The questions below were sent to each candidate competing in the race for Richmond School Board.
Angela Fontaine
What's your perspective on RPS200?
RPS200 has demonstrated promising outcomes and is supported by many teachers. Given its effectiveness, it's important that we allocate funding to sustain this program, ensuring our students receive the necessary support to achieve academically. With that said, we should view RPS200 as a targeted intervention designed to address the learning gaps created by the pandemic, and not a long term intervention.
What is your take on the Dreams4RPS strategic plan? What would you change and what would you keep?
The 2024-2029 Dreams4RPS strategic plan is comprehensive and addresses many crucial areas. It demonstrates a commendable effort to improve Richmond Public Schools. However, one significant area that warrants more attention is mental and emotional health supports. Through conversations with various stakeholders, I've found widespread support for enhancing our students' mental and emotional support services. School counselors are at the forefront of providing these essential services. Currently, they are overstretched and lack the capacity to provide students with the individualized attention they require. I would like to see a strategy around addressing this directly.
How will you address the needs of students from diverse backgrounds, including English learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students?
As a board member, I would work to ensure that the administration has what it needs to fully implement Dreams4RPS, which addresses these topics. There are strategies that address supporting multilingual students, ensuring teachers reflect the student population, expanding community partnerships, and working towards becoming a "model school system for students with special needs."
What is your stance on the role of standardized testing in schools? How should student success be measured?
Standardized testing is failing our students and teachers. It ignores the diverse learning styles and abilities within our schools, and we need a better way to measure academic achievement.
I've spoken with many educators, including those who've left RPS. They consistently express feeling pressured to train students for tests rather than provide a comprehensive education. This approach stifles creativity and effectiveness in the classroom. When discussing reasons for leaving, not one former teacher I have spoken with cited pay as the primary factor. Instead, they pointed to the constraints of teaching to standardized tests, along with other concerns.
This testing regime is hurting our education system, driving away talented teachers and failing to capture the true potential of our diverse student body. It's time for a change that puts real learning, not test scores, at the center of our approach.
While I don't have a specific solution for measuring student success, I believe our teachers and administrators possess the insights and experience to create more effective assessment methods. If given the opportunity to reform standardized testing, I would advocate for state and federal authorities to engage directly with teachers and implement their ideas. As the professionals on the ground doing the work daily, they are best positioned to know what truly works for our students.
What's your strategy to address absenteeism?
The Dreams4RPS presents a strong strategy for addressing absenteeism, highlighting key initiatives such as increasing the number of bilingual family liaisons, enhancing school budgets for attendance incentives and family engagement activities, and reinstating the teacher home visit program. I would also advocate for a partnership with Communities in Schools across all district schools to further address absenteeism and support the diverse needs of students and their families.
What role does the district play in addressing gun violence?
The impact of gun violence on our students' lives is profound and deeply concerning. As a district, our primary responsibility is to provide comprehensive mental and emotional health support, enabling all students to overcome trauma and excel academically. The focus should be on creating a secure and nurturing learning environment where students can safely develop and flourish. Additionally, we ensure that our administration has access to all necessary resources to maintain and enhance school safety measures that are effective and data informed. We also must be careful with implementing visible security measures, which may decrease students sense of security. We must focus on mental health supports first and foremost, not turning our schools into places where all students are treated like potential criminals.
What are your suggestions for addressing students' mental health?
Dreams4RPS focuses on anti-bullying and using Medicaid funding for more mental health services but we need to go further. One issue is the number of students each school counselor has to support. The American School Counselor Association recommends there should be one counselor for every 250 students, but in RPS, counselors often have double that. We really need to bring those numbers down.
While anti-bullying is important, it's not the only reason students need support. There are so many other things going on in their lives. I believe we need to look at the bigger picture of student mental health. This means not just dealing with bullying but also giving students more ways to access different types of mental health help, teaching them about mental wellness, and ensuring our staff can spot when a student is struggling and having the resources to help.
Wesley Hedgepeth
What's your perspective on RPS200?
Initial quantitative data suggests that RPS200 has seen some success; however, standardized test scores shouldn't be our only measure of effectiveness.
As an educator, I recognize both positives and negatives in the 200-day plan. On one hand, there’s additional pay for educators who opt to work the extended schedule. This supplemental income could allow some teachers to forgo second jobs. However, it's unclear if the current pay structure is equitable or sustainable in the long term.
Another critical issue is teacher recruitment and retention. Is this program attracting teachers to RPS, or is it pushing them away? Educators are already overworked, so we must ensure this extended calendar doesn't exacerbate teacher burnout. Breaks from school are crucial for both teachers and students.
Our education system, as it stands, often tests the joy of learning out of our young people. We need to ask: how is this schedule change impacting our students and their families? How much joy are we losing by extending the school year with 20 additional days of remediation? What is the true return on investment? Do the rising test scores justify the costs? Moreover, the logistics can be challenging for families with children in different schools that follow different schedules.
It's important to remember that no single approach will work for all of our diverse schools. The program should be revised, and we must also seek and consider qualitative data before deciding to continue or expand it. I remain hesitant to support the pilot's expansion without more information and input from all stakeholders.
What is your take on the Dreams4RPS strategic plan? What would you change and what would you keep?
A strategic plan is essential to fulfilling our mission, and Dreams4RPS has laid a solid foundation. The summary letter from Mr. Kamras and Ms. Rizzi highlights progress in accreditation, graduation rates, standardized test scores, and increased enrollment in higher-level math and Advanced Placement courses. While this is excellent progress, there is still much work to be done. Chronic absenteeism, employee satisfaction, and funding remain major challenges for Richmond Public Schools.
We need to meet families where they are. Many people I speak with mention a breakdown in communication, leading to delays in services. Why are so many families still not being heard or helped? We must ensure that 100% of our student population is reached, so no one falls through the cracks. A fully staffed central office is critical, and teachers and staff need more support and training.
To me, teaching is an act of optimism, and by nature, teachers are givers. Often, we selflessly say yes to extra duties because we know that saying no could negatively impact our students. However, teachers need guidance on how to maintain a healthy work-life balance. They must take care of themselves in order to take care of others. We cannot allow them to continue burning out. If we don’t help teachers balance their workloads with the demands of everyday life, we will continue to lose them.
Lastly, fully funding our schools must be our number one advocacy point. State funding is moving in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go. The role of this school board should be to advocate at all levels of government and to seek partnerships with nonprofit and business communities to increase funding. The needs are too great to do otherwise.
How will you address the needs of students from diverse backgrounds, including English learners, students with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged students?
Diversity is one of our city’s greatest strengths—we need to harness that! Everyone is welcome in our city, and they should feel seen, heard, and included in the conversation. The Richmond 300 plan envisions that by 2037, Richmond will be a welcoming, inclusive, diverse, innovative, sustainable, and equitable city of thriving neighborhoods, ensuring a high quality of life for all.
After this fall's election, the new school board should meet with the new city council and mayor to establish shared goals. All of our actions as a government should be geared toward fulfilling this vision, but we cannot do it alone. We must approach it inclusively and equitably, reviewing all RPS policies through a DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) lens and leveraging the power of community partnerships and robust stakeholder engagement.
What is your stance on the role of standardized testing in schools? How should student success be measured?
Unfortunately, standardized testing in schools has led to an overemphasis on rote memorization and teaching to the test. This has largely crowded out critical thinking and inquiry, with students being tested excessively—especially in schools and districts that have historically underperformed. It creates a vicious cycle: if a school performs poorly on standardized tests, it often leads to more testing.
The common phrase, "if it's not tested, it's not taught," rings true. Nationwide, social studies and science are tested less frequently, leading to reduced time and funding compared to English language arts and math, especially in the elementary years. Students struggling in ELA and math are sometimes pulled from social studies and science for further remediation. While literacy instruction is vital, social studies and science education also play a key role in developing literacy. Strong content knowledge in these subjects can lead to stronger readers, as supported by a 2018 report from The Council of Chief State School Officers, as well as Speaking Up for Science and Social Studies from Dr. Nell Duke of the College of Education at the University of Michigan. Social studies and science are where inquiry and exploration come to life, and exposing struggling students to these subjects may ignite their passion for learning, which could, in turn, improve their performance in other areas.
While the current system prioritizes the Standards of Learning (SOLs), we shouldn't remain silent. We need to advocate for change.
What's your strategy to address absenteeism?
First, we need to meet our students where they are to better understand their needs. As many of my colleagues in the education sector understand and often say, we must prioritize Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs before we can focus on Bloom's Taxonomy. If students' basic needs aren't met, they won’t be able to learn effectively. Partnering with organizations like Communities in Schools to provide wraparound services is essential.
Additionally, we need to treat mental health with the same importance as physical health and invest in greater support within our schools. Both students and educators bring their own lived experiences, including trauma, and neither can function at their best without proper support systems in place.
Finally, every student should have multiple adults in the school who know and care about them. During and after COVID, we’ve become increasingly reliant on technology as a substitute for in-person interaction. However, as pedagogical best practices suggest, technology should be used to enhance—not replace—personal experiences. We need to invest in people, not machines. It's the people, not technology, who build relationships with our students.
What role does the district play in addressing gun violence?
Schools must be a safe space for our students—physically, socially, mentally, and emotionally. There is no panacea for gun violence, so we must take a multi-layered approach.
First, we need to implement mitigation efforts that reduce the impact of gun violence and deter future incidents. These short-term efforts, such as metal detectors in secondary schools, are necessary; however, we must also address the deeper causes of gun violence.
No student should feel unknown or invisible. As I mentioned before, both students and staff bring different lived experiences and trauma into our schools. No one can teach or learn effectively while suffering from trauma. We need to treat social, mental, and emotional health with the same priority as physical health. This starts by increasing the number of counselors and investing in mental health clinics within our schools.
Lastly, I’m proud to share that Moms Demand Action has named my campaign one of distinction. The school district has a responsibility to advocate at all levels of government for safer schools. We must work with our elected officials in the General Assembly to enact common-sense gun legislation that protects our students and staff.
What are your suggestions for addressing students' mental health?
First, we need to increase funding for full-time school counselors, aiming for a 1-to-100 ratio. Additionally, we must treat mental health with the same seriousness as physical health. One way to achieve this is by opening mental health clinics in our schools.
Second, we need to address the impact of cell phones in the classroom. While a top-down, blanket ban may not be the best approach, we should ensure that building administrators and classroom teachers have the support they need to implement programs that work for their specific student populations. When making policy, we need to be considerate of populations who are more dependent on technology, such as our English Learners and students with physical and mental differences.
Lastly, we need to focus on building a culture of care in our schools. This means training staff to recognize signs of mental distress, creating spaces where students feel safe to share their struggles, and fostering strong relationships between students and trusted adults. By addressing students' mental health holistically, we can help them thrive both inside and outside the classroom.
Garrett Sawyer
What's your perspective on RPS200?
Fairfield Court Elementary School was the first Richmond Public School that participated in the district’s 200-day school year pilot program. Since then, the program has expanded to Cardinal Elementary, Oak Grove-Bellemeade Elementary, and Woodville Elementary this school year. Preliminary data has shown solid gains for Fairfield Court Elementary, which is promising; however, there is much more data that needs to be collected prior to seeing this program expand elementary schoolwide. Moreover, we must always remember the importance of community engagement, particularly receiving feedback from teachers, administrators, parents, and support staff. I absolutely support improving achievement for our students; that is what the School Board is here to do; however, I do not want us to make sweeping changes that would impact teacher retention or enrollment within the school division. I’ve heard from parents and teachers that are not aligned with the idea of expanding RPS200 at this time. As a result, there is much dialogue that must take place prior to proceeding further with expansion. At this stage, I support continued engagement with stakeholders at individual schools to determine the appetite for switching to RPS200. I also support continued monitoring of data for current schools that have added the additional 20 days and comparing outcomes compared to students in the traditional model of 180 days.
What is your take on the Dreams4RPS strategic plan? What would you change and what would you keep?
Dreams4RPS was an excellent foundation to help the school division strive toward higher achievement. With any strategic plan it provides the vision and sets goals of achievement within. I think with any school division strategic plan, the goal-post per se for achievement should continue to rise and priorities should be reassessed as you reach new milestones.
I am very excited about the work currently happening to build Dreams4RPS 2.0. There has been an incredible amount of time and effort put into receiving feedback from the community through in-person meetings and surveys. The goal with this level of engagement is to ensure that the new strategic plan that will span from 2024 – 2029 is truly reflective of a bold vision of how to move the school division to new heights.
How will you address the needs of students from diverse backgrounds, including English learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students?
As a school division, we must be hyper focused on ensuring every child within the school division is setup for success. This includes ensuring that trained staff is in place to address our ever-evolving student population. Recent data shows that we are seeing significant growth in our school populations on the Southside of Richmond; this is particularly the case for the 8th and 9th districts. Many of the schools in the 8th and 9th districts are already nearing school capacity with data showing that school aged children enrollment numbers will continue to expand in coming years. We must start preparing now to meet that demand. This means we need to start having conversations about expansion of schools in the Southside and ensuring we have growth in staff to address the needs with the added students. As it relates to our students with disabilities, this is an area of opportunity for the school division. A lot of work has been done to expand programs and resources for our students with additional learning support, but I would like to see more support provided. Also, for our children that are economically disadvantaged, data has shown that there is still a lag in test scores in comparison to non-economically disadvantaged, specifically for black and brown children within the division. I am very supportive of continuing to advocate for before and after school programs to ensure our kids are set up for success. We must be bold in our thinking of education to see even stronger results for our kids.
What is your stance on the role of standardized testing in schools? How should student success be measured?
The Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) were created to set a minimum set of expectations for what our students throughout the school division should be able to show in core focus areas. My issue with standardized testing at times is that it has hindered creativity and flexibility in instruction within our classrooms. At times, the recurring narrative is that educators feel that they have begun to teach to a test, rather than ensuring that our students truly understand the core functions of all subjects. While the standards are not changing at this time, I would like to see more emphasis on student success metrics such as progression, retention, and graduation rates.
What's your strategy to address absenteeism?
Across the state, chronic absenteeism jumped significantly during the pandemic. I am proud to say that Richmond Public Schools (RPS) has done a phenomenal job of significantly reducing chronic absenteeism to lower than its pre-pandemic levels. Major kudos goes to our engagement office and their engagement-focused approach. RPS moved away from a truancy approach, which is largely considered a compliance-based approach, and now is handling it as an engagement issue. RPS has been able to be successful by establishing a taskforce of 25 family liaisons to tackle the problem. These amazing liaisons wear multiple hats within any given week; they serve as mediators between parents and the school, they are advisers that offer tips to new parents on how to best make use of their time in the morning, and they also provide secondary transportation to students who miss the bus or whose parents have limited transportation. What it really comes down to is building a rapport and consistent presence with stakeholders to drive for better outcomes.
What role does the district play in addressing gun violence?
This is a serious topic that is impacting school divisions across the country. We must take this very seriously as a local school division and ensure that every school is safe and secured. Firearms are now the leading cause of death or injury amongst children within the United States. RPS has already built strong partnerships locally to support education on the importance of securing firearms at home if a parent is a gun owner. For example, the Be SMART campaign was launched in 2015 to promote responsible gun ownership to reduce child gun deaths. The work being done with Be SMART is fantastic, but there is so much work that needs to be done to ensure a safe school for all. As a school division, we must be committed to having courageous conversations with our students, parents, and community members about the consequences of utilizing guns to resolve disputes. We must continue promoting peaceful conflict resolution tactics. We must be open to outside of the box options to assist school divisions in being able to identify weapons or items before they enter our school buildings.
What are your suggestions for addressing students' mental health?
A huge win for RPS was hiring our amazing Chief Wellness Officer. She has been such a welcomed addition to the RPS Administration. She is knowledgeable and committed to addressing our students' needs head on. Now that we have her in place, we must continue to invest into mental health services that are available in every school within the school division. We all know the major impacts the pandemic had on mental health for our students. We all know that in the era of social media, it has significantly increased bullying and other challenges of acceptance for our students. As a result, the School Board is committed to working alongside Superintendent Kamras and the administration to push for the resources needed. As we are building our new strategic plan, mental health is at the top of services we will be pushing to be available across the board.
