RICHMOND, Va. -- A coalition of Richmond parents concerned with Richmond Schools' direction and leadership did some digging into the behind-the-scenes communications of their division's leaders.
Through an open records request, the parents discovered correspondence between officials with the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and Richmond Public Schools (RPS) which they found worrisome.
School board members and administration officials both responded to the findings.
Like clockwork, every first and third Monday of the month, Becca DuVal devotes her attention to her city's school board meetings.
The mother of students at Binford Middle and Fox Elementary often watches with frustration, adding that some meetings in recent months have started around 6 p.m. and stretched beyond midnight.
"These meetings are long, and they’re really boring," DuVal said. "It's hard to stay engaged that way."
During those meetings, the city's nine elected school board members make decisions that impact the education and learning environment of Richmond's 22,000 students and hundreds of teachers and staff.
However, some parents are concerned about how the body operates.
Varying by topic, the board will oftentimes vote in a 5-4 bloc, with a majority voting against recommendations from Richmond Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras.
“They're supposed to represent us. They're supposed to talk to the community, bring our concerns to that stage that they sit on, and then make sure that the school district is budgeting our priorities," DuVal said.
Records revealed some parents even heightened their concerns to the VDOE, writing the agency to call the board "dysfunctional" and unwilling to work with Kamras' administration.
"Dysfunctional" was a word echoed by the principal of Westover Hills Elementary School, Allison El Koubi, who spoke out against the board during Monday night's school board meeting.
In a public comment, she expressed concern about the "dysfunction around how this school board operates that is on public display for hours every two weeks."
El Koubi said she thought the issue was "getting in the way of the effective day-to-day operations of this school system, as well as the longer-term strategic planning of this governance body."
RPS advocacy group Kids First, consisting of parents and community members, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and found the VDOE’s Office of School Quality (OSQ) addressing the Richmond School Board's governance.
A spokesperson for VDOE said it was not unusual for the OSQ to correspond with administration and board leadership as the school district has been in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with VDOE since 2017.
The state can enter this type of agreement with a school system when the Virginia Board of Education identifies a "division-level failure" to meet state standards.
OSQ Director Dr. Aurelia Ortiz sent an email to RPS Board Chair Dr. Shonda Harris-Muhammed in September following two failed attempts by some members of the school board to pass a motion that would phase out the district's curriculum over the current school year and task teachers with developing a new one.
The motion, introduced by the board's Vice Chair Kenya Gibson, was brought forward for a vote before a structured community engagement process could take place, before being added to the board's meeting agenda as an action item, and before the administration could research the financial and academic implications of such a move.
"The board has seemingly worked to establish and maintain order (creating/revising the Governance Manual, Robert's Rule of Order, attending/participating in [Virginia School Boards Association] training), and when things are allowed into motion without being on the agenda as an action item, it undermines the processes you all are attempting to institutionalize," Ortiz wrote to Harris-Muhammed.
Harris-Muhammed replied to Ortiz that having the freedom to draft motions on the spot in the midst of board discussion "works for the school board but not everyone agrees with it."
Harris-Muhammed wrote she'd work with Gibson to change the governance manual.
Ortiz replied in part, "I'm sure the board, community, and leadership team would like to offer input/updates prior to major division decisions-- obviously with the exception of emergency/urgent situations."
When the CBS 6 Problem Solvers asked Harris-Muhammed about Ortiz's emails, the school board chair re-emphasized her position.
"The Office of School Quality does not have the space to indicate when any school board can call a motion, second a motion or discuss a motion," Harris-Muhammed said. "Motions are based on discussions that can happen at any time on the agenda. That is a fact. People do not like it, but as the chair, I will not deny that opportunity for school board members; any of them. Anyone can call for a motion at any time during a meeting if we like it or not. Show me the Code of Virginia that says we cannot."
As a local body, the Richmond School Board has total governing authority over its school district. While VDOE can give the board recommendations and guidance that align with the MOU, the board has complete autonomy.
Still, 1st District School Board member Liz Doerr disagrees with how some of her colleagues conduct business.
"I think this conversation boils down to what is good governance. Of course, we can do all sorts of things. We can introduce motions that are not on the agenda. We can have meetings until 1 a.m. We can limit public comment. But just because we can doesn't mean we should," Doerr said. "Lately my colleagues have been introducing motions with no supporting documentation. We aren't even permitted to read the motion before a vote. I personally am not equipped to vote on something that I can't read, research, or talk to my constituents about. Furthermore, I think every motion should have a budget and legal review before it goes before the board for a vote."
Kids First's FOIA response also revealed that the RPS administration was not providing updates on action items related to the corrective action plan (CAP) outlined in its agreement with VDOE.
The CAP identifies five key principles:
- student success
- leadership and governance
- operations
- human resources
- community relations
All principles come with essential action items that the superintendent's team should be presenting to the school board on a monthly basis and to the OSQ every few months, according to VDOE.
However, Ortiz said her office received no updates "whatsoever" on some essential action items for nearly six months.
Explaining what caused the lack of updates, Kamras' Chief of Staff Michelle Hudacsko noted that the administration was facing vacancies in many key cabinet-level and central office positions. In recent months, the administration has lost a Chief Operating Officer and a Chief Academic Officer.
Hudacsko wrote Ortiz in September, "we simply are, in many cases, trying to keep our head above water."
Ortiz replied with sympathy that RPS is "running on steam" but emphasized her office still needed updates to highlight progress being made under the MOU.
"Work may slow down with limited capacity, but when serving students, the work also continues and doesn't stop. We can chat by phone for additional clarification, but at the end of the day, we all have required updates," Ortiz said.
Ortiz added that the OSQ "continues to have concerns regarding progress" RPS is making on the corrective action plan.
During Monday night's school board meeting, Hudacsko explained that RPS wasn't late providing CAP updates, rather RPS did not have any updates to show for specific essential action items under the CAP because no actions took place in the time period in which the VDOE requests to receive updates.
Hudacsko also said the VDOE asking about executive-level vacancies was "an overreach."
"There is nothing in our CAP related to filling vacancies," Hudacsko said.
She added the VDOE has used an MOU action item about licensure for personnel and has expanded it "to ask any question the VDOE is interested in related to talent-related issues."
In a statement to the CBS 6 Problem Solvers, Harris-Muhammed said it was not the role of the board to address administration vacancies but expressed "grave concerns" over what she considered a "delay" in filling critical roles.
"I have offered my assistance the best I can as the chair to guide Mr. Kamras to encourage the urgency of providing recommendations to the school board. We have NOT received any updates on possible recommendations which first must go through the Office of School Quality when the positions are Chiefs, Directors, and Principals," Harris-Muhammed said in a statement. "My question has been, who waits five to six months to fill relevant and critical leadership positions? Who does that? No one is sharing that information, but let me be clear, it is the responsibility of Mr. Kamras to do so."
She added she was "disappointed" to learn through the FOIA response that Kamras did not relay the administration's correspondence with Ortiz to the board.
"When I need clarity on what it is we need to do, I always reach out to OSQ through email because Mr. Kamras does not provide that information. Some school divisions have exited their MOU in two-three years. The question must be, 'Why not Richmond City School Division?'" Harris-Muhammed said. "The focus must be on what it is that our school division leadership must do to address the concerns in our corrective action plan. The focus must also be this: what is it that our division leadership is not doing to move the school division out of the MOU? This is a long overdue conversation."
Meanwhile, DuVal said she believed both the school board and administration were distracted and said she worried VDOE's advice, particularly about the governance of the board, would fall on deaf ears.
She called on Harris-Muhammed, as the leader of the body that calls the shots for the school district, to keep student success at the center of all decision-making and redirect her board colleagues when they lose that focus.
"It is her job to step up when they don't. It is her job to make sure that they're operating as one body, not two, and that they're representing our interests, not their own," DuVal said. "I don't know how RPS moves past this point, and while we're at this moment of gridlock, student outcomes are just anything but the focus."
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