Mathews County School Board members fielded questions on a wide variety of topics—everything from possible budget cuts to reduce operational costs, to student use of cell phones in the classroom—during a town hall meeting Monday night in the Mathews High School auditorium.

In the roughly two-hour meeting, the second town hall of the 2022-2023 academic year, school board members also disagreed with one another about the extent of their own hands-on involvement in school operations.

The meeting began with a question from Tricia Stall, who asked what areas the school board can target to reduce costs in order to ease the burden on county taxpayers.

Superintendent of Schools Nancy Welch said that over the past three years she has been looking closely at personnel—not just teachers, but also teacher assistants, maintenance workers, custodians, others—with an eye to reducing costs. Over that time, she said, about 13-14 positions were left vacant after personnel either retired or left the division and those positions were not replaced. However, at the same time, the school division has been facing (as everyone else) “enormous increases” in the areas of food and fuel costs, she said.

School board member Linda Hodges said that the school board has been trying to find the balance between reducing costs while still providing the best education for the county’s children. “How do you reduce costs but still not impact negatively student outcomes,” she asked.

Vice chairman John Priest, who served as emcee for the night’s town hall, said that the board has even looked at small ways to cut costs, such as reducing the number of bus routes. Over the past few years, the division has been able to cut back one or two routes, he said, providing a slight savings in fuel costs.

“There’s a trade-off there,” he said, as some students have faced longer bus rides. Evidence of that can be seen in the lengthy parent drop-off/pickup lines at the schools as parents don’t want their children to be on the bus for such an extended period of time, Priest said.

School board member Bobby Dobson said that about 78 percent of the school budget is spent on salaries. “Where does that leave you to cut,” he asked. For instance, he spoke of the division’s transportation department, where the transportation supervisor handles everything including having to step up as a substitute driver when needed. “That’s a one-man show in there,” he said. Attrition is a good way to go to reduce costs, Dobson said.

One specific cost-cutting measure was suggested by an audience member: installing new engines and updating safety features instead of purchasing new buses. However, Welch pointed out that such work cannot be done in-house, and “it actually becomes cost-prohibitive” to get this work done outside of the area. Hodges pointed out that bus chassis also suffer rust damage in this area.

Rosemary Smith asked board members how often they tour the schools, review books in the libraries and classrooms and meet with teachers.

Hodges said board members review the textbooks, some more than others. “To me, the books aren’t as important as the curriculum,” she said, adding that teachers have so many other resources at their disposal to teach other than textbooks.

While school board members take part in scheduled tours with legislators, school board members should not just “pop in” the schools, Hodges said. Likewise, she said, “in school governance, it’s not our place [to be] meeting one-on-one with teachers … in my opinion, that’s not good leadership.”

“We try not to show up unannounced” at school, which would distract from instruction, Priest said. He said the basic responsibilities of the school board are to establish policy, to hire and fire the superintendent and, monitor the budget. “School board members should not be getting involved in the day-to-day operations of the school,” he said.

School board members Dr. Mari Gibbs and Dobson seemed to dispute this approach. “How do you know if you ain’t got a problem if you don’t see it,” Dobson asked. “I think you need a little more transparency,” he added, saying that when he’s at school, he’s not there “to spy.” Gibbs, who indicated she is in one of the county schools almost every day as a volunteer or in some other capacity, said it is the job of the school board member “to oversee and insure accountability.”

Smith, in the follow-up to her question, said she believes “it’s an absolute duty” for board members to go into the schools on a regular basis. “You are the ones with that responsibility.” She said the board’s review of textbooks seems “hit or miss,” suggesting the individual board members “divide and conquer,” each reviewing a different subject.

She asked the board where they get their training, and Priest replied the Virginia School Boards Association. Gibbs said there is another alternative to the VSBA, a new group called the School Board Member Alliance of Virginia. According to that group’s website, the SBMA “empowers Virginia school board members with training focused on what you CAN do, rather than what you CANNOT.”

Calvin Morgan asked the board about problems with cell phones and other electrical devices in the classroom. “This is a problem across the board and this has been a problem for years,” chairman Desmond Smith said. The issue is “definitely on the radar of the board,” he said. A lot of school divisions, he said, are shutting down the use of cell phones by students entirely.

“This is not going to be one conversation,” Welch said, adding that the issue is on the board’s agenda for its Tuesday, March 21, meeting. Next Tuesday, “we’ll have a full-blown discussion” on the issue, Priest said.

The school board is currently in the process of selecting a new superintendent. In fact, earlier in the day Monday, board members reviewed applications from those seeking the position. Late in the town hall, Stall suggested this it would be a good time to secure a pledge from the selected candidate that he or she would not support curriculum that includes “transgender … social justice … Marxist ideology.” School, she said, needs to “get back to basic learning and not have their [the students’] minds filled with chaos.”

“I can’t seem to find it,” Priest said, referring to those items being in the curriculum. Sheila Crowley spoke up, saying that if the school board demanded such a pledge, no qualified candidate would agree to it and Mathews would “get the worst of the worst.”

As the meeting concluded, Priest suggested that his fellow board members consider holding another town hall before the end of the school year.

However, if not, he indicated that those with concerns could reach out to him. “Email me and I will answer you,” he said.