proposed budget for Fairfax County Public Schools is $3.8 billion — an increase of 8.6% from last year.

The county is paying for a rising number of administrators who are not even in the classrooms with our children, not to mention astronomical legal fees for the district’s negligence and leftist activism. The superintendent’s annual salary is $380,000, which is more than twice Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) salary and more than anyone in the federal Department of Education is paid.

Despite the school district’s inflated administrative salaries and flagrant spending, Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors has not demanded an external audit of the school board’s budget. To Fairfax residents, it appears that they just send over the money without question, and then bill the taxpayers.

When Fairfax residents waited for hours and then stood in front of the members of their local council to share the burdens of this tax abuse, many of the board members couldn’t be bothered to listen. The mother holding her infant boldly called out their indifference. During her testimony, she said, “I see a lot of you are glancing at your cellphones or whatever else is on your screens. However, I have now sat here for an hour and a half, and I would like your attention while I’m speaking.”

Following the budget hearings, a journalist approached McKay for questioning at his office about whether or not he would vote again for tax increases. McKay walked away without comment. The journalist then asked his chief of staff, Clayton Medford, if McKay would make time to speak about the budget. Medford replied with a simple “No.”

It appears that McKay was hiding in his office to avoid justified scrutiny from his constituents and questions from the press. But being an ostrich won’t help to solve the county’s budget woes. Fairfax residents need real leadership, budget reform, and fiscal accountability.

Gender activists have no intention of following the science on child transitions

Posted on April 19, 2024April 17, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

In the face of overwhelming evidence showing the harm of transitioning gender-confused children, an LGBT organization is scheduled to host a transgender camp in Arlington, Virginia, this summer for children as young as 6 years old.

Last week, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service released a report criticizing the use of so-called gender-affirming care for children. Its author, pediatrician and President of the Royal College of Pediatrics Hilary Cass, criticizes medical interventions for gender-questioning minors. She further cautions against socially transitioning children, including pronoun changes in their schools, because it increases the likelihood of the subsequent pursuit of medical intervention.

A study published in February 2024 concluded that most of these children, who usually have coexisting problems and whose identity crisis peaks in early adolescence, eventually become gender-conforming adults.

Several detransitioners — people who have undergone gender-related medical intervention as children and regretted it — have supported both these studies and society’s return to facts. Chloe Cole, a detransitioner who said she was transgender at 13 and had a double mastectomy at 15, said, “I’m thankful that this is finally becoming a mainstream conversation, and people are finally starting to wake up to what we are doing to children.”

Indeed, more and more are waking up to the harms of gender ideology, including the use of unstudied medications that block the onset of puberty.

But while public awareness is increasing significantly, the gender ideology activists are doubling down. For the Cass report, for example, gender clinics in the U.K. colluded and tried to withhold data. And we can expect to continue to hear the usual manipulative extortion about the threat of suicide if we do not affirm children’s fad-inspired gender identities and made-up pronouns.

Then there’s the free gender brainwashing camps, including one in Arlington for children ages 6 to 14 that will take place over two weeks in July. Camp Free2Be is completely funded by SMYAL, an LGBT youth organization located in Washington, D.C.

The camp’s director, Liz Erion, boasts that she has both a transgender child and a nonbinary child. Given the statistical improbability of having either one or the other, what are the odds that she would have both? It makes you wonder how much the camp counselor wielded influence over her own children’s gender identity. It should also make people considering this camp ask themselves how much influence they would like Ms. Erion to have over their children.

The camp is actively searching for junior counselors ages 15 to 18. The only criteria are that they are transgender, nonbinary, or gender diverse, and are committed, enthusiastic, and willing “to get silly and try new things.” It seems that the junior counselors will be present for two weeks to help convince children as young as 6 years old that they are in fact transgender, nonbinary, or gender diverse.

What a strange world we live in, where Child Protective Services are called on parents who are not “gender-affirming,” but a blind eye is turned on a camp trying to convince children to upend their lives over something they are not.

Triggered by the American flag? Here’s the solution

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Earlier this month, the organizers of the Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle kicked out a women’s country line dance team because their American flag shirts made some audience members feel “triggered and unsafe.”

The incident made me wonder if Fairfax County School Board member Melanie Meren was in the audience. In May 2023, Meren, now the board’s vice chairwoman, reportedly demanded the removal of artwork containing images of the American flag in the school board’s headquarters because it “triggered” her.

The idea that Americans are “triggered” by our nation’s flag is troubling. Quite frankly, if “triggered” was not such a pathetic word overused by weak-minded leftists, I might use it to describe my own feelings about the matter. But really, I’m furious that a small segment of our fellow Americans claim to be “triggered” by Old Glory.

Many brave Americans paid with their lives for the freedom that our flag represents. Our freedoms, including those of the so-called triggered people, are a result of that blood sacrifice. My husband, brother, father, and both grandfathers are all veterans. Families of veterans are intimately familiar with the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform have made and continue to make for the principles that our flag represents.

We are so free, in fact, that we protect these leftists’ right to sit during the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance. Their failure to stand is repugnant, but wonderfully illustrative of the constitutional freedoms that our flag represents and for which our military servicemen have paid.

There is a certain type of person “triggered” by our flag. They are generally affluent enough that they do not have much else to think about outside of the problems that they manufacture. Their graduate school education, (Meren went to Duke University, for example), probably helped them along their journey of considering all the ways that they are personally oppressed.

So, the solution is simple. These predominantly white, leftists might consider using their resources to take advantage of our porous southern border and find a flag that they do support.

There’s no shortage of migrants who would gladly take their place. In Fiscal Year 2023, for example, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 3.2 million encounters with illegal migrants. With no signs of letting up, border encounters approached 1.5 million in Fiscal Year 2024 by the end of February. Illegal immigrants are clearly flooding in from south to north, but I wonder if the Mexican government might be amenable to taking American asylum-seekers who are “triggered” by our flag and “feel unsafe.”

Perhaps as asylum seekers, these Americans would find comfort living in Mexico and the Mexican flag would not trigger them. Maybe the Rain Country Dance Association could even hold its next dance competition in Mexico so its audience might feel more safe and less triggered.

K–12 Public Schools’ Digital Policies Are Ripe for Persecuting Conservative Students

Posted on April 16, 2024April 17, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Harry Jackson is a former school board candidate, president of Education Matters Virginia, member of the Coalition for TJ, a cybersecurity specialist, and a member of Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on American Thinker.

In February, a Fairfax County high school student read the news on his school-issued computer as Congress considered a bill authorizing $95 billion in foreign aid. Coming from a military family and having interest in serving our nation in the military himself, the student clicked on a Wikipedia link to the AK-47, a weapon mentioned in one of the articles he had been reading. An avalanche of harassment and prejudice against the student followed. This particular case provides a clear insight into the problem with public school districts’ Orwellian digital policies. These vague policies lack accountability mechanisms for administrators and teachers, and are vulnerable to implementation biases, particularly against ideologically conservative students.

The student, who had been excused from taking a math test that day, instead spent his time in class catching up on current events. As he clicked his way through the weapons used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the ones Americans are helping to buy, the school’s safety and security specialist arrived at the classroom. The student had no idea why he was there, and was surprised when the man called his name to escort him to the principal’s office.

There, one of the assistant principals informed the student that the teacher had been concerned because he was reading about the AK-47 and beckoned the security specialist to remove him from class. The teacher had not asked the student any questions, or redirected him to subject-based instructional material before the security specialist had arrived. Strangely, she had not even been in a position where she could physically view his personal screen.

Many of the district’s students and parents are unaware that Fairfax County Public Schools offers administrators, counselors, and teachers a program called Lightspeed Systems. It is essentially an unrestricted power for multiple school employees to surveille students’ computer screens in real time. While his classmates were taking their test, the teacher was spending her time figuratively watching over the student’s shoulder to see what he was reading.

Lightspeed is a new program in Fairfax County Public Schools and its use has not been codified into the district’s Acceptable Use Policy. An Acceptable Use Policy in a K-12 educational setting outlines guidelines and expectations for the appropriate use of technology resources within the school community. It serves as a framework to ensure that students, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders understand their rights and responsibilities when using digital devices, networks, and online services.

Fairfax County’s public school district follows what is known as a “permissive” Acceptable Use Policy that encourages students’ innovation, autonomy, and flexibility, allowing them to explore new technologies and methods to accomplish their tasks.

A student’s access to Wikipedia and the ability to research weapons used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict within the district’s permissive Acceptable Use Policy environment is neither blocked nor punishable under the code of conduct. A permissive Acceptable Use Policy approach recognizes the importance of digital literacy and the need for students to navigate and utilize the internet and various online platforms as part of their learning process. Access to Wikipedia, a comprehensive and widely used online resource, aligns with this goal. It is therefore unclear why the teacher would have called the school’s security specialist to remove the student from class.

After the student explained to the assistant principal why he had been reading about the AK-47, the student claims that the administrator understood his perspective and said, “Do your thing. Go to class.” So, the student did. He left the office and returned for the remaining minutes of his math class.

At the end of the class period when his classmates were leaving, he calmly asked the teacher why she did not speak to him before calling the security officer. The teacher responded that his search for the AK47 was “flagged” and she “had to report it,” making it seem as if she were forced to call the front office. Clearly, she did not wish to take responsibility for her surveillance and misunderstanding. Worse yet, she blamed the student for daring to question her and reported their conversation to the front office.

The assistant principal subsequently confronted the student for returning to that class after their meeting, claiming that was not his instruction. There was an obvious miscommunication between the administrator and the student about which class he should have walked to after his first time in the office. But then, the conversation shifted to the student’s questioning of the teacher.

The administrator explained to the student’s mother that in an effort to “deescalate” the situation, the student would be forced to sit out of class for a couple days, and proposed a “restorative conference circle.” The school administrators also informed the student’s mother that the circle was “voluntary.”

By the time the student, who notably has an Individual Education Program (IEP) and struggles with math, was permitted to rejoin his class, he had already missed three periods of class, equating to multiple hours of instruction.

For the missed classes, the student was required to sit in the school’s designated space for in-school suspensions. During one of the missed periods, his classmates took a quiz, for which the teacher discontinued the students’ internet capabilities.

Sitting far away from the class in an entirely different room and having no knowledge of the quiz, the student believed that the teacher was singularly restricting his access to the internet. It was not an unwarranted suspicion. After all, she had targeted his computer in class and assumed the absolute worst about him. When the internet began working again, he entered test Google searches such as “Ms. [teacher’s name] stop blocking my access,” and “If I was in class taking the quiz it wouldn’t matter.”

Unsurprisingly, the teacher immediately reported his Google searches to the school administrators, who then emailed the searched terms to his mother. In their communications, the administrators included the counselor, who is responsible for writing students’ letters of recommendation for college admissions. Students waive their right to review these letters, and such instances might very well be shared with college admissions officers.

Here again, the focus of the communication shared with the counselor was not on the student’s unjust exclusion from class, the inappropriate level of the teacher’s digital scrutiny on the student’s Google searches, or on her original mistake under the district’s digital policies. Instead, school administrators took issue with the student’s questioning of the teacher while he was being denied in-person instruction.

In the end, the student was never approached to participate in mediation or a restorative conference. The school did try, however, to persuade his mother to switch him into a different math class online, likely because the teacher demanded it. After she refused, the class had three different substitutes over the course of three weeks until they retained a permanent sub for the remainder of the school year. The teacher never returned to the student’s class, but she continues to teach her other classes and is in the school.

Public schools are at a fork in the road. Following pandemic policy’s prolonged closures, school districts are relying heavily on laptops for instructional material, even in primary schools.

There must be balance. Students should not always be learning on screens. And when they are, we ought to pose questions about how children are monitored. The increasing reliance on surveillance technology in public schools also raises questions about how long information will be stored, who has access to the data, and what its purpose will be — especially given Fairfax County Public Schools’ history with data breaches concerning students’ private information.

Considering the left-leaning inclinations of our public schools, we are subjecting students, especially those who are conservative, to unjust and unfounded targeting and persecution for their “thought crimes” with digital monitoring. Public school districts must be more transparent about their surveillance policies with students and parents.

White Leftists Cry ‘Racism’ To Win Political Battles — Even When Nonwhites Oppose Them

Posted on April 13, 2024April 11, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared on The Federalist.

On March 31, the National Organization for Women argued on social media that opposing males in women’s sports is “white supremacist patriarchy at work.” After receiving a torrent of justified criticism, the organization deleted its post on April 5.

The National Organization for Women is using tactics that are pervasive among white leftists. Founded by almost all white feminists in 1966, the white leaders of the organization since have used the concept of racial intersectionality to garner support for advocating clear sexism such as allowing males in women’s sports. It seems they believe that adding the racial element allows white liberals to castigate anyone who opposes their agenda as racist.

Politically blackfacing an issue, such as fairness in women’s sports, is actually what is racist. White liberal elites are using race to promote one of their pet projects that has nothing to do with race and is opposed by a majority of the black population. In a Pew Research Center survey, 68 percent of black respondents agreed with the statement that gender is determined by sex at birth. In the same survey, 61 percent of white respondents also agreed that gender is determined by sex at birth.

Setting aside the confusion in the deleted post of what “patriarchy” actually means, it is misleading to suggest that allowing men in women’s sports is somehow a black-supported issue and that opposing it is white supremacy. But that is the overplayed battle tactic of white liberals: anyone who disagrees is racist.

White Liberal Hypocrites in Fairfax County

In fact, recent pictures of the transgender movement’s rallies and political resolutions show that the vast majority of activists in this realm are white. In March, for example, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 9-0 to commemorate Transgender Visibility Day on Easter. Fairfax County is racially and ethnically diverse, the second most diverse county in Virginia. Yet the picture of the celebration following the resolution to commemorate the made-up holiday captured, with very few exceptions, almost all white smiling faces. The same is true for Fairfax City’s local council when they passed a similar proclamation days later.

White leftists on Fairfax County’s school board have also used race in their rise to power. They pay a great deal of lip service to being “anti-racist,” a poorly named, unjust concept that includes the use of present discrimination to remedy past discrimination. These school board members have promoted the overtly racist, “anti-racist” policies against Asian students to that end, dismantling gifted education at the district’s magnet school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

In an attempt to racially diversify the student population, Fairfax County’s school board members implemented admissions changes that replaced merit with equity. Ironically, both the chair and vice chair of the racist, “anti-racist” school board, elected by their fellow board members, are white leftists. These hypocrites refuse to live by their own race-baiting rules.

Silencing Brown Parents in Montgomery County

While local politicians from Fairfax County and Montogomery County, Maryland, discuss race incessantly, the rainbow mafia pushing transgender ideology on our children in public schools is notably white, and the public dissent is coming from a large group of mostly brown and black parents.

In March 2023, Montgomery County’s school board revoked its opt-out option for LGBT curriculum materials, including for students in the district’s elementary schools. Three families sued the district, arguing that the decision violated their First Amendment rights. In addition to the lawsuit, there were large protests at Montgomery County’s school board meetings where parents demanded the restoration of the opt-out option.

On June 6, 2023, mostly Muslim parents staged a massive protest during a school board meeting. Asra Nomani, a journalist, covered the protest and posted a video on X. It shows the majority black and brown parents chanting the phrase, “Protect our children.” They were demanding the fundamental right to guide their children’s upbringing and have a say about what they learn at their public schools. In contrast, the video also shows a group of white liberal activists donning rainbow gear and supporting the district’s continued indoctrination of the children.

Leftist Colonizers Define Black Identity

Potentially their gravest and most racist offense is when these white leftists, such as the ones leading the National Organization for Women or mandating the indoctrination of children in public schools, try to pontificate about what black people should believe and how they should vote. In 2020, for example, President Joe Biden infamously told voters, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

I wonder what Biden would say about the increasing number of black voters supporting Donald Trump for president in 2024. Some surveys estimate that Trump’s support among black voters in November could be double what it was in 2020. Would Biden dare now to claim those voters are not black?

And there is little worse than the leftist vitriol toward black conservatives. Justice Clarence Thomas, for example, referred to his Senate confirmation hearings to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court as “a high-tech lynching.”

Black leftist pundits sometimes join their liberal white counterparts’ demands for ideological homogeneity among the black population. Michael Eric Dyson, a black professor, made an abhorrent comment suggesting that Winsome Sears, the first female black lieutenant governor of Virginia, is a ventriloquist for white supremacy. Referring to Sears, he said, “There is a black mouth moving, but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates of the white supremacist practices.”

It seems many leftists agree that diversity of political thought among black Americans is unacceptable. If they veer from the preset course the left determines, then these leftists villainize them as tools of white supremacy incapable of independent thought.

White leftists, such as those leading the National Organization for Women, are not the kind and inclusive people they claim to be. Make no mistake: Anyone deviating from their political inclinations should not expect the so-called inclusivity preached in the white leftists’ sermons.

To manipulate voters, these leftists are blackfacing their pet issues to gain legitimacy. And deleting one post on social media does not erase that fact.

Virginia’s public schools need to stay in their lane regarding student absences

Posted on April 12, 2024April 10, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

This weekend, as we sat on the sidelines of our children’s lacrosse game, a mother told me about an incident at her son’s Fairfax County public school. When her mother, the student’s grandmother, went into his school late to sign in her grandson following his doctor’s appointment, the administrative assistant looked at her doubtingly and asked, “Are you sure he had a doctor’s appointment?”

Over the years, other parents have shared similar stories with me about the sanctimonious gatekeepers in the offices of our children’s public schools. Unfortunately, the invasive lines of questioning are codified in school policy to determine whether or not our reasons to excuse our own children from school are sufficient.

In December 2023, I received a notification from my son’s school that he had unexcused absences. I found this peculiar because I had excused him each time he was not in school. When I excuse my sons from school, I indicate “personal” — because it is. The reasons my sons are out of school are absolutely none of the district’s or the state’s business, as long as I am aware that they are not there.

A patient district administrator sympathetically explained to me at that time that the school was simply following district and state policy. Fairfax County Public Schools has a specific category for absences for which the parent excuses the student but does not provide a reason that he or she is missing called “unexcused locally defined.” Although it appears on students’ transcripts as “unexcused,” the policy is meant to allow students to make up their work and tests for that day.

The district administrator further informed me, to my surprise, that the “unexcused locally defined” category of absence is based on Virginia’s state policy. State law includes in its definition of an unexcused absence an absence in which “the parent provides a reason for the absence that is unacceptable to the school administration.”

According to Virginia state law, local school districts can decide that our children missing school for family vacations or important athletic events is unacceptable and that the absence is, therefore, unexcused. That sounds like a policy that a “parents matter” administration might want to revise.

On Dec. 15, 2023, I reached out to officials in the Virginia Department of Education, including the state’s superintendent of public instruction and the deputy superintendent of teaching and learning. I have yet to receive a response from them. I am confident that because we hear all the time that parents matter, the state administrators are looking into this issue — four months later.

As one Fairfax County high school administrator has pointed out to me, the policy provides a dysfunctional incentive structure. Parents are basically encouraged to lie and tell the school administrators that their children have an illness to ensure that their absences are excused.

It should be enough when parents say their children will not be in school that day. With that notification, it is the parent’s right to excuse the absence and not the school’s domain to determine validity. We should not need to inform our public schools’ administrations or teachers about personal matters in our children’s or families’ lives — because it is simply none of their business.