Guest Blog: How Did We Get Here?

KidsFirst RPS started a year ago, born from a need we saw to protect the focus of RPS leadership on our children and their academic progress.

We watched governance from an imperfect board made of imperfect members that nevertheless strived to serve our children well shift into a board that wanted to disinvest from essential cabinet positions, disinvest in our districts maintenance funds, undermine the safe return to in-person instruction, and actively under-serve the needs of children in our city's most historically marginalized communities. Leadership priorities went from kid-focused, to not kid-focused, to blatantly anti-kid.

We understand that when the RPS administration succeeds, our children succeed. In order for the administration to succeed, the school board must  "delegate authority for the administration of the schools to the superintendent" - as stated in their own code of conduct.

But even the most casual observer of our school board meetings can see that this cooperation between board and superintendent does not exist.

I want to pause for a second, and be very clear who we're talking about. There is a "Board Majority" of 5 members, comprised of Mariah White (2), Kenya Gibson (3, Vice Chair), Jonathan Young (4), Stephanie Rizzi (5), and Shonda Harris-Muhammed (6, Chair). And there is a "Board Minority"  comprised of the remaining 4 - Liz Doerr (1), Cheryl Burke (7), Dawn Page (8), and Nicole Jones (9). It’s never great Board dynamics to have a Board split into 2 factions that are seemingly so at odds with one another (especially a board made up of 8 self-identified Democrats - many of whom claim to be progressive but side with the 1 male Republican).  A 5-4 split makes for a “winning” side and a “losing” side. What it doesn’t make is one team that seeks to serve kids. 

The Board Majority also seemingly routinely conducts board business, between official meetings, without the input or interest in the Board Minority perspective. Nicole Jones routinely calls this out, but perhaps most never as prescient as the February 28, 2022 meeting at River City Middle School, where the Chair proceeded to state that “Board business doesn’t stop with the meetings,” a concerning statement for a Democratically elected board that is required to adhere to VA Open Meetings law. From what I can tell, the 5 of the Board Majority decide what they are going to vote on, and the votes of the Board Minority - and the interests of the constituents in their districts - are largely ignored except when they align with the Board Majority.

The conduct of the 5 in the majority - towards the superintendent, cabinet members, the board attorney, even parents and teacher - is abhorrent. In fact, the behavior was so unbecoming at a last joint meeting with City Council that multiple members of the board minority left the room in protest.

This culture of abuse towards the RPS administration is toxic for the staff and, ultimately, it is RPS kids who suffer.

After Nicole Jones stated that the board minority was being excluded from deliberation, a few RPS parents FOIA'd board member emails to see if this was the case and if work was being done behind closed doors. After all, they are required by their own bylaws to “communicate… public reaction and opinion regarding board policies and school programs to the full board and superintendent.”

What we found was worse.

• We found the Board Majority to consistently disregard open meeting laws.

• We found that a board member consistently sends meddling emails to the RPS administration - sometimes it’s busy work for the superintendent but sometimes it’s direct requests of RPS staff, bypassing the chain of command completely.

• We found that a board member openly shared information from closed-session (closed-session is where sensitive personnel issues are discussed) with a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. When concerns about these violations were shared by the superintendent, the board chair refused to enforce board conduct rules as required by her authority position.

• We found that, in an apparent act of retaliation, the board chair demanded an investigation into the political opponent of her vice-chair.

• We found that the Board Majority consistently encroach on the administration's authority, aiming to wrestle away the superintendent's staffing authority, as is granted by his contract. 

• We found that the Board Majority ignores and dismisses guidance from experts - both inside and outside of the administration - whenever the data does not support their preferred policy making. Often the Majority suggest that relevant data has been withheld from them - though they neither work very hard to get it, or engage with the data when they do.

The cumulative result of this behavior is to FRUSTRATE, DEFEAT, and ultimately REMOVE the top RPS administration. And so far it has been successful. In April, 2021, cabinet member Harry Hughes resigned his position as Chief Schools Officer (now the redesigned and un-filled Chief Wellness Officer position). Yesterday, the Chief Operating Officer, whom Kamras and *dozens* community members defended at the February 28 School Board meeting, quietly resigned. 

This might feel very far removed from your child's classroom, their day to day school experience, but let me assure you that you have felt the consequences. The COO is responsible for, among other critical RPS operations: overseeing the construction of Wythe, the renovation of Fox, the renovation of Clark Springs, the maintenance of every. other. school. in the district. Before they repeatedly threatened her employment, the Board Majority gutted the funding she needed for maintenance procurement - for writing the check to the roofer, HVAC tech, for replacing aged fire panels in roughly a dozen rps schools (one of which, Fox Elementary, dramatically burned down two months ago). The Board Majority consistently abused this cabinet member, not just in openly disrespecting her in Board meetings, but by cruelly taking away her maintenance budget and then blaming her for a devastating fire that likely would have been prevented had they not made that money inaccessible.

CWO? My kids' teachers are crying in the hallways. One of my kids slams their backpack across the room after a day in an overcrowded classroom with stressed out staff. The other kid doesn't want to go to school at all, and cries all morning until I need to drop everything - run out of the house in my slippers - and pick her up two hours later because she's having an anxiety attack. When I ask the nurse if this is common, she nods, a bit shell-shocked, and tells me that anxiety is "way up, across the board." Fire trauma? Pandemic trauma? Gun violence trauma? Housing insecurity trauma? You name it. Kids respond to stress by either withdrawing, or acting out (fights, disruptive behavior). 

And our stressed out kids are stressing out teachers, overworking counselors, and - in a recently released email from the Director of Culture, Climate, and Student Services - overworking the administrative staff overseeing these mental health services. She writes: "I was disappointed to hear" that the Board Majority didn't want to fund - or fill - the CWO position, "as I have been genuinely excited to see the focus and commitment to the work I so deeply believe in for the betterment of our children. Our children deserve the dedicated leadership of someone who understands the depth of the needs of our students, staff and community... our students need a strong voice at the table to see the work all the way through."

I keep coming back to the word "unconscionable," because this situation very much is. We have schools burning, and others left to burn. They are unsafe, and now, thanks to the Board Majority’s failure to rezone River City Middle School, they're willfully overcrowded. We have students struggling, and no "voice at the table" to address the mental health needs on the scale this district deserves. The toxic culture trickles all the way down. We have teachers quitting in the middle of the year, and insufficient subs to meet demand. A friends' kid was in one of three classes jammed into the auditorium this past Monday with one adult to supervise them.

I'd love to say that the board minority can save us, but they cannot. Absent a moral conscience delivering a 5th vote, their elected power is rendered pretty useless. 

I'd love to say that the superintendent can save us, but he cannot. Fear of board retaliation gags him from defending himself, and still they drain him with continual demands to run in circles ever-faster. Nothing is ever enough. And every effort is greeted with criticism and scorn. 

Editor’s Note: And let’s be clear: while you may not agree with every action of the Kamras administration, if Jason Kamras wakes up one day and decides enough is enough, RPS will lose immeasurably.  Jason Kamras is a nationally known talent in education circles and if the RPS board ends up in a position where they have essentially abused and pushed out a highly respected and capable superintendent, while there is a national superintendent shortage and while every school district in the country is trying to crawl out of the decade-deep ditch they were thrown in due to the pandemic, no one will be coming to save them.  There is no world where the RPS Board so abuses its top leadership that they leave and then the Board is able to turn around and hire more top talent.

And who suffers in that situation?  Our kids. RPS kids. 

SO WHAT CAN WE DO?

There are many possible recourses, some carrying with them very strong feelings, and others with the potential for major unintended consequences. This list is for informational purposes, not a declaration of intent or an endorsement of any kind. This list aims to respond to dozens of emails, text messages, and facebook messages asking that suggested one or more of the following actions:

1. VDOE Intervention. This is the least predictable of the options, given the newly inaugurated Youngkin and his very conservative approach to education.  He seems to only want to intervene in situations involving COVID masking requirements and Critical Race Theory. However, RPS is under an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the VDOE and so there is potential for getting support from the state.

2. Recall. In Virginia, the bar for recalling an elected official is extremely high - in fact, it’s not just voters who decide whether a recall is warranted.  After getting 10% of voters to sign a recall petition, a judge must determine that it is warranted.  Should a judge decide that a recall election is warranted, there would need to be candidates immediately ready to step in and run a campaign against the current members. This is a high bar and a huge effort, but it does remove the current Board Majority from office.

3. Lawsuit, on the grounds that Monday's vote on River City Middle School was both arbitrary and capricious. This is costly, and there's an additional challenge of finding education lawyers in Richmond who do not also have a conflict of interest, but this is an option.

4. Board Censure. This is up to our board minority, of course. It's also destined to fail, because it would need 5 votes to pass. The proposal alone could send a message, but the impact on policy making may be more bruised egos and retaliatory efforts. 

5. Censure from Prominent Local Organizations. This, again, has no direct impact on policy making, but it is a way to send a clear message to the 5 that their support is limited and there is broad alignment that their behavior is unacceptable, unbecoming, and puts at risk the most vulnerable members of our community - our kids. 

6. Protest. This achieves both awareness for RPS conditions, and puts political pressure on our elected leaders. It similarly does not have a direct policy impact.

7. Write an opinion piece for local papers. Yes. Do it. Everyone, use the power of the pen to make your thoughts and concerns as public as possible. I break my "non-endorsement" promise for this action, and the next:

8. Recruit & Support 2024 Candidates. This is the one that MUST be done. We need strong contenders to run, and a broad support base to canvas, campaign, and endorse these candidates. Maybe that's you. Maybe you know somebody who is candidate-curious. Having a conversation about this is not a commitment, and we'd love to connect those with interest to the information they'd need to make a decision.

If you’re interested in discussing these or other options, or learning more about what has been happening and how you can engage, KidsFirst RPS is holding an RPS Parent Townhall tonight at 5:30 PM at the Carrillon Pavillion in Byrd Park. Come commiserate, meet other parents, and most importantly, organize. I’ll be there - I hope to see you, too!