During Tuesday night’s regular meeting at the Brooks Auditorium at Thomas Hunter Middle School, the Mathews County School Board approved a contract with the School Board Member Alliance to provide policy services to the division for the remainder of the current school year. Mathews has been without policy services since ending its contract with the Virginia School Board Association last year. Last June, the board voted 3-2 to turn down renewal of the VSBA Policy Services Agreement, which provided the school board with updated sample policies based on statutory and case law and Virginia Attorney General opinions. Last month, the board tabled action on the SBMA contract over a confusion of term dates, with that resolved to cover the six months from Jan. 1 to May 31 of this year at a cost of $875. During discussion on the contract, school board member Mary Kathryn Diggs expressed concern over the relative newness of the SBMA, which was established in 2022, compared to the VSBA, which date...