Corruption’s closest ally is silence.
And in Spotsylvania’s schools, silence is everywhere.
The big-ticket items draw the headlines, and during my time at the Free Lance-Star and now as editor of the Advance I haven’t been immune from reporting them.
- Kirk Twigg’s allegedly changing a contract without proper approval and now facing felony charges.
- Kirk Twigg, again, advocating the banning and burning of books.
- Mark Taylor blatantly misrepresenting NAEP data on a national media outlet.
- Lisa Phelps stripping the ability of fellow board members to place items on the meeting agenda.
- Taylor, again, threatening to close school libraries.
- Taylor, yet again, complaining about school funding following years as county administrator depriving schools of the funds they desperately needed.
- Twigg, yet again, approving travel funds for board members to attend a meeting run by a political action committee.
- Twigg – are you beginning to see a pattern? – writing a letter to the Virginia Board of Education supporting making Taylor superintendent without getting the permission of the full board to do so.
And I’m just scratching the surface of the questionable actions the majority board members and their hand-picked unqualified superintendent have both attempted and accomplished. It’s as if Donald Trump himself were advising the school board. “Keep breaking policy and keep creating alternative facts. You do it enough, and people either won’t be able to catch you because the next transgression is always just a day away, or they’ll grow tired of trying.”
Just a sideshow
The egregious – as well as childish – behavior of this school board and Taylor is just a sideshow to the main event.
Silence.
In almost two years of writing about this Godfather-esque drama, here’s the extent of my contact with the majority board members and Taylor.
- Twigg – Two short phone calls in which he dodged questions, then hung up when confronted with a question he would not answer. Numerous emails – never answered.
- Lisa Phelps – No response to any email. When I reached someone at home – not Lisa – the person answering the phone faked speaking Spanish (quite badly I might add) and refused to connect us.
- Rabih Abuismail – Some text message exchanges and a few phone calls that amounted to little worth reporting. There was, however, one two-hour interview that featured Abuismail complaining that things have become “too political,” then not answering the hard questions I put to him.
- Mark Taylor – Mutiple auto-response emails saying he doesn’t answer emails.
- Mark Taylor, again, and Jon Russell – Invited by my colleague Shaun Kenney, the former chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, to appear on the New Dominion Podcast, they refused by refusing to answer him.
- Tara Mergener – No response to emails or phone calls. Especially odd given that her job is communications.
I’m not the only media this band of MAGA-mad manipulators is dodging.
With the return to school this week, Washington-area media made their way to Fredericksburg and to Stafford to do what amount to puff pieces about the return to school. Pictures of smiling kids returning to the classroom. Excited teachers decorating rooms. And softball questions to school leaders that a high school paper editor could train someone to knock out of the park.
But not Spotsylvania.
When WJLA television came calling, Taylor – as usual – was hiding behind his wall of silence.
7News reached out to the district hoping to interview a principal or the superintendent to talk about the excitement surrounding the upcoming school year as well as answer questions about goals, staffing for bus drivers and teachers, plans to address learning loss and mental health, and general back to school topics.
At the time of this publication, SCPS did not address those questions and instead issued a response saying in part, “our efforts and attention will be focused on the school community during this busy time. We wish you the best with your coverage.”
How gutless, how cowardly can one school system be to dodge softball questions from a station owned by Sinclair Broadcasting?
For those not in the know, Sinclair is in the Vanguard of extreme right-wing television. Surely Taylor shouldn’t have been spooked by this group.
The truth is, neither Taylor nor the majority board members are spooked.
Their vision for Spotsylvania schools is to completely undermine the public school system in the county.
That’s the only conclusion I am left with.
After all, I also invited Twigg, Phelps, and Taylor to write a 750-word column explaining their vision for the school system. Another wall of silence.
We are left only with their actions to judge their end-game. And given the path of destruction they’re cutting through this system, the destruction of Spotsylvania County PUBLIC Schools appears to be the only rational conclusion.
Anti-democratic, Anti-American
The democratic system that we all function under depends upon transparency.
Walls of silence – whether by government agencies, police departments, hospital administrators, the military, national leaders, corporations, or legal systems – are hardly new.
But when the walls come tumbling down, they all tend to reveal the same thing.
Rot, stench, and corruption.
The walls will fall in Spotsylvania.
Truth and light have a funny way of escaping.
Rest assured the Advance will continue to chip away.
