Hanover County's school board showdown
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Hanover County is one of the last local governments in the state where voters don't directly elect school board members.
What's happening: That could change soon.
- A local referendum on this year's ballot asks voters if they want to start choosing school board reps themselves on Election Day, rather than leaving it to the board of supervisors to make appointments.
Why it matters: The referendum is turning into a test of whether voters think the current school board's deep red politics are still a good fit.
Catch up fast: The debate comes after years of partisan controversy.
- The board recently voted to ban 19 books and give itself final authority on what titles will remain on library shelves.
- Before that, it adopted a policy on bathroom access for transgender students that prompted a lawsuit by the ACLU of Virginia.
- Individual appointees have also drawn controversy, including last year when a board member dismissed the local NAACP president as "an angry African American lady."
What they're saying: Supporters of the referendum, who had to collect signatures from 10% of the county's voters to get it on the ballot, say the school system's leaders should answer directly to voters.
- One parent, Amanda Kronenberg, told the Virginia Mercury she got involved after her rep voted against removing Confederate names from county schools.
- "I didn't like that they didn't support the students that way, so I wondered when they were up for election and 'never' was the answer," she told the news outlet.
The other side: A committee formed to oppose the change, Keep Hanover Students First, is funded almost entirely by the local Republican committee, per the Virginia Public Access Project.
- The group argues the county school system is great as is, noting its high test scores and graduation rates.
- They frame the referendum as a backdoor attempt by "liberal teacher unions … supporters of Critical Race Theory and those pushing transgender issues."
Context: In 1992, Virginia was one of the last states to authorize elected school boards. Since then all but 12 cities and counties have moved to electing members rather than appointing them, per the Mercury.
- The appointment process was a holdover from a 1902 rewrite of the state's constitution aimed at disenfranchising Black voters.
What we're watching: Turnout in Hanover, where local supervisors are also on the ballot this year, has outpaced the state and region as a whole so far, per VPAP.