The Spotsylvania Board of Education took the unusual step of involving state Department of Education officials to recruit Mark Taylor as superintendent.
Virginia Department of Education leadership, including state superintendent of public education Gillian Barrow, reached out to members of the Spotsylvania Board of Education through the hiring process. Such involvement is unusual, according to a recent former state education secretary, three former Spotsylvania School Board members, and the director of the Virginia School Board Association.
Scott Baker, the former superintendent of the school system, was fired without cause during a closed session at a January 10 school board meeting.
Taylor will be appointed superintendent on November 1st. His annual base salary is $245,000, making him the second highest paid school district superintendent in the Fredericksburg area. Although Taylor has served in administrative roles, he has no prior experience in his teaching.
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The board’s 4-to-3 decision to hire Taylor, who held the same position in Greene County after serving as a Spotsylvania County administrator from 2015 to 2019, sparked controversy between the school board and residents. Over the past few months, parents have expressed concerns about the selection process, Taylor’s lack of teaching experience, and her personal relationship with the school board chair.
Critics of Taylor’s choice have also pointed out that a controversial social media post was made against a profile believed to be Taylor’s.Member of the Virginia State Board of Education When discussing whether Taylor could be licensed as an Overseer, one member referred to these posts as being racially and socially indifferent.
The board ultimately voted 6 to 2 in favor of licensing,Everal, which voted to license Taylor, agreed to disqualify him from the position of leader if the post was legal and they were hiring.
In an interview with ABC7 last month, Taylor suggested that the social media posts were the result of his profile being hacked.
Last week, two county residents, Jeffrey Glazer and Christina Ramos, filed a petition in the Spotsylvania Circuit Court seeking a “temporary and permanent injunction against the employment of Mark Taylor.” We are requesting judicial review of the Commission’s decision.
Emails obtained by The Free Lance-Star from the state Department of Education through a Freedom of Information Act request indicate that Elizabeth Schultz, Balow’s Senior Advisor and Associate Superintendent of Public Education, was an early contact for school board members. indicates that Its advisor, John Russell, is currently the Executive Communications Manager for the Spotsylvania School District.
“This is unusual,” said former Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Karni. [the] Get your state board of education or VDOE involved in hiring a local superintendent.
“Involvement usually involves the school sector having a history of not meeting national accreditation standards and involving the VDOE to create a memorandum of understanding with the local sector to intervene on specific issues,” Karni said. Written by e-mail. Freelance star. “This may include the selection of superintendents, although this is typically set out in a MOU and mutually agreed upon.”
School Board member Lisa Phelps emailed Schultz on January 24, shortly after Schultz was appointed to his position at VDOE by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, requesting a meeting.
Phelps contacted Schultz again on May 4, asking her to request that the school board extend the 120-day window that the Virginia Code offers the school board to fill superintendent vacancies. Phelps also mentioned a conference the two will be attending.
Schultz replied to Phelps the same day, thanking him for the “opportunity to touch on the basics of the search for the Spotsylvania County Superintendent of Education,” and saying, “It’s an honor to meet you at the Education Summit.”
She also forwarded Phelps’ emails to Barrow, Russell, and Barrow’s Chief of Staff Dickie Shanner.
In late May, VDOE’s chief policy analyst Rebecca Askew informed Russell of Twigg’s request to meet with Balow to discuss “employment, ratios and learning standards,” according to her email. has copied it to Twigg on his personal AOL email address. Twigg then followed up on that meeting request with another email to Russell.
Russell scheduled a meeting with Burrow via Zoom on May 31st.
School board member Dawn Shelley, who served as president before Twigg, said he never requested a meeting with the state superintendent during his tenure as president.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate. Virginia has over 130 school boards. I don’t think the state superintendent has time for that,” Shelley wrote in an email to Freelance Star. .
Two other former Spotsylvania School Board chairs, Baron Braswell and Elling Lamp, also said they never requested a meeting with the state superintendent and had no idea why.
In April, the school board hired GR Recruiting to find a superintendent for the new department.
On May 16, the school board held a special meeting with consultant Sandi Gero to finalize the requirements and profile for the new superintendent. At that meeting, board members objected to requiring successful candidates to have public education experience.
Gero told the board that he does not anticipate applications from non-educators.
On May 20, school board attorney Brad King emailed Twigg, citing section 8VAC20-390-10 of the Virginia Administrative Code.
According to the Code, one of the qualifications an applicant must meet to be on the list is “at least five years of satisfactory full-time experience in administration and/or supervision in a public school.” is.
“Here’s the state regulation we just talked about,” King wrote to Twigg. They must be selected from a list of eligible candidates that is maintained, and the eligibility and route to being on that list are contained in this regulation.”
King has since resigned from his position as an attorney on the Commission.
On June 7, Twigg forwarded King’s email to Russell with a quote from 8VAC20-390-10, along with another section of the Administrative Code.
According to section 8VAC20-23-630, a superintendent of schools may be eligible if he or she has a master’s degree or equivalent, has a minimum of three years of successful senior management experience, and has a recommendation from the “Virginia Board of Education.” You may be a candidate for a license. Interested in individual employment
Twigg asked Russell in an email on June 7, “Can you help me write a summary, or in two weeks?” [sic] State requirements. “
In a document attached to the June 7 email, either Twigg or Russell annotated the quoted code section with the following: Superintendents select outsiders because they are listed in Option IV of the Superintendent Licensing Regulations. It says it will be in the form of a letter…that’s it. “
GR Recruiting accepted applications for Superintendents through mid-June, and the school board conducted two interviews with top candidates in late June and early July.
The school board held a special meeting on July 8 to discuss the two final candidates for superintendent, but no public vote was taken to endorse either of them.
The next morning, Twigg emailed Russell, attaching a “top secret” letter, recommending Taylor for the position.
On Sunday, July 10, Russell forwarded the email and attached letter to Barrow, writing, “Gillian if you have a chance please review this attachment. I will get in touch with you tonight.”
Russell sent a Twig letter on July 11 to VDOE’s Director of Licensing, Maggie Clemons, asking that Taylor be added to the school board’s shortlist for licensing.
On July 26, Russell forwarded the email chain between Taylor and Clemmons to Shanor.
“Please meet Chief of Staff Shanner, Spotsy School Board Chair Twig and Mark Taylor,” Russell wrote. We’ve been working hard to get Mark through the end zone.”
On August 4th, Twigg wrote to Shanor saying, “Your letter from earlier this week certifying that Mark Taylor has completed his requirements,” and, “Your team walked down the hall, [Taylor’s] Name a stack of a few superintendents. [via package] Approved at the August meeting of the school board on the 17th….”
Twigg asked Shanner to tell him if anything was expected to delay approval of Taylor’s license by the school board.
“As you know, we want to start working with the new Superintendent and don’t want to back down,” he wrote.
Shanol replied, “It should be a consent agenda item, so don’t worry.”
The school board removed Taylor’s name from the license’s candidate list on Aug. 17 after it was revealed that the Spotsylvania school board did not vote publicly to endorse him. .
School board members said at their Sept. 15 meeting that they were satisfied that this “procedural error” had been rectified and approved Taylor’s license by a 6-2 vote.
Hiring superintendents is one of the duties assigned to local school boards by the Virginia Code, said Gina Patterson, executive director of the Virginia School Board Association.
State departments of education typically have little involvement in the process beyond granting licenses, Patterson said.
Adele Uphaus: 540/735-1973
auphaus@freelancestar.com
@flsadele
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