It's often ranked among the top American public high schools but now a wave of controversy surrounds Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia. Reports show the school received hundreds of thousands of dollars from entities linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

Parents Defending Education is calling on the state’s governor and attorney general to investigate.

PDE President Nicole Neily joined The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat Friday morning to discuss the situation.

“There were three entities linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military that had donated over a million dollars to the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and it raises questions about what they got in exchange for this," she said. “It sounds like they were basically able to come in and look under the hood. They had access to floor plans, lesson plans, and then they were able to go back overseas and replicate that model.”

Niely also touched on parental exclusion policies which are policies that withhold information from parents, usually in regard to gender identity.

"This is concerning because we think about this in the context of the fact that parents have to sign a permission slip for kids to have access to an aspirin, go on a field trip, even have sunscreen at school, yet now they're encouraging students lead double lives and keeping really important information that could impact a child's mental health from their families," she said.

You can watch the full interview here: