'Joy' Is a Recurring Theme These Days ...

... Is it the right one?

By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Newly minted vice presidential candidate Tim Walz had a lot to say about joy this week in Philadelphia, where Kamala Harris announced him as her running mate. Even when Walz slipped and suggested that the governor of Pennsylvania is the guy he’d like to attend a Springsteen concert with — in New Jersey — it didn’t put a damper on the “joy” Walz was celebrating in the hall.

How long will it last? This is politics — not long. The highs and lows of election politics bounce between joy and gloom, sometimes several times in the same news cycle.

So when Spotsylvania Schools School Board member Carol Medawar opened her conversation with the Advance at a local bookstore on Wednesday night with the observation that “I’m more excited about this school year than I have been in so many years. I just feel we’re going to move in a really positive direction…. I just feel joy,” it was hard not to think of Walz, and wonder if Medawar’s joy would likely be as fleeting as his.

It didn’t take long to realize that Medawar wasn’t simply mouthing the word that has been bouncing around the media airwaves this week. Nor was she riding some Rocky Mountain High that will be gone in a few days.

There’s something more thoughtful, less emotional in Medawar’s joy.

A Season for Everything

A long-time educator herself, Medawar knows that joy is a natural part of the school-year cycle. Everyone who teaches is exhausted by the time April rolls around. A month or two off and the hope that springs eternal with a new school year naturally breeds joy. Certainly, some of that joyous anticipation of a new school year that comes natural to teachers was a part of Medawar’s thoughts.

That doesn’t explain her joy fully, however. For it became clear that Medawar is feeling good about the promising horizon she sees for the Spotsylvania school system.

“It’s only been 7 months since the [new] Board started,” she said, “but there’s a lot of good things that have happened.”

Some of the things she referenced included restoring the Board to its proper governance role. Under Lisa Phelps’ tenure as Board Chair, the conservative majority gave her the sole authority to approve licensed hires, and then-Superintendent Mark Taylor the authority to approve non-licensed hires, thereby bypassing a full Board vote.

The argument was that this was necessary to speed the hiring process owing to the teacher shortage. The problem is that the shortage is nationwide, and Boards weren’t resorting to that tactic to solve the problem. Instead, the move felt more like an extension of the culture war the previous Board was fighting.

Whatever the reason for the shift in policy, that’s no longer the case, and hirings are again the responsibility of the full Board, not just one individual.

Medawar also discussed the shift from the stringent, narrow policy decisions the previous Board tried to push through — for example, banning “the porn books” as Phelps has so indelicately put it — to returning flexibility to policy discussions.

“We can’t be so stringent,” Medawar said, “that families can’t do what they think is best for their children. We can’t just impose our belief system on a district with 24,000 kids. Public schools need to be flexible enough to reach the common good. It’s a corner piece of a democracy. … We don’t have to agree about every idea, but we have to have a flexible enough system to allow for opinion.”

To back that point, she notes that the current Board is creating that flexibility without resorting to block voting. Medawar said that the five members who loosely constitute the current “majority” — Nicole Cole, Lorita Daniels, Megan Jackson, Medawar, and Belen Rodas — disagree on a wide range of issues. And vote accordingly.

They also present a range of approaches to dealing with the ongoing antics that Phelps continues to bring to the meetings. “We have the people who will fight back,” Medawar said, “and people who will quietly, thoughtfully, intentionally try to settle things down.”

A Big Win

Much of the energy fueling Medawar’s joy now is coming from the new superintendent, Clint Mitchell.

“What I love about him is his energy,” she said. “We needed a boost of energy. And he wants to be here. I think that energy is contagious.”

That energy was on full display this week at Riverbend High School and at Massaponax High School, where the district’s convocations were held. Half of the district’s teachers attended the morning event at Riverbend, the other half the afternoon event at Massaponax.

Medawar confesses that she was so excited she attended both sessions.

According to teachers the Advance has spoken with, Medawar wasn’t alone about the positive vibes Mitchell brought to the convocation. At several points, teachers loudly expressed their appreciation for the goals Mitchell is proposing. Among them? Strengthening board governance.

“He speaks the language of educators,” Medawar said, “because he is one. He just gets it. It’s been his passion and his career. He’s focused on kids. Keep the main thing the main thing.”

“The number of head nods” at those events, she said. “There was a collective sigh of relief. I hope [the teachers now] feel that the School Board has their back.”

Still a Ways to Go

What Medawar did not display in her time with the Advance Wednesday evening was a giddy, Pollyannish belief that the tough times are behind the Board.

“We have work to do,” she said.

“We have new literacy standards and new math standards” to implement, she said. Moreover, “The accreditation standards are moving.”

She also acknowledges that the Board still faces considerable challenges.

“We’re not at the end of the negative story,” she said. “Hopefully, we have learned some things … and can restore the [district’s] reputation.”

Joy, however, is a key part of taking on the very real challenges ahead of the district. And Mitchell, Medawar believes, is key to making that happen.

At the convocation, she noted, Mitchell also talked about joy. “He … talked about having some joy in this job again. It doesn’t have to be all testing and achievement. Make school a place kids and teachers want to come to, and teachers want to stay.”

“I’m tired of the story being [Phelps and April Gillespie],” Medawar said. “I didn’t run for School Board to deal with adults whose behavior I can’t control. I ran to work on policy and do things that are good for kids.”

Not all the blame falls on the opposition, however. Medawar knows she has work to do as well. “I have to work on me not focusing on the noise, but on the good things that are going on in the building every day,” she said.

With Mitchell’s arrival and the feeling that teachers are regaining confidence in the Board to support their work, Medawar feels empowered to focus on the good things.

“There are so many positive things going on. I’m more excited about this school year than I have been in so many years,” she said. “I just feel we’re going to move in a really positive direction. This is a really hard thing we went through, and we’re going to come out of it better.”

Seeing Joy Others Can’t

There’s an argument to be made that in addition to the new leadership, the slow righting of Board governance, and the diminution of Phelps’ antics on the public discussion, Medawar is finding joy because school has been the source of her joy since she was a young.

“I would not be sitting here where I am today without amazing public schools,” she said. “I didn’t have an idealized amazing childhood,” she said. “I just didn’t.”

What she did have were teachers who checked on her, made sure she was good, and pointed her in directions that gave her opportunities far beyond the small-town West Virginia community she was born into.

Their greatest gift? They gave me, she said, “the ability to see things outside my experience.”

That’s what the best educations do. And that is what leads to joy.

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