Opinion | A nasty fight in a rural Virginia school district unearths dark truths

By Greg Sargent
Columnist
September 27, 2023 at 6:45 a.m. EDT



A sign on a road near Beaverdam, Va., in Hanover County, where a battle is underway over a push for an elected school board. (Greg Sargent/The Washington Post)

BEAVERDAM, Va. — The same school board in rural Virginia that censored “To Kill A Mockingbird” in 1966 removed at least 20 books this year after granting itself sole authority over library content. Last spring, it renamed a school christened after a Black historical figure from the state. Now, the Hanover County School Board is swept up in the widespread right-wing movement to reshape public education — and a bipartisan group of parents is fighting back.

I recently visited a beer-and-music festival where members of Hanover Citizens for an Elected School Board were campaigning for their cause: taking away county officials’ power to appoint school board members, who are otherwise insulated from public accountability. Unelected boards are rooted in the state’s Jim Crow past, as they were sometimes used to keep Black residents out. ... The group has created unlikely alliances. John Dixon, a Republican retiree who dabbles in hog farming, stopped by the table to lend support. “I’m losing friends over this,” he joked.

Dixon isn’t alone. “We’re all along the spectrum politically, but we all want a say in who our school board members are,” said Stephanie Kim. The Southern Baptist mom joined the group because she’s not happy with how schools are handling kids with special needs such as her own. ... Similarly, liberal-leaning Kelly Merrill, a University of Richmond professor with a transgender teenager, said she was angered when the school board voted against accommodations for trans students.

The case for an elected board in Hanover County, which stretches from Richmond’s suburbs into outlying rural areas and backed Donald Trump in 2020 by 26 points, is strong. It is one of only a dozen school boards in the state that are still appointed — and it’s the largest among those. (The others switched to elected status after the state legislature allowed the change in 1992.) Its seven members are appointed to four-year terms by the (elected) county Board of Supervisors.

{snip}

Opinion by Greg Sargent
Greg Sargent is a columnist. He joined The Washington Post in 2010, after stints at Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine and the New York Observer. Twitter https://twitter.com/theplumlinegs