The new majority on the Spotsylvania County School Board should be cautious -- even allergic -- toward employing the heavy-handed tactics voters repudiated in November.
I believe Mr. Taylor could work out his debt to the Parents by joining the school’s janitorial services. Cleaning the scum out of all the bathroom toilets may be cathartic for him.
I will be more interested to see how the meetings will be run and how questions to the superintendent are handled from behind the dais.
Just one chairman who understands Roberts Rules of Order would radically change the tone and the mood. Perhaps then Ms. Cole can put questions out on the floor without getting run over by fellow board members? A few sessions where Taylor gets to answer a few questions might be a better catharsis for the community.
Running meetings with civility and professionalism is the easiest part. The heavy lifting and real work to make a meeting effective and efficient is the real work and hard part. We have to get back to competent Board leadership.
Having watched the chaos of the past two years closely, often attending meetings and as a supporter of public education, I believe Mr. Kenney makes good points in this article. The school board that will take its place on the dais in January cannot be described as strictly Republican or Democrat. Two of the new members ran as independents. One of the new members, Megan Jackson, ran a totally independent campaign and prevailed over Kirk Twigg by a large margin in the reliably Republican Livingston District. I don't believe Livingston voters had an epiphany of sorts and voted for Ms. Jackson because she's a Democrat (she's not). Megan Jackson won, I believe, because the Livingston voters (and I believe many Spotsylvanians) are exhausted by the chaos and dysfunction displayed by the soon to be former board's majority.
Having had a chance to speak with every one of the three new members, as well as Daniels and Cole, I'm confident that we're going to see a return to the business of educating students in Spotsylvania. Will it be easy? Of course not. In fact, teaching and learning is hard, messy business in the best of times, much less coming in after what has been a disastrous two years and facing the economic and funding challenges that are statewide.
However, my hope and cautious optimism is that the seven women (and I do love writing the word "women" here) will find a way to work toward repairing the damage. My advice, and I believe that the new majority will adhere to this, is that before any decisions are made that the question is asked, "Is this what's best for all of the students?" That question should be the guiding force for any decisions, policy changes, hirings, and firings. I trust this newly elected board to do what's best for students. If they don't live up to that they will be challenged, and rightly so.
While I agree with the overall point that we have to move past the hyper-partisan revenge politics, Mr. Kenney misses a few significant points.
Mr. Taylor's contract doesn't expire until 2026. The new board cannot and should not wait until then to replace him. Baker's contract situation was completely different. His contract was set to expire at the end of the school year when he was fired. Baker was also a highly qualified superintendent by any standard. Mr. Taylor is not.
It's also important to note that the new school board majority will still be the majority regardless of what happens in November 2025. Only 3 seats will be up for grabs in that election. 2 of those seats are seats held by the current majority.
You don’t have a new ombudsman, just a reader who corrected factual inaccuracies in your column. The new School Board majority will not be up for reelection until 2027. This is an easily verifiable fact, yet your column erroneously stated the majority could change hands in a couple years. In addition, you stated that “we were misinformed about Mr. Taylor’s contract...” Who misinformed you? You do realize that you can FOIA his contract?
I would recommend that you correct the errors in your column and note these corrections for readers.
This is where you guys are going to hang your hat? I mean, I guess... but all it does is string out the same question until the end of 2025. Doesn't purchase anything really.
This is why folks repeat the line. They really do hate us (and you guys really do hate Republicans). Whole line of reasoning being batted around by people who matter... and you guys pick this. LOL.
He won’t answer a straightforward question. He said he received inaccurate info--which was crucial to his column--yet he won’t say who supplied him with this bad info. Makes me think he just f’d up.
In this strange world of conservative enablers, it is the perpetrators of abuse and corruption who are the victims in need of protection from those who would hold them to account. An award-winning school system undone, the education of thousands of school children compromised for years by self-serving wannabe politicians, the loss of too many good teachers to nearby jurisdictions when their local system was being dismantled. But by all means, let's worry about the unqualified yet overpaid zealot who willingly did the damage on behalf of a corrupt board.
Surely you see the problem here, yes? It is one thing to call such tactics fascism etc. when Taylor et al. do it. How does it become Democracy! (TM) when the opposition does it in turn? Why is resisting the elected will of the majority a good thing a year ago, but insubordination one year later?
This goes right to the heart of the institutions themselves and the wider question of treating one's friends and neighbors as evil for the sin of disagreement. Our public institutions should reflect the public -- not the partisan. If all Taylor et al. did was expose how deaf the institutions are to *any* Republican involvement in public education, the precisely wrong lesson would be to confirm all their arguments by showing that this is all about position, jobs, and power -- and not education writ large.
A noble effort trying to confuse the issue with big words. Please focus, lest you be perceived as the embodiment of a once proud party that now simply enables bad people.
You don't have an argument, just a point of view. They are not the same thing. You also appear to be more intent on trying to score cheap points rather than truly engage. if FXBG Advance is going to survive, you need to do better.
All arguments are viewpoints. Some viewpoints don’t have an argument.
I have done you the courtesy of providing an argument, yet you seem overwhelmed by the idea of exchange. Others — gratefully — are more serious and very pleased.
Agreed, I too was reminded of that as I read Mr Kenney's column. It does appear to be the norm from their highest leader, to their lowliest column writer. Not particularly moral nor true, but certainly expected.
Didn't you say you work as an English teacher? I'm assuming at a public school?
You do know that is the embodiment of socialism, right?
I've often wondered why it is the very people who most enjoy the benefits of our way of governing, who hate it so. Cops, fireman, vets, and - on some occasions, apparently, English teachers.
You don't mind taking the money. You're glad to have the defined benefits of VRS or Veteran's Administration healthcare - yet you see the government and it's benefits as the problem.
Seems more to me like you hate other folks receiving the same benefits you already enjoy.
And yet, you'll tell anyone that asks, and most that don't ask - what great patriots you are.
Strange. Yet not surprising.
So yes, I'll now, once again go off to work. Not really minding paying taxes if they support our country. I consider it my duty. An investment in my children and grandchildren's future.
I don't even need someone like you receiving the benefit of that money to say that you're welcome as you explain what a capitalist you are. I would like it if folks like Musk or Trump had to pay the same taxes as I do, as I see more than 12% of my income going to SS, while they don't pay a penny after about $150k. And I see wealth inequality getting worse yearly, etc.
But that's not a problem of poor people taking from me. They don't write those laws. Republicans do.
Welfare for billionaires is more of a problem than hungry people wanting warm food. You want that fixed, quit voting Republican.
Now go work that for that government paycheck you despise so much.
Yet remember this — if Spotsylvania Democrats believe a Night of the Long Knives is justified in January, do not whine much less be surprised if Spotsylvania Republicans begin treating the public education as a modern-day spoils system in two years when they recapture the board. Be very careful on this point — because more than just Spotsylvania is watching.
Mr Kenney, like most Republicans nowdays, seems to pretend, not only to others, but to themselves - that DJT does not represent them, he is an aberration which they just happen to benefit from.
Yet read this illogical, fear raising screed and see if it is anything other than a Republican complaining that someone MIGHT do what they already have done.
This Board doesn't even sit until after the New Year, yet we get a full column of innuendos, accusations, etc.
How many times have we witnessed this over the years? Enough it should no longer be surprising. The cheater thinks everyone cheats, the liar that everyone lies, the sexual molester that everyone grabs them by the ......
So, of course a board elected to replace a rampant aberration should be chastised before they ever sit.
I don't know if the Spotsy School Board will decide that their Superintendent, who supervises a multimillion dollar school system will be kept to work. I doubt they know it yet. I suspect it will be something that they will discuss. As well as what direction the school should go. That's their job.
But as even Mr Kenney notes, though he tries to minimize it, rationalize it, or normalize it - there are many long and ongoing instances of outrage that have occurred.
From an apparently unqualified person being placed into such an important position under questionable means. Who has shown multiple examples of why he was unqualified.
So though I am sure there will be many "let's Go Brandon" Republicans swooning in outrage when the new board convenes, (else how did this disgrace get going in the 1st place?); a possible return to normalcy should not be cause for complaint - BEFORE it happens.
Sadly, though, these are not normal times, are they?*
*Meanwhile, back at the klan - the Republican Party's champion, Donald Trump, is claiming boring old Joe Biden is the real threat to democracy....and the Party that Mr Kenney represents are lining that benighted, miserable 90+ times credibly accused felon, and found fraud and molester as their representative to lead your children's nation.
Again.
So I guess in that type of bizarro world, Mr Kenney's column makes perfect sense.
Meanwhile, congratulations and sympathy, Spotsy. One for returning to normalcy. Two for having to do so with so much baggage and so many unforced errors to deal with. It won't be easy.
At least you've stopped the damage. That's something.
One fails to see the direct influence of Trumpshevism and the operations of the Spotsylvania School Board majority. Odd rhetorical flourish... but there it is.
As for the concern that Spotsylvania Democrats might do as Spotsylvania Republicans have done, the cynic would argue that **of course** this would be a concern of the outgoing majority. Of course they would urge caution and cloak it in process. Of course they would demand a courtesy they never gave...
Of course -- that's the point.
Now for myself, I've done a pretty fair job of pointing out and condemning the outrages. One could cynically offer that such criticisms were applauded insofar as they were useful for those seeking power over doing the right thing. That would be a cynical approach indeed...
Here's another approach.
The public will in Spotsylvania wasn't arguing for the shoe to go on the other foot. The cynics can go hang. What we saw in Spotsylvania was the repudiation of crazy, not the endorsement of another sort of crazy as the antidote to the first.
Now I don't think that the incoming school board is going to start whacking employees left and right. I've seen that in Richmond, especially with the Office of the Attorney General, as Mark Herring effectively put every Republican political appointee to the wall regardless of their experience or professionalism. Loyalty and the partisan were prized over the public trust. When Miyares came into office, the emphasis on a return to normal was not smiled upon by many Republicans looking for plum political positions... but it was warranted and necessary.
Herein lies the catch for the incoming board. Dismissing Taylor or coming to some accommodation will be their exclusive right. Reaching down into the staff and performing summary executions due to political orientation? Or cloaking mass firings in the guise of "professionalism"? That would be a repudiation of their own victory. It would surely please the partisans, but it would not reinforce the public trust or serve the common good.
Of course, the one question is going to be professionalism and insubordination. Conservatives complained of the insubordination of the bureaucracy despite the elected will of the people quite often. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the question of professionalism and insubordination perhaps remains the key concern as our institutions have politicized so sharply as to become apolitical institutions resistant to any criticism, improvement, or complaint which does not match the status quo. There's a lot of money and power in public education, and all too often it tends to attract the corruptible.
So the great task is not to necessarily de-politicize the school system per se, but rather how to refocus the institution itself on the primary task of educating children. More than this, they will have to do so with a focus on including the other half of Spotsylvania which sees public education as a political weapon rather than a common good.
Should the incoming board listen to those who put comeuppance over the common good? Then we go right back to the political fistfights which serve no one... and in their own ways, create little Trumpsheviks whom we are all supposed to not like because Orange Man Bad (TM) -- right?
To clarify, when you say the concern of the outgoing majority of having others do unto them as they have done, are you saying that you identified with the actions of that group?
Again, as with Trump - you seem to want to have it both ways. Not exactly shocking that you've become so noseblind you don't realize it.
If the superintendent of Stafford were banning books and burning imaginary witches (or is it the other way around) - I don't think we would be shocked to learn a new board would consider his status upon taking power.
Nor of those who may have been hired to follow him, should they not be willing to follow any legal directives of the new board.
If the leader of Fredericksburg's schools had legitimate questions regarding his or her overall qualifications to lead a school district, that would be a legitimate reason for review.
But when you characterize their possible actions as an abuse, when legally they have not and should not even have begun to discuss such items, you do impartiality no good service.
More interesting is to see your final point - are you now claiming that Trump is not particularly bad, now that the November election is over? Seems to go against you both past and recent writings.
Again -- the cost of removing Taylor (if Dr. Hill is any example) will be terribly expensive. The cost of removing his hires as well only increases the financial and political cost. There's a more adult way of handling this that might not please the partisans, but will emphasize the professionalism squandered by the partisans over the last two decades.
I have no idea what Trump has to do with this. Or how entangling Washington politics does anything to improve your argument here (and I'm not sure you really have one... or at least, you're not giving us much of one).
I'm still curious as to why the bureaucracy was entitled to resist the "legal directives of the new board" in 2023 but should never ever ever consider doing so in 2025.
This question of who is and who is not "legitimate" isn't meant (by you or the other partisans) in a serious sense. What you mean is a political litmus test. What professionals mean is something else. What should not happen -- and what this new elected board seems to realize -- is a return to the partisan. The hard work of restoring confidence and a sense of the public trust isn't going to be served by a series of mass firings (and we all know it).
You seem to have a fixation on Trump. I'd seek medical attention for that if it lasts more than four hours.
Regarding the cost of removing Taylor, if it turns out to be "terribly expensive" - that seems to be more the fault of the board that negotiated those terms than the one who has to deal with it.
That would be especially true if they negotiated in bad faith and provided Taylor more generous terms than is the norm. Based upon the totality of circumstances and their on-going efforts to inject Republican partisanship at the school board level - it's reasonable to ask if doing so WAS the point. If so, they made getting rid of an unsuitable employee more expensive than it should have been - regardless of their motivations - that should be laid at their feet, and a new board should not be hemmed in under the duress of financial blackmail.
And thank you for telling me and others what we mean. It's curious, you demand that others look at your words in their most positive light - at the same time you insist on reading those of anyone who disagrees with you in the most negative.
Again, you might not like being compared to the future nominee of your party - but in many ways - you are very similar.
1 - You too are caught in the politicization that was created by the current/out-going board "majority" extreme right money hungry agenda. They alone represented a "majority" by party. Prior to 2022, outside of Phelps Abuismail and Twigg there was no majority by party working "against" them. Only Board members who had the students needs 1st on their agenda - 2 independent, 1 Democrat, 1 Republican.
Beyond the past 2 years your "majority" premise is flawed and I spoke to this when I was on the show.
2nd The work that needs to be done - bc we can only hire the Superintendent, must be done by someone who's super qualified (even more than Baker was) considering the mess they made. We as a Board don't have the expertise to guide Taylor to fix it - and he is not competent to do so. Moreover, good work cannot be done in a hostile environment. That's what Taylor, Phelps, Russell, and Twigg created.
Further, Taylor would be let go for a wholesale credible reason vs the selfish reason Baker was let go.
Taylor needs to leave because his employment NEVER was in the best interest of the children of SCPS.
Their termination of Baker was not in the best interest of the children of SCPS.
Their majority did not make ANY decision with the best interest of the children of SCPS first.
Now we have a Board whose agenda is not partisan. It's focused on the best interest of the children of SCPS.
I feel stakeholders in Spotsylvania understand the task ahead for us and will trust and support us to make timely decisions that support our children.
My hope is we also change the community dynamic.
We need to stop allowing people with harmful agendas to manipulate the community by creating "sides" that serve only their nefarious interests.
There is no partisan majority anymore!
Most of the board that will be seated in January will put the students first.
I would submit that the politicization of SCPS occurred long ago, and what you are seeing from the present majority is that fact -- that many parents feel locked out of the institutions.
That the institution itself was (and is) so uniform that the idea there are other opinions hostile to the "way things have been done" should bother most folks. That the other side is indeed labeled with the sweeping judgments of "never in the best interest of SCPS" as an institution or "never in the best interest of the children" is indeed partisan. In fact, it is the most extreme version of it.
What they do have is a different vision of what public education might be. Their tactics? Learned from the way Democrats governed school boards before them; learned by the way they themselves have been treated by partisan boards who could not consider alternative perspectives and solutions to what should be public concerns.
I would broadly and warmly agree that we need to change the community dynamic, away from an us/them and friend/enemy contest. Yet the honorific of "there is no partisan majority anymore!" is an aspiration, not a fact, and one that will have to be earned over the coming months and years.
One additional caveat here. The idea of "putting the students first" as a shield against improvement or critique is most likely over. The broader sentiment that this is mostly about power and control still prevails (after all, this is why the old majority had to go and a new one installed -- voters want the present majority to not be crazy and not cut off microphones, for instance). The wider community of homeschooling parents, private and parochial schools, and the advent of charter schooling is emblematic of a wider distrust of public education's heavy handed approach to alternatives and critiques in the past.
The wider question of who decides what is best for students -- parents or bureaucrats -- remains a salient if unanswered question. The broader solution of defending the rights of teachers to teach and students to learn remains an imperative, and the Virginia Department of Education and local school boards are unfortunately more an impediment than an assistance to most teachers. Yes, most of that is driven from Richmond, but if there's one thing that could be changed about the community dynamic with regards to how we talk about public education, it is to broaden our ideas of what is best for student outcomes and to admit the possibility that critics of the present system -- if this is a public rather than a partisan system -- have valid and legitimate concerns that should not be fobbed off with a heavy hand.
If the lesson of the last two years is of any import, it is that Taylor et al. have shown the political left and the institution how the other half of Spotsylvania believes public education to be -- heavy handed, obtuse, and immune to criticism. They operated in a caricature of how SCPS operated for the last 20 years. Here's hoping for multipartisan approaches and not a return to so-called nonpartisan governance (which has an alarming tendency to benefit mediocrity and the status quo).
Either way, we are all cheering for the new board and a better approach. Just not a repetition of the same mistakes.
"I believe in liberalism. It’s not the dirty concept some would have you believe. It’s simply a belief that all perspectives are welcome in any discussion."
. . .
"The emerging new school board should and must fire Taylor. The superintendent serves at their will. Fire him, void his contract as against public policy, offer him a fair severance package, and drive a wooden stake through his cold heart. He has disgraced himself."
...and in two sentences, we pull down the curtain and show that the sentiment about liberalism and democracy really isn't about either, but a question of control and power.
As for political operatives in public government, one has to raise the question about an institution which sees any conservative, any disagreement, and questioning of the status quo as "political" -- as we have discussed in these pages before, non-partisan approaches are almost always the most partisan precisely because they defend the status quo. One can see any number of partisans among teachers and administrators -- the same people who will even go so far as to employ partisans to rile up public opinion. No one buys the idea that administrators et al. are not inherently partisan when they defend and promote the bureaucracy in the public square. That strikes most as inherently political activity, and to demand that it somehow be made apolitical? Yikes...
One fails to see the point in the critique; when the entire public school system is made not only partisan, but immune to improvement and oblivious to criticism? That sentiment strikes most as a warning that the old bad habits of the Jerry Hill era believe they are about to have their day in the sun.
Taylor is indeed a direct hire and the locus of most public criticism. I suspect he is not long for Spotsylvania. The wider question of whether we should trust bureaucrats to do the function you suggest -- providing the guardrails -- should be presumed. A litmus test of correct political opinion? Of a correct faith? Of a correct orientation towards the status quo? We can cloak it all we want with peer organizations and the like -- if the undercurrent is "think like we do" then that's not an attempt to rid the institution of partisanship, but an imposition of a certain partisanship all of its own (one that most Spotsylvanians voted against in November).
There's the crux of the issue -- paying them back in their own coin. If the incoming school board kicks off the next two years governing totally differently than they ran? If there is a Night of the Long Knives? If a litmus test is applied (and let's not be so blithe as to cloak it in "professionalism" or "partisanship" -- we all know what the point will be)? That will vindicate the criticisms of many in Spotsylvania, from the Herb Lux's of the world to the Shaun Kenney's of the world, and will repudiate the public will who expect adult behavior and a focus on outcomes, not petty partisan grudges. That's a pretty broad coalition.
If we are about to return to the good ol' days, one wonders whether Taylor et al. should be given the sweetheart deals other superintendents and staff have been given during previous transitions of power? That sounds like what we are defending here in principle at least -- that it isn't fascism (sic) when we (sic) do it. For myself, that doesn't sound like a terribly great idea. One wonders how many libraries we could have funded with those golden parachutes over the last 20 years.
If I remember that meeting correctly (2003?), the school system was not only building one school a year for the next fifteen years, but massively overpaying staff (a perennial complaint) while failing to show any corresponding ROI for test scores or student outcomes.
That condition doesn't seem to have improved much in Spotsy -- and it's damned unfortunate no one seems to care about that problem. Only who presides over it. That test scores and student outcomes have not improved despite the massive investments in public education should worry more people, and hiding behind a public good as a public good shouldn't absolve those invested from criticism -- especially when the critique is broadly held by conservatives and progressives alike.
Cheers and glad to make your acquaintance under better circumstances, sir!
When one throws out the argument as "hilarious" and claims working three jobs while working 12 a day at the present one... it's hard to have a conversation.
That's not so-called. Perhaps where we need to start isn't the amount of money being thrown at public education, but why the money isn't reaching teachers or students? Or better still, if taxpayers are going to be asked for yet another massive infusion of cash, will the results be on par with the investment? If we increase spending by 10%, will we see a 10% increase in test scores and student achievement?
As for the parity between different disciplines and salaries, the level of credentialism does not immediately warrant some sort of reciprocation from the market. They aren't building any philosophy factories nearby, I assure you...
We are in entire agreement about funding and the SOQs -- I am perhaps more radical than others. We are in further agreement about test scores being the end-all-be-all for education and the ends of an education.
We are probably more broadly in agreement on professionalization and teachers' salaries as well. If we paid teachers $80K to start instead of $40K, imagine the sort of education system we might achieve... yet in that same breath, that would also bring a different sort of professional to the table. Should localities pick up that tab? Not with the real estate property tax. Should the Commonwealth of Virginia do so? Absolutely -- and if it means paying an extra 1% of my income to do that? Why are we waiting?
The disagreement might be in three places: (1) teachers need to get back to being teachers again rather than being surrogate parents, guidance counselors, law enforcement, behavioral scientists, glorified test proctors, etc. and the administrators and bureaucracy surrounding these teachers need to dissolve ASAP, (2) parents need to disengage from teachers in terms of enforcing outcomes and need to trust teachers to be professionals; students need to understand they are in a learning environment and not a glorified day care, and (3) parents ought to have the right to send their children to the institution of learning they prefer -- up to and including public, private, parochial, and charter schools with voucher in hand.
The catch is that we have spent an additional $9bn on public education in Virginia over the last 20 years. That's a 29% increase adjusting for inflation and a 15% increase per pupil adjusting for inflation. Yet teachers and students don't seem to be receiving the investment, but rather administrators and bureaucrats who are handsomely paid to point at the problem.
We probably agree broadly that the solution to great schools are great teachers. Teachers have the right to teach; students have the right to learn; parents should have the right to choose where to send their children to school... and any obstacle between those rights should be removed or resolved with a near fanatical inflexibility (more money, fewer mandates, rejecting the testing regime, school choice, higher salaries, zero tolerance for bad behavior, etc).
As you mention, education really is the bedrock of this little experiment we call democracy and is most certainly a public good. I'd raise my taxes through the roof for a quality education system which gave teachers the right to teach, students the right to learn, and parents the right to choose.
Independent of all of that? I'd still pay an extra 1% in state income tax dedicated to paying teachers (and teachers alone). All money being fungible, administrators will simply move cash around to fund non-teacher positions. But standardizing the pay scale for teachers and moving them to state employees so that local school districts couldn't play that game? I'm in.
I believe Mr. Taylor could work out his debt to the Parents by joining the school’s janitorial services. Cleaning the scum out of all the bathroom toilets may be cathartic for him.
I will be more interested to see how the meetings will be run and how questions to the superintendent are handled from behind the dais.
Just one chairman who understands Roberts Rules of Order would radically change the tone and the mood. Perhaps then Ms. Cole can put questions out on the floor without getting run over by fellow board members? A few sessions where Taylor gets to answer a few questions might be a better catharsis for the community.
Who knows? Might even clear the air...
Running meetings with civility and professionalism is the easiest part. The heavy lifting and real work to make a meeting effective and efficient is the real work and hard part. We have to get back to competent Board leadership.
I would agree entirely.
Most of us are rooting for you… all of us should be. just be careful not to employ the same tactics used against you — that is the cautionary tale.
Having watched the chaos of the past two years closely, often attending meetings and as a supporter of public education, I believe Mr. Kenney makes good points in this article. The school board that will take its place on the dais in January cannot be described as strictly Republican or Democrat. Two of the new members ran as independents. One of the new members, Megan Jackson, ran a totally independent campaign and prevailed over Kirk Twigg by a large margin in the reliably Republican Livingston District. I don't believe Livingston voters had an epiphany of sorts and voted for Ms. Jackson because she's a Democrat (she's not). Megan Jackson won, I believe, because the Livingston voters (and I believe many Spotsylvanians) are exhausted by the chaos and dysfunction displayed by the soon to be former board's majority.
Having had a chance to speak with every one of the three new members, as well as Daniels and Cole, I'm confident that we're going to see a return to the business of educating students in Spotsylvania. Will it be easy? Of course not. In fact, teaching and learning is hard, messy business in the best of times, much less coming in after what has been a disastrous two years and facing the economic and funding challenges that are statewide.
However, my hope and cautious optimism is that the seven women (and I do love writing the word "women" here) will find a way to work toward repairing the damage. My advice, and I believe that the new majority will adhere to this, is that before any decisions are made that the question is asked, "Is this what's best for all of the students?" That question should be the guiding force for any decisions, policy changes, hirings, and firings. I trust this newly elected board to do what's best for students. If they don't live up to that they will be challenged, and rightly so.
Now there’s a great point.
Seven women!
While I agree with the overall point that we have to move past the hyper-partisan revenge politics, Mr. Kenney misses a few significant points.
Mr. Taylor's contract doesn't expire until 2026. The new board cannot and should not wait until then to replace him. Baker's contract situation was completely different. His contract was set to expire at the end of the school year when he was fired. Baker was also a highly qualified superintendent by any standard. Mr. Taylor is not.
It's also important to note that the new school board majority will still be the majority regardless of what happens in November 2025. Only 3 seats will be up for grabs in that election. 2 of those seats are seats held by the current majority.
Our new ombudsman!
We were misinformed about Mr. Taylor’s contract then. Mea culpa… a three year wait changes the calculus just a touch.
Shaun,
You don’t have a new ombudsman, just a reader who corrected factual inaccuracies in your column. The new School Board majority will not be up for reelection until 2027. This is an easily verifiable fact, yet your column erroneously stated the majority could change hands in a couple years. In addition, you stated that “we were misinformed about Mr. Taylor’s contract...” Who misinformed you? You do realize that you can FOIA his contract?
I would recommend that you correct the errors in your column and note these corrections for readers.
Mr. Branscombe --
Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.
Warm regards,
Shaun
Seriously, though, who misinformed you about Mark Taylor’s contract? Again, his contract is a public record.
That's weird, every comment on here answered by Mr Kenney except this one from you......wonder why?
Reminds me of another "genius" of the Republican party. : )
This is where you guys are going to hang your hat? I mean, I guess... but all it does is string out the same question until the end of 2025. Doesn't purchase anything really.
This is why folks repeat the line. They really do hate us (and you guys really do hate Republicans). Whole line of reasoning being batted around by people who matter... and you guys pick this. LOL.
He won’t answer a straightforward question. He said he received inaccurate info--which was crucial to his column--yet he won’t say who supplied him with this bad info. Makes me think he just f’d up.
My last name is spelled Branscome, but you can call me Jeff.
Nah.
What a fine line to walk.
…and it may be an impossible one.
In this strange world of conservative enablers, it is the perpetrators of abuse and corruption who are the victims in need of protection from those who would hold them to account. An award-winning school system undone, the education of thousands of school children compromised for years by self-serving wannabe politicians, the loss of too many good teachers to nearby jurisdictions when their local system was being dismantled. But by all means, let's worry about the unqualified yet overpaid zealot who willingly did the damage on behalf of a corrupt board.
Mary/Erik --
Surely you see the problem here, yes? It is one thing to call such tactics fascism etc. when Taylor et al. do it. How does it become Democracy! (TM) when the opposition does it in turn? Why is resisting the elected will of the majority a good thing a year ago, but insubordination one year later?
This goes right to the heart of the institutions themselves and the wider question of treating one's friends and neighbors as evil for the sin of disagreement. Our public institutions should reflect the public -- not the partisan. If all Taylor et al. did was expose how deaf the institutions are to *any* Republican involvement in public education, the precisely wrong lesson would be to confirm all their arguments by showing that this is all about position, jobs, and power -- and not education writ large.
A noble effort trying to confuse the issue with big words. Please focus, lest you be perceived as the embodiment of a once proud party that now simply enables bad people.
Let's try this:
Put my argument in your own words in its best possible light. Give it a try. If not or we cannot, then we can safely discard your opinions.
You don't have an argument, just a point of view. They are not the same thing. You also appear to be more intent on trying to score cheap points rather than truly engage. if FXBG Advance is going to survive, you need to do better.
All arguments are viewpoints. Some viewpoints don’t have an argument.
I have done you the courtesy of providing an argument, yet you seem overwhelmed by the idea of exchange. Others — gratefully — are more serious and very pleased.
Thank you! ❤️
Agreed, I too was reminded of that as I read Mr Kenney's column. It does appear to be the norm from their highest leader, to their lowliest column writer. Not particularly moral nor true, but certainly expected.
So the criticism stung you too, eh? Good.
Puzzled, stung - not two words I've often seen used as synonyms.
If confusing people with your statements qualifies to you as a win, then chalk this one up as a momentous victory.
The great klan leader would be covfefe. Sorry.... I meant proud.
Off to work. Will look at the other one later.
Ah, so it did sting.
Get to work. All this socialism doesn't pay for itself, you know.
Didn't you say you work as an English teacher? I'm assuming at a public school?
You do know that is the embodiment of socialism, right?
I've often wondered why it is the very people who most enjoy the benefits of our way of governing, who hate it so. Cops, fireman, vets, and - on some occasions, apparently, English teachers.
You don't mind taking the money. You're glad to have the defined benefits of VRS or Veteran's Administration healthcare - yet you see the government and it's benefits as the problem.
Seems more to me like you hate other folks receiving the same benefits you already enjoy.
And yet, you'll tell anyone that asks, and most that don't ask - what great patriots you are.
Strange. Yet not surprising.
So yes, I'll now, once again go off to work. Not really minding paying taxes if they support our country. I consider it my duty. An investment in my children and grandchildren's future.
I don't even need someone like you receiving the benefit of that money to say that you're welcome as you explain what a capitalist you are. I would like it if folks like Musk or Trump had to pay the same taxes as I do, as I see more than 12% of my income going to SS, while they don't pay a penny after about $150k. And I see wealth inequality getting worse yearly, etc.
But that's not a problem of poor people taking from me. They don't write those laws. Republicans do.
Welfare for billionaires is more of a problem than hungry people wanting warm food. You want that fixed, quit voting Republican.
Now go work that for that government paycheck you despise so much.
Hypocrite.
Sorry, Republican Standard...... : )
Nope -- wrong across the board. Why do you hate Republicans so much?
Alas Yorick! Pity our poor Shaun.
Bedeviled by demons of his own making.
Yet remember this — if Spotsylvania Democrats believe a Night of the Long Knives is justified in January, do not whine much less be surprised if Spotsylvania Republicans begin treating the public education as a modern-day spoils system in two years when they recapture the board. Be very careful on this point — because more than just Spotsylvania is watching.
Mr Kenney, like most Republicans nowdays, seems to pretend, not only to others, but to themselves - that DJT does not represent them, he is an aberration which they just happen to benefit from.
Yet read this illogical, fear raising screed and see if it is anything other than a Republican complaining that someone MIGHT do what they already have done.
This Board doesn't even sit until after the New Year, yet we get a full column of innuendos, accusations, etc.
How many times have we witnessed this over the years? Enough it should no longer be surprising. The cheater thinks everyone cheats, the liar that everyone lies, the sexual molester that everyone grabs them by the ......
So, of course a board elected to replace a rampant aberration should be chastised before they ever sit.
I don't know if the Spotsy School Board will decide that their Superintendent, who supervises a multimillion dollar school system will be kept to work. I doubt they know it yet. I suspect it will be something that they will discuss. As well as what direction the school should go. That's their job.
But as even Mr Kenney notes, though he tries to minimize it, rationalize it, or normalize it - there are many long and ongoing instances of outrage that have occurred.
From an apparently unqualified person being placed into such an important position under questionable means. Who has shown multiple examples of why he was unqualified.
So though I am sure there will be many "let's Go Brandon" Republicans swooning in outrage when the new board convenes, (else how did this disgrace get going in the 1st place?); a possible return to normalcy should not be cause for complaint - BEFORE it happens.
Sadly, though, these are not normal times, are they?*
*Meanwhile, back at the klan - the Republican Party's champion, Donald Trump, is claiming boring old Joe Biden is the real threat to democracy....and the Party that Mr Kenney represents are lining that benighted, miserable 90+ times credibly accused felon, and found fraud and molester as their representative to lead your children's nation.
Again.
So I guess in that type of bizarro world, Mr Kenney's column makes perfect sense.
Meanwhile, congratulations and sympathy, Spotsy. One for returning to normalcy. Two for having to do so with so much baggage and so many unforced errors to deal with. It won't be easy.
At least you've stopped the damage. That's something.
Good luck and best wishes.
Surely you (infinitely) jest, sir!
One fails to see the direct influence of Trumpshevism and the operations of the Spotsylvania School Board majority. Odd rhetorical flourish... but there it is.
As for the concern that Spotsylvania Democrats might do as Spotsylvania Republicans have done, the cynic would argue that **of course** this would be a concern of the outgoing majority. Of course they would urge caution and cloak it in process. Of course they would demand a courtesy they never gave...
Of course -- that's the point.
Now for myself, I've done a pretty fair job of pointing out and condemning the outrages. One could cynically offer that such criticisms were applauded insofar as they were useful for those seeking power over doing the right thing. That would be a cynical approach indeed...
Here's another approach.
The public will in Spotsylvania wasn't arguing for the shoe to go on the other foot. The cynics can go hang. What we saw in Spotsylvania was the repudiation of crazy, not the endorsement of another sort of crazy as the antidote to the first.
Now I don't think that the incoming school board is going to start whacking employees left and right. I've seen that in Richmond, especially with the Office of the Attorney General, as Mark Herring effectively put every Republican political appointee to the wall regardless of their experience or professionalism. Loyalty and the partisan were prized over the public trust. When Miyares came into office, the emphasis on a return to normal was not smiled upon by many Republicans looking for plum political positions... but it was warranted and necessary.
Herein lies the catch for the incoming board. Dismissing Taylor or coming to some accommodation will be their exclusive right. Reaching down into the staff and performing summary executions due to political orientation? Or cloaking mass firings in the guise of "professionalism"? That would be a repudiation of their own victory. It would surely please the partisans, but it would not reinforce the public trust or serve the common good.
Of course, the one question is going to be professionalism and insubordination. Conservatives complained of the insubordination of the bureaucracy despite the elected will of the people quite often. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the question of professionalism and insubordination perhaps remains the key concern as our institutions have politicized so sharply as to become apolitical institutions resistant to any criticism, improvement, or complaint which does not match the status quo. There's a lot of money and power in public education, and all too often it tends to attract the corruptible.
So the great task is not to necessarily de-politicize the school system per se, but rather how to refocus the institution itself on the primary task of educating children. More than this, they will have to do so with a focus on including the other half of Spotsylvania which sees public education as a political weapon rather than a common good.
Should the incoming board listen to those who put comeuppance over the common good? Then we go right back to the political fistfights which serve no one... and in their own ways, create little Trumpsheviks whom we are all supposed to not like because Orange Man Bad (TM) -- right?
To clarify, when you say the concern of the outgoing majority of having others do unto them as they have done, are you saying that you identified with the actions of that group?
Again, as with Trump - you seem to want to have it both ways. Not exactly shocking that you've become so noseblind you don't realize it.
If the superintendent of Stafford were banning books and burning imaginary witches (or is it the other way around) - I don't think we would be shocked to learn a new board would consider his status upon taking power.
Nor of those who may have been hired to follow him, should they not be willing to follow any legal directives of the new board.
If the leader of Fredericksburg's schools had legitimate questions regarding his or her overall qualifications to lead a school district, that would be a legitimate reason for review.
But when you characterize their possible actions as an abuse, when legally they have not and should not even have begun to discuss such items, you do impartiality no good service.
More interesting is to see your final point - are you now claiming that Trump is not particularly bad, now that the November election is over? Seems to go against you both past and recent writings.
How Sununu of you.
Bless your heart.
Moving on.
Again -- the cost of removing Taylor (if Dr. Hill is any example) will be terribly expensive. The cost of removing his hires as well only increases the financial and political cost. There's a more adult way of handling this that might not please the partisans, but will emphasize the professionalism squandered by the partisans over the last two decades.
I have no idea what Trump has to do with this. Or how entangling Washington politics does anything to improve your argument here (and I'm not sure you really have one... or at least, you're not giving us much of one).
I'm still curious as to why the bureaucracy was entitled to resist the "legal directives of the new board" in 2023 but should never ever ever consider doing so in 2025.
This question of who is and who is not "legitimate" isn't meant (by you or the other partisans) in a serious sense. What you mean is a political litmus test. What professionals mean is something else. What should not happen -- and what this new elected board seems to realize -- is a return to the partisan. The hard work of restoring confidence and a sense of the public trust isn't going to be served by a series of mass firings (and we all know it).
You seem to have a fixation on Trump. I'd seek medical attention for that if it lasts more than four hours.
Love and mush,
Regarding the cost of removing Taylor, if it turns out to be "terribly expensive" - that seems to be more the fault of the board that negotiated those terms than the one who has to deal with it.
That would be especially true if they negotiated in bad faith and provided Taylor more generous terms than is the norm. Based upon the totality of circumstances and their on-going efforts to inject Republican partisanship at the school board level - it's reasonable to ask if doing so WAS the point. If so, they made getting rid of an unsuitable employee more expensive than it should have been - regardless of their motivations - that should be laid at their feet, and a new board should not be hemmed in under the duress of financial blackmail.
And thank you for telling me and others what we mean. It's curious, you demand that others look at your words in their most positive light - at the same time you insist on reading those of anyone who disagrees with you in the most negative.
Again, you might not like being compared to the future nominee of your party - but in many ways - you are very similar.
No -- it will be the reality of creating a severance package. Or terminating his employment and fighting it out in a courtroom.
Two issues with your premise -
1 - You too are caught in the politicization that was created by the current/out-going board "majority" extreme right money hungry agenda. They alone represented a "majority" by party. Prior to 2022, outside of Phelps Abuismail and Twigg there was no majority by party working "against" them. Only Board members who had the students needs 1st on their agenda - 2 independent, 1 Democrat, 1 Republican.
Beyond the past 2 years your "majority" premise is flawed and I spoke to this when I was on the show.
2nd The work that needs to be done - bc we can only hire the Superintendent, must be done by someone who's super qualified (even more than Baker was) considering the mess they made. We as a Board don't have the expertise to guide Taylor to fix it - and he is not competent to do so. Moreover, good work cannot be done in a hostile environment. That's what Taylor, Phelps, Russell, and Twigg created.
Further, Taylor would be let go for a wholesale credible reason vs the selfish reason Baker was let go.
Taylor needs to leave because his employment NEVER was in the best interest of the children of SCPS.
Their termination of Baker was not in the best interest of the children of SCPS.
Their majority did not make ANY decision with the best interest of the children of SCPS first.
Now we have a Board whose agenda is not partisan. It's focused on the best interest of the children of SCPS.
I feel stakeholders in Spotsylvania understand the task ahead for us and will trust and support us to make timely decisions that support our children.
My hope is we also change the community dynamic.
We need to stop allowing people with harmful agendas to manipulate the community by creating "sides" that serve only their nefarious interests.
There is no partisan majority anymore!
Most of the board that will be seated in January will put the students first.
I know the community will support that.
Ms. Cole --
I would submit that the politicization of SCPS occurred long ago, and what you are seeing from the present majority is that fact -- that many parents feel locked out of the institutions.
That the institution itself was (and is) so uniform that the idea there are other opinions hostile to the "way things have been done" should bother most folks. That the other side is indeed labeled with the sweeping judgments of "never in the best interest of SCPS" as an institution or "never in the best interest of the children" is indeed partisan. In fact, it is the most extreme version of it.
What they do have is a different vision of what public education might be. Their tactics? Learned from the way Democrats governed school boards before them; learned by the way they themselves have been treated by partisan boards who could not consider alternative perspectives and solutions to what should be public concerns.
I would broadly and warmly agree that we need to change the community dynamic, away from an us/them and friend/enemy contest. Yet the honorific of "there is no partisan majority anymore!" is an aspiration, not a fact, and one that will have to be earned over the coming months and years.
One additional caveat here. The idea of "putting the students first" as a shield against improvement or critique is most likely over. The broader sentiment that this is mostly about power and control still prevails (after all, this is why the old majority had to go and a new one installed -- voters want the present majority to not be crazy and not cut off microphones, for instance). The wider community of homeschooling parents, private and parochial schools, and the advent of charter schooling is emblematic of a wider distrust of public education's heavy handed approach to alternatives and critiques in the past.
The wider question of who decides what is best for students -- parents or bureaucrats -- remains a salient if unanswered question. The broader solution of defending the rights of teachers to teach and students to learn remains an imperative, and the Virginia Department of Education and local school boards are unfortunately more an impediment than an assistance to most teachers. Yes, most of that is driven from Richmond, but if there's one thing that could be changed about the community dynamic with regards to how we talk about public education, it is to broaden our ideas of what is best for student outcomes and to admit the possibility that critics of the present system -- if this is a public rather than a partisan system -- have valid and legitimate concerns that should not be fobbed off with a heavy hand.
If the lesson of the last two years is of any import, it is that Taylor et al. have shown the political left and the institution how the other half of Spotsylvania believes public education to be -- heavy handed, obtuse, and immune to criticism. They operated in a caricature of how SCPS operated for the last 20 years. Here's hoping for multipartisan approaches and not a return to so-called nonpartisan governance (which has an alarming tendency to benefit mediocrity and the status quo).
Either way, we are all cheering for the new board and a better approach. Just not a repetition of the same mistakes.
best wishes
A play, in two acts:
"I believe in liberalism. It’s not the dirty concept some would have you believe. It’s simply a belief that all perspectives are welcome in any discussion."
. . .
"The emerging new school board should and must fire Taylor. The superintendent serves at their will. Fire him, void his contract as against public policy, offer him a fair severance package, and drive a wooden stake through his cold heart. He has disgraced himself."
...and in two sentences, we pull down the curtain and show that the sentiment about liberalism and democracy really isn't about either, but a question of control and power.
As for political operatives in public government, one has to raise the question about an institution which sees any conservative, any disagreement, and questioning of the status quo as "political" -- as we have discussed in these pages before, non-partisan approaches are almost always the most partisan precisely because they defend the status quo. One can see any number of partisans among teachers and administrators -- the same people who will even go so far as to employ partisans to rile up public opinion. No one buys the idea that administrators et al. are not inherently partisan when they defend and promote the bureaucracy in the public square. That strikes most as inherently political activity, and to demand that it somehow be made apolitical? Yikes...
One fails to see the point in the critique; when the entire public school system is made not only partisan, but immune to improvement and oblivious to criticism? That sentiment strikes most as a warning that the old bad habits of the Jerry Hill era believe they are about to have their day in the sun.
Taylor is indeed a direct hire and the locus of most public criticism. I suspect he is not long for Spotsylvania. The wider question of whether we should trust bureaucrats to do the function you suggest -- providing the guardrails -- should be presumed. A litmus test of correct political opinion? Of a correct faith? Of a correct orientation towards the status quo? We can cloak it all we want with peer organizations and the like -- if the undercurrent is "think like we do" then that's not an attempt to rid the institution of partisanship, but an imposition of a certain partisanship all of its own (one that most Spotsylvanians voted against in November).
There's the crux of the issue -- paying them back in their own coin. If the incoming school board kicks off the next two years governing totally differently than they ran? If there is a Night of the Long Knives? If a litmus test is applied (and let's not be so blithe as to cloak it in "professionalism" or "partisanship" -- we all know what the point will be)? That will vindicate the criticisms of many in Spotsylvania, from the Herb Lux's of the world to the Shaun Kenney's of the world, and will repudiate the public will who expect adult behavior and a focus on outcomes, not petty partisan grudges. That's a pretty broad coalition.
If we are about to return to the good ol' days, one wonders whether Taylor et al. should be given the sweetheart deals other superintendents and staff have been given during previous transitions of power? That sounds like what we are defending here in principle at least -- that it isn't fascism (sic) when we (sic) do it. For myself, that doesn't sound like a terribly great idea. One wonders how many libraries we could have funded with those golden parachutes over the last 20 years.
If I remember that meeting correctly (2003?), the school system was not only building one school a year for the next fifteen years, but massively overpaying staff (a perennial complaint) while failing to show any corresponding ROI for test scores or student outcomes.
That condition doesn't seem to have improved much in Spotsy -- and it's damned unfortunate no one seems to care about that problem. Only who presides over it. That test scores and student outcomes have not improved despite the massive investments in public education should worry more people, and hiding behind a public good as a public good shouldn't absolve those invested from criticism -- especially when the critique is broadly held by conservatives and progressives alike.
Cheers and glad to make your acquaintance under better circumstances, sir!
When one throws out the argument as "hilarious" and claims working three jobs while working 12 a day at the present one... it's hard to have a conversation.
As for the record levels of investment?
https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics
That's not so-called. Perhaps where we need to start isn't the amount of money being thrown at public education, but why the money isn't reaching teachers or students? Or better still, if taxpayers are going to be asked for yet another massive infusion of cash, will the results be on par with the investment? If we increase spending by 10%, will we see a 10% increase in test scores and student achievement?
As for the parity between different disciplines and salaries, the level of credentialism does not immediately warrant some sort of reciprocation from the market. They aren't building any philosophy factories nearby, I assure you...
We are in entire agreement about funding and the SOQs -- I am perhaps more radical than others. We are in further agreement about test scores being the end-all-be-all for education and the ends of an education.
We are probably more broadly in agreement on professionalization and teachers' salaries as well. If we paid teachers $80K to start instead of $40K, imagine the sort of education system we might achieve... yet in that same breath, that would also bring a different sort of professional to the table. Should localities pick up that tab? Not with the real estate property tax. Should the Commonwealth of Virginia do so? Absolutely -- and if it means paying an extra 1% of my income to do that? Why are we waiting?
The disagreement might be in three places: (1) teachers need to get back to being teachers again rather than being surrogate parents, guidance counselors, law enforcement, behavioral scientists, glorified test proctors, etc. and the administrators and bureaucracy surrounding these teachers need to dissolve ASAP, (2) parents need to disengage from teachers in terms of enforcing outcomes and need to trust teachers to be professionals; students need to understand they are in a learning environment and not a glorified day care, and (3) parents ought to have the right to send their children to the institution of learning they prefer -- up to and including public, private, parochial, and charter schools with voucher in hand.
The catch is that we have spent an additional $9bn on public education in Virginia over the last 20 years. That's a 29% increase adjusting for inflation and a 15% increase per pupil adjusting for inflation. Yet teachers and students don't seem to be receiving the investment, but rather administrators and bureaucrats who are handsomely paid to point at the problem.
We probably agree broadly that the solution to great schools are great teachers. Teachers have the right to teach; students have the right to learn; parents should have the right to choose where to send their children to school... and any obstacle between those rights should be removed or resolved with a near fanatical inflexibility (more money, fewer mandates, rejecting the testing regime, school choice, higher salaries, zero tolerance for bad behavior, etc).
As you mention, education really is the bedrock of this little experiment we call democracy and is most certainly a public good. I'd raise my taxes through the roof for a quality education system which gave teachers the right to teach, students the right to learn, and parents the right to choose.
Independent of all of that? I'd still pay an extra 1% in state income tax dedicated to paying teachers (and teachers alone). All money being fungible, administrators will simply move cash around to fund non-teacher positions. But standardizing the pay scale for teachers and moving them to state employees so that local school districts couldn't play that game? I'm in.
<off soapbox>