In a dramatic twist that underscores a culture of selective accountability within Fairfax County Public Schools, sources say, FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid has promoted Hayfield Principal Darin Thompson out of his job at Hayfield to a new post inside central FCPS administration. At the same time, FCPS today forced out celebrated South County High School football coach Gerry Pannoni after he dared to call out unethical recruiting practices at Hayfield.

Fairfax County Public Schools didn’t respond to questions regarding Pannoni and Thompson, despite a request sent as early as 1:14 p.m. on Friday.

After hours of silence, on Friday evening about 8:01 p.m., traditionally considered a graveyard for so-called “news dumps” related to negative news coverage, FCPS published an unusual comment on the Hayfield website, stating: “Dr. Darin Thompson Remains Principal of Hayfield Secondary School. Please disregard the erroneous reports that have been circulating throughout the Hayfield community. As confirmed by FCPS Human Resources and a matter of public record, Dr. Darin Thompson remains the principal of Hayfield Secondary School.”

However, the Fairfax County Times has learned Thompson that instead of facing accountability for shielding controversial football coach Darryl Overton over a year of recruitment scandals, critics say he now “fails up” with a new position at FCPS administrative offices off Gatehouse Road in Falls Church or at an office called Willow Oaks Administrative Center.

One FCPS staffer said, “We have such a toxic culture at Hayfield Secondary School because of this whole mess. It’s created an us v. them at the school. The family culture is gone. They have a culture of secrets and there is a lack of communication about this dramatic change. The lack of respect by FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid, Assistant Superintendent Michelle Boyd, and Principal Darin Thompson is absolutely outrageous.”

The move would bring him closer to Reid and Boyd, who backed him through controversies over his mishandling of the football scandal. It’s understood that FCPS offered to allow Thompson to remain principal if he accepted mentoring, but he rejected that deal.

Thompson’s expected abrupt exit would mark the culmination of a tenure defined by complaints of poor leadership, internal complaints, and administrative mismanagement.

According to people familiar with the situation, FCPS asked Thompson to be mentored by former principal Pamela Brumfield but Thompson refused the mentorship. FCPS will now bring Brumfield to Hayfield to be the principal.

At South County, Pannoni has been revered for his accomplishments, including a state championship and being named National Football Coach of the Year. Yet, sources say that when Pannoni joined five other coaches in a letter to Reid to voice concerns over the Hayfield recruitment scandal, he soon became the target of an intense pressure campaign.

According to people familiar with the situation, after the coaches’ letter was published, a local podcast released an audio recording of Pannoni indelicately describing Overton as “grooming” young athletes. For weeks, Pannoni was pressured to resign by South County principal Samuel Khoshaba and director of student activities Marvin Wooten. After refusing to resign, administrators told him today that his contract wasn’t renewed.

“My principal really wants Overton.”

That was the text message from the Hayfield athletic director, Monty Fritts, last January, revealing that Hayfield’s principal, Thompson, pushed for Overton to lead the football program at the school. Overton’s hiring set in motion a year of conflict, controversy, litigation, and scandal that has led to the football team withdrawing from state playoffs, an external school board investigation, proposed legislation, and the athletic director and coach quitting their jobs.

From the start, sources say, his appointment to Hayfield in 2023 was orchestrated by Boyd, who pushed for his hiring despite misgivings from school board members who contested his qualifications. Thompson arrived from Richmond Public Schools, where he faced litigation for barring a student with special needs from attending the school.

Complaints about Thompson’s leadership began almost immediately, ranging from a lack of communication to an inability to handle conflicts among staff. His tenure at Hayfield was marred by discontent, with parents, teachers, and students voicing concerns over his decision-making.

One of the most contentious issues was Thompson’s handling of Overton, a longtime football coach whose tenure was immediately riddled with controversy. While a teacher years earlier, Thompson had worked with Overton at Freedom High School in Prince William County Public Schools.

While Overton brought a winning history to Hayfield, coaching Freedom to two state championships, his program immediately faced persistent complaints of favoritism, conflicts with parents and players, and recruiting violations.

Rather than addressing these concerns, Thompson doubled down on his support for Overton—going so far as to push for his continued presence at the school with his hiring as a security specialist, moving a former Fairfax County Police Department veteran, Thomas M. Holland, to Gatehouse for a new job.

In late August, FCPS Superintendent Reid had a meeting with parents and about 25 minutes into the meeting, Reid retook the microphone, moving up to the front row near Thompson and her chief counsel, John Foster. Looking at the audience, she said, “I’m clear that, at this time, based on the reports I’ve seen, that Coach Overton has my full confidence – that our principal, Dr. Thompson, has my full confidence…,” football team parents breaking into applause.

“Until such time, until such time as there is evidence to the contrary, that full confidence will remain,” Reid continued.

Reid then abruptly closed the one-hour meeting in just 27 minutes and 40 seconds, announcing that she wouldn’t be taking any more questions publicly and instructing attendees to line up in an aisle in front of her to speak to her one-on-one.

Last October, the Virginia High School League said it conducted its own investigation and barred Hayfield from two years of playoff games. Reid and Thompson chose to fight the decision. Eventually, they withdrew the team from playoffs in late November when the Fairfax County Times revealed the incriminating texts from the athletic director.

Amid growing controversy during the football season, Pannoni joined five other coaches in sending Reid a letter in early November expressing their concerns with the eroding integrity of youth sports in Fairfax County. Soon after, as Reid called a meeting of the coaches over their concerns, Overton’s supporters publicly targeted Pannoni to be fired for his criticisms of recruitment practices at Hayfield.

After Thompson and Reid withdrew Hayfield from state playoff games, a YouTube channel that supports Overton released an audio recording of Pannoni speaking about the scandal and referring to Overton’s recruiting practices as “grooming.”

Like a lot of coaches, Overton works with elementary school children, training them through his business, Playmakers Elite, and then coaching many of them through middle school into high school. Overton frequently refers to this group as “OTF” or “Only The Family.” In the audio recording, Pannoni noted that he wasn’t alleging illegal activity. Overton denied the allegations in several media interviews over the Christmas holidays.

After the publication of the audiotape, Overton's allies again waged a fierce social media campaign to have Pannoni fired. According to sources, South County’s principal, Samuel Khoshaba, and its director of student activities, Marvin Wooten, pressured Pannoni to resign. Khoshaba, Wooten, and Pannoni didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“We’re seeing a culture of retaliation,” a source familiar with the situation said. “This resignation is not an isolated event; it reflects a troubling trend in Fairfax County Public Schools.” People familiar with athletic programs in the county said they fear that school district officials are targeting coaches one by one for blowing the whistle on the issues at Hayfield and embarrassing Reid.

He led the South County Stallions to a 15-0 record and the 2019 Class 6 state championship in 2019. Pannoni has led the Stallions to an overall 84-31 record with a 74% winning percentage. In 2020, the National Federation of State High School Associations named Pannoni the National Football Coach of the Year. After leaving town to nurse his dying wife in a warmer climate, Pannoni returned to coach South County when this Hayfield mess exploded.

Sources familiar with the situation allege that Boyd, an assistant superintendent and high-ranking school district official overseeing Hayfield, played a direct role in pressuring the South County coach to step down.

Adding another layer of irony to the unfolding drama, the head basketball coach at Edison High School was suspended earlier this month for alleged recruiting violations—an offense seen by many as relatively minor compared to the sweeping allegations at Hayfield.

Critics argue that while a whistleblower like Pannoni pays the ultimate price by being forced out, the very figures implicated in the scandal continue to operate largely unpunished. The disciplinary action against the Edison coach further underscores the perception of a double standard within FCPS: mid-level staff and outspoken critics are penalized. In contrast, high-profile administrators and coaches remain insulated by a culture of favoritism.

As parents, students, and community members demand transparency and fairness, the district’s opaque handling of these controversies continues to fuel frustration and mistrust.

Earlier this week, Thompson sent parents a confusing email, ignoring the controversy that pitched the school into chaos and, instead, lauding Overton’s “enduring legacy” at the school and confirming that the football coach would stay as security specialist.

Now, the news of Thompson keeping a job in the school system has staff reeling.

“It’s classic FCPS. A failed administrator fails up,” said one longtime staff member. “No accountability. Just push the problem somewhere else and act like it never happened.”

Similarly, late last year, Ann Bonitatibus, the controversial principal of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, resigned as principal of the school but was moved to Gatehouse to oversee “talent acquisition,” following a tenure in which the school plummeted in rankings from No. 1 in the United States to No. 14. The rankings drop followed school board changes in 2020 that removed a merit admissions test to the school and replaced it with “holistic” admissions designed to alter the racial demographic of students.

Meanwhile, Overton announced last Friday that he was leaving his coaching role at Hayfield to take a job at the for-profit performance academy The St. James as director of football and head coach of its Performance Academy. Since then, Overton and his former Hayfield football assistant coaches have been busy trying to recruit students, sources say. Moreover, Overton has also taken with him most of his coaching staff from Hayfield, stripping the school of its football coaching team.

For many in the Hayfield community, these events highlight deeper systemic issues of FCPS as an opaque administrative structure that protects insiders, disregards community concerns, and rewards failure. As Hayfield prepares for new leadership, the scars of Thompson’s tenure remain—and the question lingers among parents on whether the next principal will be held to a higher standard or whether FCPS will continue a cycle of avoiding real accountability.

Read the Fairfax County Times' complete coverage of the Hayfield Secondary School football scandal, “Friday Night Lies,” at FairfaxTimes.com/Hayfield . If you have a tip, please contact us at . This reporting is done in collaboration with the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative.