OPINION: Special Meeting of Fredericksburg School Board Left Parent with More Questions than Answers

"What I quickly realized, however, was that the problem was even more complex and disturbing than I had imagined."

By Jessica Reed
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Photo by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash

Since the August 27 transportation-focused School Board meeting, I’ve been left with lukewarm, mixed feelings. I find myself craving connection with my fellow parents who attended.

I am confident and grateful that school board members Molly McFadden and Matt Roe truly understand Fredericksburg families’ frustration and are working hard to get the specific answers we, as parents, deserve.

However, after listening to the countless stressful, frustrated, and angry testimonies from myself and other parents, I found the board’s continued defensiveness astonishing. I would have thought that the tears of the mother recounting her kindergartner with Down syndrome—who now doesn’t want to attend school—would have erased any defensiveness.

We parents did receive transparency and background information about the root causes of the issues. What I quickly realized, however, was that the problem was even more complex and disturbing than I had imagined.

Some children were required to wait at dangerous intersections that even adults would not cross. Many students were picked up earliest in the morning and dropped off latest in the afternoon, sometimes on different buses.

Parents described buses passing their children’s stops two or three times before finally letting them off. Some rides lasted up to three hours, leaving kids late to school—missing breakfast—or getting home so late that dinner was already on the table.

My child was one of many the school quite literally “lost” during the chaos.

All this occurred with radio silence from the district—phones went unanswered, and the only communication was a single cryptic text thanking parents for their patience and citing “unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control.”

I take tremendous umbrage with the idea that this disaster could not have been prevented—or at least mitigated. I actually left the meeting with more questions than I had going in:

1. For at least two years, the city has been planning logistics for a new and larger middle school, as well as converting the previous building into a third elementary school. Where was the planning for transportation capacity? Going from three schools to four should have required that math to be done well in advance. Such analysis would have shown the need for more buses on day one—not months later. Similarly, adding electric buses should have triggered planning for additional charging stations.

2. Even if the departure of the head of transportation was unexpected, why was that department the only one with institutional knowledge about the nuances we are now grappling with?

3. Do city contract dates for transportation staff align with those of surrounding counties, or—as was implied at the meeting—are we behind the curve? If so, when were our contracts finalized, and did this leave Fredericksburg scrambling to hire after the most qualified candidates had already been hired elsewhere?

4. Why did superintendent Marci Catlett and School Board members seem completely in the dark about how out of control and distressing the situation had become? In any organization, a debacle of this magnitude would warrant accountability—if not firings.

I love Fredericksburg. I love that, even as our area grows, we remain a small town at heart where families are interconnected. Yet, despite this closeness, and despite our significant poverty rate, I can’t help but wonder if Fredericksburg schools’ continued struggles are less about funding and more about leadership failures.

Fellow parents, we have one distinct advantage that larger counties like Stafford, Prince William, and Spotsylvania do not—our size. We can reach our school administrators more efficiently, and our collective voice is louder. Let’s use that voice—because our children deserve better.

Jessica Reed is the parent of two children who attend elementary and middle school in Fredericksburg City Public Schools.

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