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The Southampton County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted 5-0-1 to adopt a resolution Wednesday, May 14, calling for the immediate resignations of Southampton County School Board Chair Dr. Deborah Goodwyn and Southampton County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gwendolyn P. Shannon.

Southwest District Supervisor Carl J. Faison cast the lone abstention.

THE RESOLUTION AND THE VOTE

Just prior to the vote, Northwest District Supervisor and Board Vice Chair William Hart Gillette read the following resolution:

“Whereas the Southampton County School Board and its superintendent of schools have demonstrated incompetence and dereliction of duty in the management and administration of the Southampton County School Division, and

“Whereas the School Board and the superintendent have refused to cooperate repeatedly with the county Board of Supervisors on its reasonable request to reform and make improvements with the management and administration of the school division, and

“Whereas the School Board and the superintendent have refused to cooperate repeatedly with the county Board of Supervisors’ request for information and public records, and

“Whereas the students of Southampton County Public Schools, their parents, the school division’s employees and other stakeholders continue to suffer from the poor and incompetent administration and management of the Southampton County School Division,

“Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Southampton County Board of Supervisors that it hereby calls for the immediate resignation of the chairperson of the Southampton County School Board and the school superintendent, with an answer provided by May the 26th by notice to the county administrator.

“And I would even add with no remuneration included.”

Central District Supervisor and Board Chair Dr. Alan W. Edwards said, “Alright, you’ve all heard the motion. Is there a second to the motion?”

It was seconded by Northeast District Supervisor Christopher D. Cornwell Sr.

The board performed a voice vote on the resolution adoption, and when it came time for Faison to vote, he paused briefly and then said, “I’m not ready to vote on this tonight,” agreeing to abstain.

THE RESPONSE FROM THE SCHOOL DIVISION

On Monday afternoon, May 19, Goodwyn shared a response to the resolution, noting that members of the School Board had received a copy of the May 14 Board of Supervisors’ resolution calling for the board chair and SCPS superintendent’s resignations.

“As a threshold matter, the assertions of the BOS’ resolution are ad hominem attacks and materially inaccurate,” she stated. “It is regrettable that the tenor of communication from the Board of Supervisors is so hostile and adversarial. The School Board stands, as ever, ready to discuss civilly any concerns of the Board of Supervisors. Although the Board of Supervisors and the School Board have discrete areas of responsibility, the two boards share an obligation to advance and protect the interests of the people of Southampton County. We do that best when we speak with one another respectfully and in good faith.

“I want also to direct the attention of the Board of Supervisors to Article VIII, Section 7 (of the) Constitution of Virginia, which explicitly states the following: ‘The supervision of schools in each school division shall be vested in a school board,’” Goodwyn continued. “Further, Section 22.1-28 of the Code of Virginia provides that ‘the supervision of schools in each school division shall be vested in a school board selected as provided in this chapter or otherwise as provided by law.’ These provisions grant a School Board the exclusive authority to supervise the operation of a school division. The BOS’ resolution, by its terms, seeks to assume authority over the school division, notwithstanding that the law vests that authority explicitly with the School Board. The School Board is a separate, not inferior, arm of local government.

“For the foregoing reasons, the Southampton County School Board will respectfully decline to request the resignation of either the board chairperson or the division superintendent,” Goodwyn continued. “Further, neither the School Board chairperson nor the school division superintendent desires to resign their positions.

“I will close as I began,” Goodwyn stated. “The Southampton County School Board stands ready to civilly discuss concerns regarding the Southampton County Schools at a mutually convenient time.”

BACKGROUND ON THE MATTER

On Aug. 27, 2024, the Board of Supervisors 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.

School Board Counsel Pamela O’Berry, of Sands Anderson PC, stated in a Sept. 19, 2024, letter to County Administrator Brian S. Thrower that “a forensic audit is an examination of financial records to derive evidence to prosecute a party for fraud, embezzlement or other financial crimes.”

O’Berry indicated in the letter that there exists no legal authority for the forensic audit of SCPS that the county’s Board of Supervisors was pursuing.

Edwards said in a Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, interview that the board is still going to obtain the equivalent of a forensic audit of SCPS.

In the same interview, Edwards indicated that what is driving the board to pursue a forensic audit of the school system is “the deterioration of the quality of education. The Southampton County Public Schools has gone from a four-star down to a one-star system since 2016. They’re losing students. They’re going to Franklin. That, and financial irregularities that we are seeing and lack of response to very legitimate questions that we’ve asked the school system.”

SchoolDigger is a school-ranking website that states that Southampton High School (SHS) has experienced a significant decline in its statewide ranking and SchoolDigger rating over the years.
“The school ranked as high as 60th out of 322 Virginia high schools in 2014-15, but has since dropped to 257th out of 329 schools in the 2023-24 ranking, with a one-star rating,” states the website’s summary of SHS. “This is in contrast to its previous four-star ratings from 2013-14 to 2016-17.”

The data sources for SchoolDigger include the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Virginia Department of Education.

The website also lists the important disclaimer that not all boundaries are included.

“We make every effort to ensure that boundaries are up-to-date,” the website states. “But it’s important to note that these are approximations and are for general informational purposes only. To verify legal descriptions of boundaries or school locations, contact your local tax assessor’s office and/or school district.”

In the Board of Supervisors’ pursuit of the equivalent of a forensic audit of SCPS, Troutman Pepper Locke LLP, the firm representing the BOS, submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in December that Goodwyn described as being “for 16 categories of financial data reports and documents going back as much as 10 years.”

Goodwyn made clear at the School Board’s April 14 meeting that O’Berry had been communicating with the Board of Supervisors’ legal representatives between December, when the FOIA requests arrived, and early April, when the BOS filed suit against SCPS due to a reported lack of response to the FOIA requests.

Goodwyn said, “The attorneys have been meeting and have been trying to narrow the scope of the FOIA request to make it less costly to supply the information that was requested on the initial FOIA request. And apparently the Board of Supervisors has given its attorney different instructions, and now we will have a hearing about this matter, and it’s still about that FOIA request that we received in December.”

Edwards said, “Basically we just ran out of patience, and our legal team said, ‘Look, they’re not going to do anything. They’re stalling.’ So, we really didn’t want to do this, but that’s the way it is.”

Southampton Circuit Court Judge Helivi L. Holland stated April 22 in an order that the court found that the petitioner, who was the Board of Supervisors’ representative in the suit, had substantially prevailed on the merits of the case, and the BOS was granted remedies.