Six new members were elected to the Fairfax County School Board Tuesday, and newcomers and incumbents alike say the board is set to take a hard look at itself and its practices in 2012.
Many candidates running for the 12-member board this year saw the race as a standoff between incumbents and reform-minded challengers. While all of the incumbents up for re-election won this year, six current board members opted to quit rather than run again, guaranteeing a slate of new faces and new goals for the board.
Chairwoman Janie Strauss, who won a tight race against challenger Louise Epstein with 51 percent of the vote, says the influx of new members provides the board with an opportunity to “take a good look at management audits.” Though the board already employs internal auditors, Strauss said $500,000 has been set aside to fund an audit by an outside expert.
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She isn’t alone in her plans for a more transparent board. Elizabeth Schultz, who won her Springfield District race, wants the board to publish its checkbooks online, and fellow newcomer Ted Velkoff, who won an at-large spot, says he wants to restore stakeholders’ confidence in the board’s budget process.
Incumbent Dan Storck, who easily won the Mount Vernon District race, says that transparency must extend to the board’s selection of its next superintendent. (Superintendent Jack Dale will step down when his contract is up in 2013.) Storck wants to start a “listening campaign” to hear what the public wants in a new superintendent.
“Our objective is to find a way to engage the public earlier in our processes so they can help us change and modify them,” he said.
Strauss says she’s also focused on cutting class sizes, an issue that challengers had seized on during the campaign as an example of the board’s failings. She wants funds included in the 2013 budget to help schools deal with overcrowding.
Overall, candidates said, they’re looking forward to getting to work.
“There have been some missteps and some loss of trust from some people in the community,” Velkoff said. “But I think the public is going to be very well served by diversity of opinions from incumbents and newcomers. I think we’re going to have a very interesting mix.”
awhelan@washingtonexaminer
