CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The Albemarle County School Board held its second official town hall Wednesday, with Board Chair Dr. Rebecaa Berlin and embattled Jack Jouett representative Dr. Kate Acuff taking questions at Greer Elementary.
While the board’s first town hall last week saw frustration and anger from parents and teachers, Wednesday’s event was much calmer and more organized, despite an ongoing effort to petition for Acuff’s removal.
There was no mention of the petition during the event and, afterward, Acuff told Cville Right Now she declined to address issues other than that night’s town hall.
The meeting mostly focused on the division’s mounting legal and criminal issues, and its rising number of employees on leave. Acuff said Acting Superintendent Dr. Chandra Hayes has developed a plan to provide more specific communication about leaves to impacted school community’s when the division is able to.
Acuff and Berlin also discussed potential changes to the hiring processes for superintendent, principals and other administrative roles. Berlin apologized to parents who were part of the process to pick Greer’s current principal last year, some of whom didn’t feel their input was heard. She said she is working with Hayes to develop a consistent principal search process that will first be implemented to select Hollymead’s next principal starting in January.
Those two issues are the ones Acuff said afterward she hears frequently from constituents.
“I think it’s a general concern about, is all this noise, it’s more than noise, but is all of this interfering with what we’re supposed to be doing here, which is instructing our kids?” she said.
Earlier in the day, Phil Riese, chairman of the Albemarle Republican Committee, announced that volunteers had collected 458 signatures for a petition calling for Acuff’s removal from the board. The signatures came from voters at the three Jack Jouett District precincts on Election Day, and left the petition just 18 less votes shy of the 476 needed to petition a circuit court judge for Acuff’s removal.
In a statement, Riese said the strongest response came at the University of Virginia precinct, where the petition received 243 signatures, emphasizing the petition is a bipartisan effort.
Outside of the town hall, a volunteer asked for signatures in an effort to get the final 18 needed. Joellen Pisarcyk, who is involved in the petition, told Cville Right Now afterward the petition had 466 signatures.
The town hall events, which have been organized in conjunction with Albemarle County Public Schools Family Council, are the latest attempts by the school board to connect with staff and families amidst the recent crises in the division. But while Wednesday’s event was much more organized than the first, the turnout was significantly lower, as pointed out by some Greer parents during the meeting.
“I don’t think there’s many parents here of kids from our schools,” parent Bo Odom said. “This room does not represent what it normally looks like at our bingo nights and our culture heritage night. This place is rocking with an incredibly wondering, diverse, rich community, and it is not tonight.”
When he asked Acuff and Berlin why they think the meeting was not well-attended, Acuff said she wished she knew the answer, as she has tried a variety of different outreach methods over the years, with little success. She said she was open to feedback.
Odom’s wife, Holly, who helped organize the event as one of Greer’s Family Council co-reps, responded that the marketing for the event was “not up to par for this community,” and that moving forward, multiple modes of communications should be required for such events.
“Also, I just think too it’s relationships that take length and depth,” she said. “And so I will just say Kate, it’s hard to hear you say that you don’t know when you’ve been representing our district for 12 years.”
Holly Odom finished by asking Acuff why she believed she was the best person to represent Jack Jouett moving forward. Acuff responded saying, “Maybe I’m not,” before, after a pause and thanking Holly for the feedback, adding she perhaps hadn’t been in as many parent-facing forums as she should’ve been.
Acuff said that, after the meeting, some teachers and parents suggested ways for her to better connect with families, including attending family events and staff meetings.
“I think this is a good first step,” she said. “I don’t think there were quite enough parents, and the teachers didn’t talk very much. So I think it may be a process of getting a more fluent conversation going.”
