Politics & Government
School Board Election: At Large
Reed, Ohneiser and Bose offered their views during last week's Loudoun Chamber forum.
Three candidates are vying for the at-large school board seat: Incumbent Tom Reed seeks reelection to the seat, while Bob Ohneiser, the current Broad Run representative on that board, and Jay Bose, a technology manager for the federal government, have posed challenges.
The four attempted to distinguish themselves during last week’s Loudoun Chamber of Commerce School Board Forum at Belmont Country Club in Ashburn.
The subject of technology has come up plenty in this year’s election because of a recent proposal to phase in electronic devices for all students, estimated to cost $200 million and potentially enabling the school system to phase out traditional texts in favor of electronic books.
Find out what's happening in Ashburnwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Reed said school board should follow past changes – as in the 1990s when the county asked voters via referendum before integrating more computers into the schools. “I think that’s a question we have to ask of the voters of Loudoun County,” he said.
Ohneiser said he supports having the best technology available in schools, but questioned whether Loudoun should be among the first to go all-in on electronic texts.
Find out what's happening in Ashburnwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“I believe content development is more important than providing equipment,” he said. “Absolutely no equipment should be purchased or provided to the school system without significant content development in advance.”
In addition, he said students are currently restricted from bringing electronic devices, a policy that could be changed as a start.
Bose said the school board must carefully weight whether there are advantages to the technology as well as weigh the costs for maintenance and replacement before moving forward. He said it’s not clear tablets or computers will adequately replace texts.
“There’s a cost. There’s a lifecycle cost,” he said. “Have we planned for it? Are we replacing the students ability to learn?”
On a question about how the county and school boards can work together to achieve greater efficiencies, Bose suggested the school system might be better off if it eliminated certain functions.
“The government agency that I work for has a core function. For Loudoun County Public Schools, the job is to educated children. That is the core business function,” he said, adding that fleet management, payroll and transportation are areas that the school board could explore for cost savings by turning them over to the county or outsourcing them to private entities.
Like several other candidates running for various school board seats this year, Bose said land acquisition could be turned over to the board of supervisors.
“Land planning could be done by the school board, but land acquisition, that could be done by the county, because they are specialists,” he said.
Ohneiser agreed with Bose to some degree.
“For 8 years, I’m the only school board member who challenged the structure of the school system including the horizontal and vertical departments,” he said, explaining that the potential exists for cost savings. He also said supervisors should allow schools to build new facilities by right in more zoning classes than the county now allows.
“We need to use by right for school,” he said. However, while he supports planning within the school system, he also suggested land acquisition would be better in supervisors’ hands. “We build, own and maintain; that’s the law. It’s not the land; it’s build, own, and maintain.”
Reed disagreed.
“Strong fences make good neighbors,” he said. “One of the problems and difficulties we’ve had with our board of supervisors is that they’re trying to usurp our authority concerning acquisition of land sites for schools.”
He pointed to past occasions when the county purchased sites for schools without consulting the school system, leaving the school board to deal with the difficulties of developing the site, such as Fields Farm near Purcellville.
“The state has told us what we can and cannot do,” he said. “You want to change that, you have to change the state law.”
In terms of areas that where he believes savings could be found, he said, “Transportation is not a function of government” and could “be considered for outsourcing.”
In terms of attracting and retaining quality teachers, Reed said teachers in Loudoun are simply not paid as well as its peers, making it difficult to lure educators to the county.
“The data will tell you that right now … we are fifth out of seven in new teacher salaries,” he said. “We are at the bottom of the list. We really get people mainly because of where we’re located and they live outside the area.”
Ohneiser does not see things exactly the same way. In Loudun, he said, starting salaries may be low, but teachers in the top pay brackets outpace their peers.
“We pay more for our top teachers than Fairfax County,” he said, adding that the high-pay teachers first cost the local school system and then impact the state retirement system as well.
Bose agreed that the top-tier teachers should be part of the equation, but also said lower-paid teachers are struggling and facing larger classes. In addition, he called for greater faculty diversity.
“I’ve spoken to a number of teachers who are crushed under the burden of teaching” too many students, he said. “We also don’t have minority teachers. We have had a lot of quality minority teachers. They either don’t get hired, or when they get hired they get fired or their contracts are not renewed.”
The three candidates will be on everyone’s ballot in Ashburn Nov. 8.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.