Half of Loudoun School Board Candidates Join Moms for Liberty Forum
Three of the six candidates running for the school board special elections in the Broad Run and Leesburg districts shared their platforms Wednesday night at a forum hosted by Moms for Liberty Loudoun.
The forum included outgoing School Board member Andrew Hoyler (Broad Run), Broad Run District candidate Tiffany Polifko and Leesburg District candidate Michael Rivera.
Leesburg contestants Erika Ogedegbe and Lauren Shernoff and Broad Run contestant Nick Gothard did not participate. Gothard had called on other candidates to withdraw from the forum ahead of time, accusing the national conservative group of advocating hate against the LGBTQ community.
During the forum, Hoyler, who was named to the board last October after the death of Leslee King, said he still had a lot of work to do on the board and that 11 months was not enough. He pointed out that the process of changing a policy takes months and cannot be changed in a single board meeting.
Polifko said being a mother to children in Loudoun County Public Schools allows her to see what’s going on from a parent’s perspective. Coupled with her professional background in behavior analysis and special education, she said she has what it takes to sit on the board and contribute her expertise in these areas and effect change.
Rivera, a father of two, said he never imagined he would be in politics but decided to run because he felt parents’ rights were under attack. “The bond between a mother and father and their child is something no one should ever put between the two,” Rivera said. He said schools need to focus more on academic education and remove identity politics from schools.
Polifko and Rivera both said the school’s budget was bloated.
“This year when the budget was revised, the budget went up and enrollment went down,” Rivera said, suggesting that taxpayers are being misled about the budget.
Hoyler said there are many issues that need to be addressed with the capital improvement plan and the capital preservation program, which he says need to be increased due to rising construction and repair costs. He pointed to the unique bid the school system received to build a new middle school, in which the bidder quoted a price 25% over budget. Hoyler pointed out that he tried to remove a number of things from the budget, including director or supervisor positions, but those motions failed by a vote.
“Until we can get a majority that just won’t agree with something in the budget because that’s what the staff want in the budget, we’re not going to see any change,” he said. said Hoyler.
He also differed from Polifko and Rivera on the role of parents and schools in raising children. He said for the majority of students, he agreed with their transfer approach, but said there were children who didn’t have parents at home to teach them life skills.
“There are small minorities who are really affected by a lack of strong parenting in their household for whatever reason. We also have to be careful of children who would otherwise fall through the cracks,” he said “But to make a blanket statement that no school shouldn’t teach life lessons, that’s not something I agree with.”
“I don’t understand why, when we have kids who aren’t reading at the grade level, when we have kids with IEPs who have their service capped because the school system can’t provide the resources or the teachers to handle those workloads,” Polifko said. “Why are we focusing on teaching them about identity and implicit bias? We need to address learning loss and focus on what needs to happen when our children go to school, that is, our schools exist to educate and it is the responsibility of parents to instill morality and values in their children.
All three opposed collective bargaining.
Hoyler said that as a pilot he had seen the pros and cons of unions and said he had listened with an open mind to proposals from the Loudoun Education Association, but had 19 issues with the proposal. and said there are other ways to represent teachers. He said he believes LEA has a valuable perspective that she can bring to the school board because she represents approximately 40% of the teaching staff group. He said he tried to bring LEA and Human Resources together because he thought teachers’ feedback should be included in the policy.
Chapter president and co-founder of Moms for Liberty Loudoun Cheryl Onderchain said all six school board candidates were invited to the forum, and Shernoff said she couldn’t come and that Ogedegbe and Gothard weren’t. had not answered.
Gothard said he did not want to legitimize the organization.
“Moms for Liberty nationally has strongly advocated against our LGBTQ community, from perpetuating harmful stereotypes to advocating for discrimination and even segregation of LGBTQ children and children with disabilities from other students. I don’t spend my time legitimizing an organization that wants to divide our community and perpetuate hatred against the people we need to serve,” Gothard said. “Instead, I spend time in our community talking to students, teachers, and families about real issues like literacy, school infrastructure, and STEM programs. We deserve an effective, driven leader who doesn’t try to listen to some of the most extreme ideologies and who will bring people together and drive consensus on important issues. I’m disappointed that my two opponents have chosen to spend time on this forum rather than advocating for real issues.
“We are a non-partisan organization. We just want to educate voters. We’ve been the epicenter of so much over the past year and even though it’s a special election and even though these seats are only for one year, it’s still important to hear what these candidates have to say,” Onderchain said.
An email request for comment to Ogedegbe and Shernoff was not immediately returned.
School board races are non-partisan. Gothard and Ogedegbe were endorsed by the Loudoun County Democratic Committee. Polifko and Rivera were endorsed by the Loudoun County Republican Committee.
