‘No repeat of Hayfield’: Fairfax Co. makes changes after probe finds 2 football programs violated state rules
Fairfax County Public Schools is making a series of changes in response to an external probe that found two high school football programs in the Northern Virginia suburb violated state rules.
In a letter to families this week, Superintendent Michelle Reid and School Board Chair Sandy Anderson said the Chicago-based law firm Baker McKenzie finished its investigation into allegations regarding student-athlete transfer and eligibility practices across the division. Hayfield Secondary School and Fairfax High School were found to have violated Virginia High School League rules.
Now, transfer eligibility will be handled at the central office level instead of high school level. The school district is also coming up with a set of standards that will scrutinize new student registrations the same way transfers within the division are reviewed.
The steps come after 2024 allegations accusing then-Coach Darryl Overton of recruiting violations for allegedly encouraging his former players at Freedom High School in Woodbridge to transfer to Hayfield. Overton was in his first season leading the Fairfax County school, and also worked there as a security specialist.
Hayfield ultimately withdrew from the postseason after playing just one game.
And at Fairfax High, Fox 5 DC reported coaches had been accused of paying thousands to recruit a football player.
Reid, meanwhile, had publicly apologized for the county’s handling of the Hayfield scandal.
“When a student wants to play on a team or play a sport, whether it’s a team sport or an individual sport, they want to know that it’s a level playing field,” Board member Mateo Dunne told WTOP on Friday. “They want to know that there are rules. They want to know that the refs will judge in a neutral manner. And unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case in recent decades, but going forward, it certainly will be.”
Dunne said having an external law firm that hasn’t done work for the county in the last 10 years lead the investigation was critical, because it “quickly became apparent that the internal investigation was not credible.”
In response to the Hayfield situation, the division started using a platform that allows for centralized collection, review and processing of transfers, the district said. It also gave the Office of Student Activities and Athletics authority to investigate questions or concerns about a student’s eligibility.
Fairfax County is expanding its mandatory training requirements to include all levels of coaches, including unpaid volunteers, in response to training gaps highlighted during the investigation.
The changes, Reid and Anderson wrote, “do not include personnel actions which are confidential by law and which the Superintendent has taken and will take as appropriate.”
When Hayfield’s 2024 football season ended, Overton took a job with the St. James Performance Academy as its director of football, the academy announced.
“Since Hayfield, we have seen consistent, proactive enforcement of athletic rules and regulations,” Dunne said.
“We’ve seen vigorous oversight across a variety of schools, and that, to me, is heartening, because ultimately, what we want to make sure is that there is no repeat of Hayfield. And we also want to be able to say that we have upheld the integrity of the FCPS athletics program and that we have provided accountability and transparency,” he added.