ANALYSIS: Conspicuous in Its Boredom
Monday night's Spotsylvania School Board Meeting featured a welcome return to adult behavior.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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For those accustomed to tuning in on Monday nights and watching the Spotsylvania School Board offer a cable-access version of “The Gong Show,” last night’s meeting was a disappointment.
For parents and teachers and staff worn down by four years of childish stunts that undermined K-12 education, however, Monday night was a welcome reprieve and offered hope for the year ahead.
The newest iteration of the Spotsylvania County School Board is no collection of like-minded ideologues. The members come from across the political spectrum, are men and women, Black and white, professionals and nonprofessionals, educators and noneducators.
What they did share in common last night was a commitment to place personal agendas aside in order to recommit themselves to doing the work of supporting the school division and its leadership in educating the county’s children.
Megan Jackson was unanimously re-elected as Board Chair, and Belen Rodas unanimously re-elected as Vice Chair. No one else was nominated to run against them. The move was a nod to Jackson’s work over the past year stabilizing a Board that had for the two prior years bordered on unmanageable.
The most-controversial topic of the evening was a discussion about Board member continuing education and travel. A calm discussion led to a red-lined version of the policy that will come before the Board for a second read at the next meeting.
The one item on the agenda that drew concern from the public was giving Superintendent Clint Mitchell permission to serve as a mentor to other superintendents in the state and work as an adjunct professor.
The Board backed that move 7-0, celebrating a superintendent who is “always learning, always educating.”
It’s a long way to December, and school divisions of this size are sure to face difficult problems and contentious debates.
How those problems are faced and how those debates are carried out, however, matters.
At least on Monday night — the first for this new Board — there was reason to hope that this diverse group of people can work together to serve the common good.
Time will tell if this School Board continues to work together. But for the people who packed the room Monday night, it was a hopeful sign.
Here’s to making School Board meetings Boring Again.
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