This week, parents in Fairfax County are taking the first step toward winning that battle. Well more than 5,000 signatures have been collected and filed to recall Fairfax school board member Elaine Tholen. Tholen is believed to be the first elected official in the United States to have a recall filed amid the school closure debate. Petitions for equally incompetent Abrar Omeish and Laura Cohen are not far behind.
Parents are taking their schools back, starting now.
The recall petition against Tholen makes the case that she neglected her duty and misused her office and that her incompetence in the performance of duties had a material adverse effect. I don’t think anyone can argue about the material adverse effect of prolonged school closures, at least not anyone who has seen what has happened to our children this year.
They created a year in which children’s mental health suffered perhaps worse than their grades, which also plummeted. Enrollment dropped by the thousands to the point that the district is now running a campaign begging families to return. Many will not. As districts across the nation opened safely five days a week in the fall, Fairfax became a national embarrassment and remained one into the spring when schools remained locked.
Brabrand announced this month he will only serve one more year. A Pyrrhic victory long overdue. He should not serve one more day. And neither should the school board members who are comfortably far from the next election day, which led parents to take on this recall mission.
Unions and the recalled members will attempt to chalk this up as partisan warfare. They would be lucky if that were the case. Frankly, it would be very difficult to even find 4,500 Republicans in Tholen’s small and incredibly progressive district. No, the people behind this aren’t campaign veterans, as I am. They’re moms and dads across the political spectrum who got fed up watching people make bad decision after bad decision that was harming their children.
It was moms and dads setting up shop in parking lots around the county in blistering February and sweltering June asking their community to support their children. It wasn’t a tough sell. Some progressives would whisper thank you for standing up to the unions. Some would shout it.
In truth, though they are nonpartisan, they are becoming single-issue voters from my vantage point. A truth that Virginia Democrats likely need to learn before November as the teachers unions roll in and throw millions of dollars at candidates such as Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe to protect their monopoly over the schools.
The effort from here is complicated. Virginia’s recall laws need serious reform. Rather than putting Tholen on a ballot for residents to have the final say, the petition goes to circuit court where a judge determines whether a recall trial is warranted. More than 4,500 people rose up, but one person now holds the power. That is a uniquely cushy system for corrupt politicians but not a good one for the citizens of the commonwealth.
Parents are tired of being viewed as third-class voices in the schools their children attend. Unions and bureaucracies crowd them out of the decision-making process. The Fairfax school board has even changed its rules to extremely limit public participation in meetings so it can hear even less from their voters. But no matter how hard it tries, parents won’t ever be silent again.
These are our schools. We fund them. We supply them. Our children attend them. The people who run them are accountable to citizens, not unions. And accountability begins now. Power to the parents.
"Opinion" - Google News
July 20, 2021 at 01:32AM
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Opinion | In Fairfax County, parents are taking back the power - The Washington Post
"Opinion" - Google News
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