School Board Candidates Court Braddock Voters

Four of the six Republicans running for at large Fairfax County School Board seats met residents of the Braddock District on Wednesday evening at the private residence of Nell Hurley, herself a candidate for the district seat.

Candidates took turns proposing the changes they would like to see the board adopt once elected to office.

Brandishing a collection of reports from ten years ago, Nell Hurley said she would like to see an independent audit of the school board books or at least have an internal auditor who did not report to the superintendent. Recalling her fight to renovate Woodson, she said she wanted the board to listen to the community before making decisions.

“I have spent 16 years working at that school, volunteering in that school and helping out at that school,” Hurley said. “I pay the taxes and with the people around here we think it is our school. Now legally they may own the school but it is our school and we the community should not be blown off.”

 Responding to community concerns in a timely manner was a major concern for Lolita Manchen-Smoak, an at-large candidate. She said there was need for a new norm of accountability in county school board decision making.

“In God we trust, all others bring us the data,” she said, eliciting chuckles across the room. “Administration should not give us barriers as to why there is no data for decisions that are being made. We need data driven and fact based decisions.”

Lin-Dai Kendall said she would like the school system to place more emphasis on academics like reading writing and hard sciences instead of discussing social issues. She said the current system produced graduates in need of remedial education.

“I send my kids to school to learn the basics and to have a classic education,” she said. “I don’t send them to be dissected socially. The bottom line to me is that the education system has been dumbed down not just in the county but across the country.”

During her presentation, Lisa Fagan pointed out that college may not be the desire or best choice for some students. She said she would work to make sure graduates from the Fairfax County school system would have basic work requirements like knowing how to write a resume. 

Sheree Brown-Kaplan said if elected to office she would work towards a better remuneration for teachers to avoid losing them to neighboring systems

Megan McCormack, a graduate of Lake Braddock and a potential voter said she did not have children in the system but she was worried about the transparency of decisions made by the sitting board.

“I think it is important to bring change to the school board,” she said. “There have been a lot of issues like the closing of Clifton Elementary and I don’t think the community is feeling like they are getting the correct information from the current board.”

Christina Guthrie could not attend the event. did not receive clearance for the event but sent a representative. John Cook, a candidate for the district’s supervisor position attended the event. Republicans will endorse three of the six candidates on July 20th.