Northumberland County is Considering an Appointed School Board. Could Virginia See More?

Over 1,200 Northumberland County voters are trying to change how their school board is determined by shifting from an elected to an appointed system, continuing a trend of Virginians challenging the status quo of local school system oversight.

State law allows a locality to change how members are added to school boards via a ballot referendum. Since the pandemic, voters in some Virginia localities have called for boards to be selected by county leaders instead of elected by residents, linking school boards to controversial decisions about curriculum content, parental rights, and control and transparency. Residents in the counties of Hanover, Southampton and the city of Franklin have expressed dissatisfaction with their school board’s actions and policy decisions.

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In Northumberland County, the attempt to change the school board membership determination system instead came down to money. Residents cited financial mismanagement, most notably the IRS slapping a $50,000 lien on school property for unpaid taxes, according to multiple reports. Others claimed property taxes increased because of the division’s mismanagement.

Patrick O’Brien, a county resident and one of the petitioners, said like other localities, the Northumberland County Board of Supervisors has “no role” in the management of the school system other than appropriating funds to the division. But “if the school board doesn’t control its spending and the Board of Supervisors finds out about (it), then there is nothing they can do except scold them for exceeding their budget,” he said.

“The school board has the Board of Supervisors over a barrel, and they know it, and they still spend money like it’s going out of style,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien, along with co-petitioner Jim Penney, successfully added the question to this year’s ballot by collecting 1,300 signatures from at least 10% of the registered electorate and presenting it to the circuit court.

Penney and O’Brien told the Mercury they filed their petition due to claims of significant financial woes and poor performance by the Northumberland County School Board. The two said the petition aimed to address overspending, lack of accountability, and declining school performance, which have overshadowed the dismissal of the superintendent and the resignation of the finance director.

“We’re all hoping and working towards changing this so that the Board of Supervisors will then be able to identify by way of public hearings and interviews and nominations from the public, to be able to identify people that they can appoint to a school board and hopefully put some stability back in this county,” Penney said.

Before 1992, nearly all of Virginia’s school boards were appointed by local governing bodies. That year, legislation carried by Del. Wendell Walker, R-Lynchburg, to change the law, passed, allowing local governments to hold a referendum on electing the boards.

The last effort to convert a Virginia school board from an appointed to an elected one was in Hanover County in 2023, and was unsuccessful. This year a proposal to require all school board candidates to be elected, not appointed, died in a Senate Education and Health subcommittee.

Currently, 11 school boards are appointed in Virginia: Franklin City, Galax City, Hanover County, Hopewell City, Lynchburg City, Manassas Park City, Martinsville City, Poquoson City, Richmond County, Roanoke City and Salem City. ​Williamsburg-James City County has a hybrid board, which has two appointed members from Williamsburg and five elected members from James City.

The Mercury contacted members of Northumberland’s school board for comment, but none of the five responded.

Concerns with the referendum

While a sufficient number of voters signed on the petition to launch the referendum, some residents, including military veteran Jim Henderickson, are concerned the change could take away voters’ right to choose their own candidate.

The petitioners said that most school board races have gone unopposed for many years, calling voters’ right to choose “meaningless,” O’Brien added.

Hendrickson said while in military service he helped many countries around the world with voting and taught about representation in elections. The idea of taking away voters’ ability to select an elected body is surprising, he said.

“I find it just absolutely unbelievable that I’m now in a community that’s trying to get people to vote, to take away their own vote,” Hendrickson said. “The whole idea of ‘please vote to take away your right to vote’ just seems so unpatriotic and un-American to me, and just antithetical to anything I thought was American.”

Other residents, including former educator Amy Lamb, said they are concerned the school board won’t be diverse enough.

Lamb’s concern comes after O’Brien wrote in an Aug. 15 op-ed titled “Fire The School Board” that with a vote of “yes,” the county can create a school board containing “finance and accounting experts” who can be recommended to the Board of Supervisors.

A school board should have diverse talents and interests, Lamb argued.

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“I don’t think these people realize that a school board does more than manage a budget,” Lamb said. “They make decisions about children’s futures and they make decisions about educational programming. So I think you need a variety of perspectives to bring to a school board.”

The Mercury reached out to a handful of localities that appoint school board members to learn more about the selection process, including Richmond County, the closest to Northumberland, and Hanover County, as well as the cities of Franklin and Roanoke.

Most processes involve submitting an application and a resume before a candidate is selected.

Regardless of the outcome, Hendrickson said the county should hire a competent accountant to manage both the school and county budgets, thereby preventing any further issues. He said residents should also consider the Board of Supervisors’ competence because “they’re the ones that are supervising the school board and the superintendent of schools.”

What’s next

No other locality in the commonwealth is holding a referendum on changing the determination of school boards in the 2025 General Election. An attempt to convert the Franklin City School Board to an elected board has been unsuccessful, so it failed to be included on the statewide list of referendums.

In Virginia, early in-person voting began on Sept. 19 and ends Nov. 1. The ballot will feature candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the House of Delegates.

Austin Schmidt, vice president for the Northumberland County Electoral Board, said the office has processed around 700 ballots out of approximately 10,500 registered voters as of Tuesday afternoon. The number of mail-in ballots are unknown.

Schmidt said anecdotally the turnout is up “above average” compared to four years ago.

“We’re very pleasantly surprised people are taking advantage of the early voting opportunity,” Schmidt said. “The legislature mandated it and we’re going by the law.”