About Mark Spooner

I am a retired lawyer.  I graduated from Georgetown University in 1967 and from the University of Virginia Law School in 1970.  My wife and I married in 1968 and have resided in Northern Virginia for most of our adult lives.  We raised our two children in Arlington.  Since 2006, when I retired after 35 years of practicing law, we have resided in West Springfield in Fairfax County.

My interest in the school system increased significantly in 2019 and 2020.  I read about efforts to change the enrollment criteria for the nationally preeminent Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology so that the proportion of Asian Americans in the student body would be reduced and the proportion of other minorities would be increased.  I followed the controversy about keeping Fairfax County’s public schools closed to in-person learning in 2020, while private schools in the area generally remained open.  And, I started hearing claims that our students were being indoctrinated with radical ideologies about race relations and gender issues.

My interest peaked during the campaign for Virginia Governor in 2021.  The candidates clashed on what the role of parents should be in setting the policies and curricula of the schools, and, in addition, there were conflicting claims about whether “Critical Race Theory” was being used to teach our kids.

These developments motivated me to study the facts for myself.  I have spent a great deal of time in recent months studying publicly available documents, as well as records I have obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.  I am starting this blog to share what I have learned so far, to provide a place to share additional findings, and to create a forum for obtaining knowledgeable input from others.