School board candidates discuss school boundary policy
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| School board candidates Karen Keys-Gamarra and Ricardy Anderson speak to Mason District residents. |
Mason District School Board candidate Ricardy Anderson and at-large school board candidate Karen Keys-Gamarra, who’s running for re-election, charge that critics of the board’s plan to re-examine its policy on school boundary changes are misguided and misinformed.
Anderson and Keys-Gamarra discussed the issue at a meet-and-greet session in a Mason District home Aug. 4.
Those protesting the attempt to change the boundary policy apparently fear that lower-income, non-white students will be bused to schools in wealthier areas. At a school board work session where the issue was discussed, there was an overflow crowd, with many in the audience holding up signs stating “No Busing” and “We Are Watching You.”
“I was reminded of the desegregation days,” Keys-Gamarra said.
“There will not be massive boundary changes,” she said. “It’s all about scaring people.” She noted that the many of the protesters are from the Taxpayers Alliance, which is mainly concerned about property values.
A draft recommendation presented by FCPS staff at the work session, which was not endorsed by the school board, says capacity should be the main factor to determine if school boundaries need to be changed. Once the board decides that a school’s boundary should be changed, the school board would consider a number of other factors, including walking and bus routes, operational efficiency, the need to eliminate attendance islands, and socioeconomic and racial composition.
Any proposal to change school boundaries will be a transparent process that includes community meetings and input from parents.
In a Facebook post after the meeting, school board member Pat Hynes (Hunter Mill) explained the goal of the work session is “not to institute 70s-era busing and bankrupt homeowners.” The policy review is needed to address overcrowding in some schools and “to ensure equity and effectiveness when considering school boundaries.”
Any future changes in the boundary policy won’t affect the boundary study already under way to relieve overcrowding at Glen Forest Elementary School, Anderson said.
She said it’s important to adjust boundaries to minimize classrooms in trailers. It’s a security factor, she said. Also, “we want to create a 21st century learning experience for everyone, and trailers are not a 21st century environment.”
The school board’s policy on boundary changes hasn’t been examined in over 30 years, Keys-Gamarra noted. Meanwhile, small boundary adjustments were made administratively, but there was no transparency and no discussion by the full board. Those changes often had unintended consequences, she said, such as increasing segregation at some schools.
Anderson said people tend to become alarmed “when they think the status quo is threatened.”
Those objecting to a policy change are also “anti-diversity,” Keys-Gamarra added. “They are afraid minorities will be bused into their schools.”
At least one group, called One Great Falls, has been formed to resist plans to make schools more diverse. That phrase reflects the joint School Board/Board of Supervisors “One Fairfax” policy, which calls for all proposed policies to be examined through an equity lens.
“To vilify One Fairfax doesn’t make sense to me,” Anderson said. “We’re trying to make sure we serve all students.”
Both Anderson and Keys-Gamarra have extensive experience in education.
Anderson is a former school principal and teacher and spent the past few months volunteering in Mason District schools. Keys-Gamarra is a child advocate, and one component of her job calls for her to work with school officials and parents to develop education plans for individual students.
Anderson vowed to retain needs-based staffing, which ensures schools with special needs, like many in Mason District, have lower teacher-to-student ratios. She also said it’s important to close the achievement gap and improve academic performance of all students.
Among her accomplishments on the school board, Keys-Gamarra cited major changes to the school discipline policy to emphasize intervention plans rather than suspending students for what might be considered age-appropriate behavior.
That’s important, Keys-Gamarra said, because children of color are more likely to be subject to discipline than their peers, and children who have been suspended or expelled are less likely to graduate or take advanced courses.
When kids misbehave, it’s better to “get at the root of the problem,” she said. “It’s counterproductive to take kids out of the classroom.”
Both candidates also stressed the importance of improved communication among school administrators, teachers, and parents.
The school board will be very different next year, as eight of the 12 seats on the board are open or contested.
School board elections are officially non-partisan, but Anderson and Keys-Gamarra have been endorsed by the Fairfax County Democratic Committee.
Anderson is vying to succeed Mason District board member Sandy Evans, who is not running for re-election. She is opposed by Tom Pafford, whose primary issue is opposing rights for transgender students. He has failed to gain the endorsement of the Fairfax County Republican Committee, and the Virginia Public Access Project states his campaign is “no longer active.”
Keys-Gamarra joined the school board after winning a special election in 2017. At-large member Ilryong Moon, who failed to attain an endorsement from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, has resigned from the FCDC and potentially intends to run anyway.
FCDC chair Dan Lagana respectfully asked Moon to withdraw from the election. Remaining on the ballot, Lagana wrote in an open letter to Moon “poses a clear threat both to your legacy of service and the election prospects of candidates who have been endorsed by the Democratic Party.”
6 responses to “School board candidates discuss school boundary policy”
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More of the same. On the right, a school board candidate so extreme the FFX RC would not endorse. On the left, candidates stating that people who disagree with the One Fairfax policy are “anti-diversity” and “afraid minorities will be bused into their schools” (code for opponents must be racist or bigoted). This is all very disheartening for the vast majority of FFX residents who just want the best for their kids and neighborhoods. Insinuating an entire group of people – those who have concerns about FFX school and boundary policies – are bigots or racists, without evidence to back it up, is wrong and not what we need from our representatives.
I hope that as local elections and the boundary debate heat up, folks on both sides refrain from vilifying each other, or at minimum, reserve the opprobrium for the actual bigots, racists, and hypocrites. Perhaps too much to ask. Our representatives, inclusive of BoE members, should represent the middle and not allow left/right extremists to drown out good faith debate and common-sense solutions.
Agree. When I see someone tell me what I am thinking, e.g. anti-diversity, etc., that is on hte road to language policing. I see that type of language and I think they're not really concerned with what critics think. It is an instrument of power. If someone has the power to police your language, it means he has power over you—the power to condemn you as a insenstive, as "afriad" or "anti-diversity." That kind of power inculcates fear. Sadly, that power is also fast becoming absolute—and the more absolute it becomes, the more arbitrary and corrupt its applications become.
Yes, it is sad when those who are purported to be so enlightened and progressive create what amounts to a one-party political and educational system in which no discourse or alternative opinion can be discussed lest you be labeled a racist, sexist, bigot, xenophobe, etc.
Once again, the single party system of the BoS and the BoE have created "an immediate crisis," yet, they have been the ones in power for over decades. It's not just the school board boundaries that have created this situation. It's the unwillingness of this political and educational oligarchy to consider any other approach other than their own. There are a lot of racial, social, and economic issues at play here. Not the least of which is the way the BoS have allowed certain districts within Fairfax County, Mason for one, to become the only haven for low income families. The ones who have put forth “One Fairfax” policy are the same ones who created the need for it. How can you be in power for over two decades and then all of a sudden realize you have a problem for which you need to create a divisive policy? This is a particular modus operandi that Penny Gross has loved to use. “Let’s ignore the problem for so long that it becomes a crisis then I’ll look like the savior when I fix it.”
What did the BoS and BoE think was going to happen when parts of the county were allowed to deteriorate so badly? Of course it means the schools in those areas were going to be the ones that are overcrowded and less likely to perform as well as those in more affluent regions of the county.
The sad part, too, is that the current administration is not willing to openly and fully discuss the gamut of issues in a sane and respectful manner. These candidates seem more interested in casting stereotypical aspersions about certain races but they fail to see the irony in what they're doing. They're rhetoric is just as hateful and bigoted as anything coming from those who may oppose "One Fairfax." Perhaps a little introspect by both sides would indicate that a lot of work needs to be done internally before vilifying the other.
I will tell you that these issues transcend race. It has more to do with economic standing and poverty more than skin color. What do I mean? Children of more affluent parents, regardless of race, are more likely to be educated in a better school system than those of less affluent parents. That means there are a lot of children of color who are getting a much better education than poor whites. As a poor white kid, I would have loved to have had the opportunities that many minority children enjoy here in Fairfax County. For educators to make this issue singularly about race rather than one of need, regardless of the color of one’s skin, is to continue to perpetuate the racial divides, the environment of blame, and the sense of hatred facing this country. Perhaps our “educators” could be smart enough to see the damage they’re causing and change the tone and focus of their rhetoric to need rather than race but I think I am asking too much. It’s easier to just blame racism.
This story is very well done and hopefully will dispel some of the misinformation about the School Board's intentions in updating the boundary policy. Two observations, however:
1. It is not just small administrative boundary changes, done at the behest of the FCPS Superintendent, that have increased socio-economic segregation within FCPS. For the past decade, the larger boundary changes, approved by a School Board composed primarily of members endorsed by the FCDC, have also led to increasing segregation, including at Annandale HS. The School Board needs to own its own role in the problem it is now trying to solve, or there will be continued confusion about its current goals.
2. The process to revise the boundary policy has been inefficient and has simply dragged on too long. Over the past 18 months, during which the School Board held multiple, and in some cases unproductive, work sessions to discuss the boundary policy, overcrowding continued to increase at many schools. FCPS now has situations, for example, where a seriously overcrowded high school is close to another high school that is 20% under-capacity, yet FCPS has no plan to address the capacity imbalance. When the School Board fails to pursue an easy solution to an obvious problem, that also increases the speculation that it must have other plans, such as county-wide busing, in mind. Better execution and a greater focus on dealing with the overcrowding where it exists would allay those concerns.
Why all the discussion about party endorsements? School Board candidates are supposed to run as Independents. No party affiliation. It is a sad statement of the times that party politics is so rampant in the School Board elections. Party politics have created a board more interested in social engineering and political policies than education.
The referendum approving elected school boards intended that the candidates would be independent. Obviously, that didn't happen and most school board members now represent their party's goals and ideologies.
The existing overcrowding didn't happen yesterday. It was sidelined because the Board's majority considered other issues, such as the renaming of Stuart HS (total cost not yet determined), to be more important. That was not the School Board's finest hour and has led to legitimate questions as to objectives and motives.
Perhaps, it's time that SB members considered service to their constituents more important than convoluted party endorsements.