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Southampton County School Board Chair Dr. Deborah Goodwyn added an item to the agenda of the board’s Monday, March 10, meeting to respond to recent comments made by members of the Southampton County Board of Supervisors in an article in The Tidewater News.

Goodwyn opened by stating, “In November 2022, the citizens of Southampton County voted to move from having School Board members appointed by School Board Selection Committee to having School Board members elected directly by the voters, but no School Board members were surprised by this change.”

She noted that in 1992, Virginia became the last state in the nation to allow elected school boards, with Gov. L. Douglas Wilder signing that legislation into law.

“But since that time, Virginians have embraced elected school boards, and Southampton County is no different,” she said. “Virginia has 132 school districts, and in 2022 only about 10% or maybe 15 or 16 of those districts still had appointed school boards, so as School Board members, we were very much aware of the trend of moving from appointed school boards to elected schools, and many School Board members supported that move. So we were in favor of it, we supported it, it was no surprise to us.

“But whether appointed or elected, the School Board, like the Board of Supervisors, is accountable to the public, to the citizens of Southampton County,” Goodwyn said.

She stated that the two boards are equal boards with different responsibilities that are spelled out in the Code of Virginia, and she repeated that each board is directly accountable to the citizens of the county.

“It is the Southampton County Board of Supervisors that has taken legal action against the Southampton County School Board,” she said. “So the legal action is being brought by the Board of Supervisors against Southampton County School Board.”

On Aug. 27, the Board of Supervisors had voted unanimously to pursue a forensic audit of the school division and requested the Southampton County School Board’s cooperation in this effort. The Board of Supervisors’ vote followed a Citizens Comment Period earlier that evening during which 17 people spoke, all expressing concerns about the state of the school system.

The board’s vote also followed a period of about four years in which some members of the board had sought answers to specific questions regarding the school division’s finances.

During this same period, some School Board members had complained that the Board of Supervisors was trying to overstep its authority and should focus its attention on developing the county’s economy rather than trying to run the school system.

On Nov. 6, the Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted unanimously to engage the law firm of Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP to represent the BOS as it sought to learn more about the management and finances of SCPS.

During the Jan. 13 School Board meeting, Goodwyn highlighted how School Board Counsel Pamela O’Berry, of Sands Anderson PC, had noted in a Sept. 19 letter to the county that “a forensic audit is an examination of financial records to derive evidence to prosecute a party for fraud, embezzlement or other financial crimes.”

In that same letter, O’Berry indicated that there exists no legal authority for the Board of Supervisors’ desired forensic audit of the school division.

Edwards said in an Oct. 21 interview that the BOS was still going to obtain the equivalent of a forensic audit of SCPS. In a Nov. 18 interview, he indicated that the board’s engagement with a law firm was a result of the school division’s lack of cooperation with pursuing the audit.

“If the school system had cooperated, there wouldn’t have been this reaction from the board,” he said.

During the March 10 School Board meeting, Goodwyn said, “The second point I wanted to make is that the School Board does want to have an effective, positive relationship with the Board of Supervisors, and I know that we had that relationship for at least 20 years, because I was here. So for at least 20 years, that was a positive relationship, and I know that all of us would love to see us get back to doing that.

“But oftentimes when people talk, reference is made to a meeting that took place on July 14, 2021,” she continued. “So on July 14, 2021, with the approval of the School Board, the chair of the Board of Supervisors, the vice chair of the Board of Supervisors, the chair of the School Board, the vice chair of the School Board, the superintendent and the county administrator met. The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen the relationship between the two boards. The focus of the meeting was to discuss the roles and responsibilities of each board as spelled out in the Code of Virginia.

“Well, we thought, from the School Board perspective, that it was a successful meeting, and we thought we were on our way to restoring or establishing a positive relationship,” she said. “Well, unfortunately, the Board of Supervisors’ leadership and the School Board leadership had different takeaways from the meeting.”

She referred to minutes from the July 27, 2021, Board of Supervisors’ meeting in stating that BOS Chair Dr. Alan W. Edwards’ only takeaway from the July 14 meeting seemed to be that the BOS was to list the concerns and questions it had pertaining to Southampton County Public Schools operations, forward them to the superintendent who would then answer back to the Board of Supervisors.

“And if you look at those minutes, at the July 27, 2021, meeting of the Board of Supervisors, this is what the chairperson had to say after the meeting,” Goodwyn said. “He said, ‘We drew up a list of questions,’ and he said, ‘I’ll read them.’”

Drawing from the minutes, following is the information Edwards was requesting:

“1) A listing of students with perfect attendance during the ’20-’21 year;

“2) A listing of faculty or staff that require stipends for coaching or serving as an organized

sponsor during the year ’20-’21 and the amounts of each stipend that they’ve received;

“3) A copy of the current employment contract for the division superintendent;

“4) A copy of the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance guidelines and procedures

associated with all new school roofs financed through our school bonds (taxpayers’ money);

“5) We would also like the meeting minutes from the last three meetings of the Southampton

County School Board Selection Committee.”

Goodwyn noted that after the board chair read off his requested information, another supervisor added more questions.

The meeting minutes state that Supervisor Lynda T. Updike said, “I’ve got several things that my constituents have asked. How are they handling the Critical Race Theory curriculum? Do we have any transgender high school students? And where does the out-of-this-district tuition go? And how many such students do we have, and how much is the tuition for students?”

Goodwyn reiterated that the takeaways of the School Board leaders and the BOS leaders from the July 14 meeting were significantly different and not in alignment.

“Therefore, a few months later, the School Board proposed that the two boards have a joint meeting instead of just having the chairs and vice chairs and county administrator and superintendent meet,” she said. “So we proposed having a joint meeting so that all members, members of both boards, would have the same information at the same time.

“Our proposal was that the joint meeting would be facilitated by a member of the Virginia Institute of Government, which is an organization that the Board of Supervisors holds a membership in, and it’s also an organization that is a part of the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service,” she continued. “We thought we needed an experienced facilitator because this person could guide the discussion to help keep us on track, it would keep the meeting on schedule, the person could ensure that all attendees had a chance to participate. The facilitator could maintain a respectful meeting environment, and then after that meeting, that person would summarize and distribute the key points that were made at the meeting.”

She said an individual was identified to serve in this role, and he was familiar to then-County Administrator Michael W. Johnson.

“But the Board of Supervisors would not agree to having a joint meeting of the two boards under those conditions, therefore that meeting never took place,” Goodwyn said. 

“So even though that meeting never took place, we did have in place for several years a budget liaison committee,” she added.

She said the liaison committee was composed of two BOS members, two School Board members, the superintendent and the county administrator.

“Those meetings took place for a number of years, and they just sort of petered out over time,” she said. “But the point I’m making is that we do want to have a working relationship with the Board of Supervisors. We know that the citizens of Southampton County benefit from a great working relationship between the two boards.”

Goodwyn also addressed comments by Edwards in which he said there is a track record by the school division of not responding to Freedom of Information Act requests at all.

Goodwyn said the School Board takes FOIA requests seriously.

“The Virginia Freedom of Information Act was intended to ensure that the people of the commonwealth have access to public records in the custody of a public body and that they have free entry to meetings of public bodies where business of the people is being conducted,” she said. “The Southampton County School Board strives to adhere to the requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and we have no knowledge of any instance where an individual has paid estimated costs for a FOIA request and has not received the information paid for. We have no instances of such cases.”

She said she asked SCPS Superintendent Dr. Gwendolyn P. Shannon, and Shannon could not find any case where the person that paid for a FOIA request did not receive the requested information.

To conclude her comments, Goodwyn highlighted again the School Board’s desire to have a positive, effective working relationship with the Board of Supervisors.

“But the first step in that relationship has to be mutual respect of the roles and responsibilities of each board,” she said. “I just want to reiterate that we do want to be good partners in working to make Southampton County a good place to live and work and play. But we do demand respect. We know our responsibilities, we know our roles, and we do think that we need to be respected for the work that we do.”

School Board Member Christopher Smith Sr. said, “Madam Chair, I think you summed it up about as well as it could be summed up. We have always fostered an idea that both boards need to be working together for the citizens of Southampton County, and that’s what it takes — respect for each other.”