CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As the division attempts to navigate yet another set of scandals, emotions ran high at a well-attended Albemarle County School Board meeting on Thursday.

Those emotions boiled over during a packed public comment session that featured 16 speakers with many expressing frustration and even anger with the board, going as far as to suggest the current board should resign.

“So much chaos, so much to do. And it forces a pointed question — should the citizens of Albemarle County even allow this board to remain seated?” county resident Kurt Burkhart said in his comments.

Phil Riese, Chair of the Albemarle County Republican Committee, directly called for the resignation of the entire board except for its newcomer, at-large member David Storm, who was officially sworn in at the start of the meeting.

That request was met with applause from the audience.

Thursday’s meeting came after a particularly difficult week for the division. Just one day prior, Rio representative Jim Dillenbeck resigned at the behest of the rest of the board following a controversial town hall the previous week.

Later that afternoon, ACPS Deputy Chief Human Resources Officer Brodie Downs and Assistant School Division Counsel & Title IX Coordinator Erin Stone, as well as former Hollymead Elementary School Principal Joe McCauley, were arrested and charged with three counts of failure to report a case of child abuse.

The arrests came just one day after Albemarle County Police announced that former Hollymead staffer Michael Swiney had been indicted on nine additional charges of aggravated sexual battery involving three additional victims on Monday. The additional charges brought his total charges up to 20 stemming from seven victims.

The meeting also came just days after the death of Burley Middle School seventh grade teacher Paul Regan over the weekend, a death Charlottesville Police are investigating as a suicide, according to Chief of Police Michael Kochis. During the meeting, the board held a moment of silence for Regan.

The recent turmoil in the division was enough to bring out Del. Katrina Callsen, who previously served on the board herself as the Rio District representative. Callsen said she was asked to attend Thursday’s meeting by one of her constituents, and said there were legislative actions on the state level she would like to pursue.

“I think people are trying to figure out what’s the best path forward to protect students in the future,” she said.
”I think there’s a reckoning of what happened in the past and how we can learn from it. And then for me personally, because I have this special role in legislative, I’m really just trying to understand how I can change our laws, to make it so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

The most common complaints she said she’s heard from constituents have been about clarity and transparency as “many people are uncertain of what amount of information they can share with the public.”

She believes there is a legislative fix for that, as while police departments are required to alert school divisions when an investigation into an employee is happening, she wants to take it a step further, finding ways to provide families with more transparency while also respecting all of those involved with the investigations, particularly the victims.

“(I’m) trying to figure out how we can have more transparency to the parents,” she said. “So that they can check in with their kid, and they can protect their children and know what’s going on in the school division.”

Callsen ultimately said her hope is to go to Richmond with a bill in January on this issue.

As the difficult week brought even more eyeballs onto the division, the board’s chair, White Hall representative Dr. Rebecca Berlin, addressed many of them in a statement from the board read at the beginning of the meeting.

The statement acknowledged “the very difficult time we are facing right now as a school community.” Berlin went on to specifically reference Regan’s passing, the “serious allegations at Hollymead,” which Berlin said remain apart of ACPS’s ongoing investigations, the recent changes to the membership of the board, as well the recent increase in ACPS employees being put on leave.

“On personnel matters, the law, basic fairness and common decency that should be extended to every employee limit what we can share,” Berlin said. “We want to make clear that there are a number of reasons a person can be away from their job, including personal, medical or family reasons. And yes, sometimes leaves result from a complainant or matter requiring review. In those cases, a leave of absence helps ensure an investigation is completed thoroughly and fairly for everyone involved.

“Our silence on individual cases is not indifference. However, we understand the disruption that comes when people you count on are out.”

After its statement, the board looked ahead in its regular business. Among that business was the announcement that HYA had been selected as the firm to lead the Superintendent search.

Berlin also said to expect details early next week about the upcoming search for a new Rio representative, as the seat will need to be filled within 45 days of Dillenbeck’s resignation. While four of the 23 applicants who applied for the then-open At-Large seat in August were from Rio, Berlin said the division will have to open up another search per VDOE requirement. However, the board will be reaching out to those candidates to see if they are interested in moving their applications over.

The board also maintained its commitment to host future town halls, despite the controversy that followed Dillenbeck’s, at the request of ACPS Family Council. Berlin said to expect those to occur toward the end of this month into early November.