CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — For the second straight year,  Jim Dillenbeck is vying for the Rio District’s Albemarle County School Board seat. Last year, he ran and lost to Chuck Pace. When Pace died in December, Dillenbeck applied for the open position, a post that eventually went to Leslie Pryor. 

Now, Dillenbeck is challenging Pryor in the county’ s only contested school board election this year.

“There’s a lot of dissatisfaction in the county schools,” Dillenbeck told Cville Right Now. “A lot of families that are not happy with what’s going on in the public schools, especially in the Rio District now.”

Dillenbeck’s involvement in the county schools began as a social studies teacher and coach at Albemarle High School from 1990-97. With his four children now grown, he decided to throw his hat into the ring for school board last year, his first time running for public office.

Dillenbeck called the late Pace “a friend and colleague” dating back to their time teaching and coaching together at AHS. During the race the two agreed on plenty of issues but had some key disagreements, particularly when it came to their partisanship. Pace received and accepted an endorsement from the Albemarle Democratic Party, while Dillenbeck chose to remain a nonpartisan candidate.

“I don’t believe that the school board should be political at all,” he said. “In fact, on the ballot, there’s no political affiliation.”

Once again, Dillenbeck is choosing to run a nonpartisan campaign this year, while Pryor has received the Albemarle Dems’ endorsement.

In this second campaign, Dillenbeck has made strides to get his message out earlier and has continued his effort from last year to talk to people in various neighborhoods in his district. He said he’s knocked on or rang doorbells on over a thousand houses over the past two years, in addition to speaking with teachers and administrators in Rio.

Through those conversations, he noticed a pattern of families leaving public schools for alternative options for their children, because “they don’t feel like their kids are getting the education they need.”

Dillenbeck said this can be due to a variety of issues, including some kids struggling with learning disabilities or advanced students not being pushed enough. 

Thus, he wants to ensure that elementary schools do a better job of teaching their students how to read in order to narrow the learning gap. He cited how over half of the students in Woodbrook Elementary School did not pass the reading and math SOLs last year, which can be confirmed on the Virginia Department of Education’s website. Dillenbeck called the low testing marks “completely outrageous.”

Dillenbeck is also concerned with teachers leaving ACPS for the city or surrounding counties. According to Dillenbeck’s website, which credits and links the 2021-22 Teacher Salary Survey Results, teachers in the county are paid an average of 7% less than those in Charlottesville.

To combat this, Dillenbeck proposes shifting funding from central office personnel to teachers, aides and bus drivers. If elected, he plans to request an audit of the central office staff to account for each of their salaries.

Dillenbeck said he’d also like to put together a teacher advisory committee with as many teachers as possible. He believes it will give them an opportunity to be heard which he believes they don’t have currently. He’d like to host town hall meetings with parents as well.

“The number one thing I hear teachers say is, ‘We want to be heard,’” he said. “‘We want for the board and the superintendent, and the administration hear our concerns and act on them.’”

As the campaign trail comes to a close within the next few weeks, Dillenbeck hopes his latest attempt to get on the board will be successful, as he believes change is needed in the public schools, especially in his district.

“It’s time to shake things up on the board,” he said, “and that’s why I’m spending every Saturday out campaigning and every Friday over at the county office building.”