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When it comes to the boundary issue...
Vote Zia Tompkins for Braddock
Voices of Fairfax undertook an endorsement process because community members repeatedly asked who, based upon our research, would best represent their concerns.  This has been a time-consuming process, full of intense and respectful debate with input from residents throughout Fairfax County.  We appreciate the time candidates provided in responding to our questionnaire, meeting with us, participating in debates, and making themselves available at community events.  We encourage you to exercise your VOICE at the ballot box, and we look forward to working with the new School Board.
A nuclear physicist and Dad of three children, Zia’s main reason for running for school board is to fight against school boundary changes.
4braddockschools.com
✓   Against proposed boundary policy 8130.8
The proposed policy 8130.8 was almost voted in by the current school board without input from the community, and would have given the board power to move more children without public engagement and rezone students based on their socio-economic and/or racial characteristics.
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Zia is passionately against the proposed boundary policy 8130.8. His overwhelming reason for running for School Board is to fight boundary changes as described in the 8130.8 document. He states, “I have based the central plank of my campaign platform on raising awareness and fighting against [boundary] changes.”
​✓   Supports keeping families in their neighborhood school of choice
The current school board majority is interested in potentially rezoning your neighborhood out of your school of choice, ignoring the impact on your community and property values, in order to distribute the demographics across the county. The current board wanted to remove from the considerations for a boundary change the impact on neighborhoods and overall impact on families and students among other concerning changes.

Zia states in his website that, “Schools are a wonderful product of the communities from which they spring. They cannot be arbitrarily recreated and when heavy-handed attempts are made to socially engineer, the bonds of trust between parents, teachers and administrators are broken. Disenfranchised, schools and students suffer. This is not “fear mongering” but the real results of policy decisions.”
✓   Offers innovative short term and long term solutions for overcrowding
Zia argues that the Capital Improvement Program needs to be changed and it requires, “an energetic and proactive school board that can hold the superintendent to account to get ahead of capacity deficiencies before they become crises (largely too late).”
​✓   ​Advocates for active, ongoing community input
Zia is dedicated to obtaining and listening to community input in all areas of a child’s education. He is especially concerned with the Board’s requirements that all high school students have the same County issued lap top.  He has serious concerns about how Google could harvest students personal information citing a recent law suit this year where YouTube (owned by Google) violated children’s privacy.  He then cites a 2017 investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation which found that these services “collect far more information on kids than is necessary and store this information indefinitely….includ[ing] browsing history, search terms, location data, contact lists, and behavioral information. Of course all of this often happens without the awareness or consent of students and their families.” 
​✓   Zia is a nuclear physicist and dad to 3 young children
Zia graduated with a triple B.S.’s in Physics, Nuclear Engineering, Mathematics and a minor in Chemistry from the University of Maryland and holds a triple master’s in Physics, Nuclear Engineering and Aviation Systems from the University of Tennessee.  He is a nuclear physicist, private pilot and is currently a DoD civilian supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a combined 18 years of public service. 

He is also the proud father of three kids all of whom are coming up through the FCPS system. Right now, Elizabeth and Tom are the only two members of the school board who have children attending FCPS. We need to get a parent like Zia on the board to better represent current families.