VPM News and The Richmonder will co-moderate a debate between the two candidates, giving voters an opportunity to hear them address key issues facing RPS.
The debate will take place on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Ann Hardy Plaza Community Center in Richmond’s Northside, starting at 7 p.m.
Voters in Richmond’s 6th District will choose between two school board candidates this fall in a board race unfolding as Richmond Public Schools faces ongoing questions about school conditions and the budget.
Anne Holton, former secretary of education and first lady of Virginia, currently represents the district on the school board. She was appointed by the board earlier this year to fill the vacancy left by former school board member Shonda Harris-Muhammed.
Challenging Holton is Jackie McDonnough, a longtime Highland Park resident and retired educator. McDonnough, who also applied for the vacancy left by Harris-Muhammed, spent part of her career teaching at RPS before moving into higher education at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Both candidates bring decades of experience in education, public service and community advocacy to the school board race, and have differing perspectives on what the school division needs most.
Holton said she is running to stay on the board because she wants to make Richmond schools work for every child.
“Every child deserves a great education as a trampoline to life success, and I want to help make that happen in the City of Richmond,” Holton told VPM News in August. “We’ve got a lot of things going right, but we’ve got a lot of challenges, and I want to be part of the solution.”
Her connection to RPS goes back to her own childhood. Holton attended Mosby Middle School — now named for Martin Luther King Jr. — during Richmond’s desegregation era: “I was honored to be part of that, and helping desegregate schools when I was a 12-year-old really made a big impact on my life, and among other things, just gave me a passionate appreciation of the role that public education plays in bringing people together across differences.”
McDonnough’s connection to RPS spans generations. Aside from teaching at the district and helping establish the Richmond Teacher Residency program, which has helped train teachers who went on to work at the district, she’s also an RPS grandmother.
After not being chosen to serve the 6th District in an interim capacity, McDonnough said she kept an eye on the decisions being made at the school board. She said she was alarmed by certain kinds of votes, like the approval of a contract to an out-of-state company to supply RPS with long-term substitutes.
“I think that we should be focused on what and how to build our communities based on the jobs that we have available for people in our communities, and so that’s that kind of pushed me to say ‘Maybe I should pay more attention to this,’ and eventually I decided to run because of that,” she told VPM News.
Campaign priorities
Both candidates told VPM News that improving RPS will require greater investment, but they emphasize different priorities.
Holton said she’s focused on supporting the educators behind some of RPS initiatives like RPS 200 schools and those teaching a curriculum aligned with the science of reading, an evidence-based approach to teaching children how to read.
“I would say the most important priority for student outcomes is the high-quality teacher in every classroom. And the most important way to do that is to pay our teachers better and improve their working conditions,” Holton said.
Holton said that RPS has made some big progress on pay, but the district is still not close to where it needs to be. For funding, she wants to look at the state.
McDonnough placed greater emphasis on school conditions like mold, staffing and the role of educators in shaping district decisions.
Like Holton, McDonnough emphasized the importance of keeping teachers in the division. However, she would like to see the district strengthen mentorship and feedback opportunities to help new teachers build the skills and support they need to succeed in the classroom.
“I’d like to look at how we assign teaching assignments to our newest teachers, ease them into the tougher classes, the tougher kids to teach — have some kind of program where they are getting constant feedback about their teaching,” McDonnough said.
When it comes to facilities, McDonnough said the district needs to prioritize building new comprehensive high schools, along with the Maury Street career and technical center, which is next in line for construction.
“I’d like a closer look at facilities and how decisions are made about what spending should be taking place,” McDonnough said. “I think a facilities plan would be a first step. I need some data because I think that’s what decisions should be based on.”
Holton said the ongoing community engagement sessions are key as a starting point for the division to begin prioritizing much needed repairs and maintenance at RPS buildings.
“Deciding the priorities amongst those — whether to renovate, whether to replace — that is going to be one of the trickier pieces. The division is very committed to doing widespread public engagement on that,” Holton said.
Both candidates support a ballot referendum that would use a 1% sales tax increase to generate additional funding for school modernization.
Board transparency
Holton said she believes the current board is working well and focused on student outcomes. However, she said one thing that the board could do better is being more transparent, especially when the board is in what she called a “discretionary gray area.”
“One of the things I bring to the table as a lawyer is I can help understand that legal advice is just that, and we’ve got to balance priorities around. We obviously want to be sure and follow the law, but when we’re in the gray area, we’ve got to balance different priorities,” Holton said.
If elected, McDonnough said, she is calling for transparency on all fronts — when it comes to the budget, supervising the superintendent, and communicating board priorities.
“Our schools should be equitable. It should be serving all kids’ needs. So when decisions are made by the board, which has been given the charter of fiscal responsibility, kind of supervising the superintendent, and setting those overarching goals for our school system, they need to fully step into that role,” McDonnough said.
McDonnough said she believes the board should be outlining its goals for a period of time and communicating those goals to Richmond residents so that progress can be tracked.
“This is how we make our decision to either keep or not, or to continue to support the superintendent. There has to be transparency across the entire process, so that there would be no question as to how the decisions were made,” she said.
Schools budgeting
RPS entered the fiscal year 2027 budget season citing rising costs and use of one-time funding as points of contention. As a result, board members faced difficult choices ranging from staffing and programming to mental health services.
Ultimately, the board approved a budget contingent on funding from the city and state — both of which came in short, leaving the district with a funding gap that required additional cuts.
Holton said her experience in state government could be an asset to RPS as the district looks for additional funding — particularly over the next few months, as the General Assembly has tasked the Joint Subcommittee to Study Elementary and Secondary Education Funding with redesigning Virginia’s public school funding system.
“I feel like between my experience and knowledge from my work at the state level, and, frankly, my relationships with the folks in both the executive and legislative branch, I feel like I can help,” Holton said.
McDonnough also agrees that RPS needs more funding from the state, but she is more focused on how the district has been managing its funds up to this point and why there is a shortfall.
She said that budget sheets should be updated so that it’s easy to pinpoint spending priorities and how that money is being spent.
“I have experienced confusion when looking at reports and trying to figure out what was going on,” she said. “I know that seems small, but it’s important for the community, the residents of Richmond to have confidence in how money is being spent.”
McDonnough said this is top of mind for the Richmond community as they are being asked to consider approving an additional 1% sales tax that would go exclusively to fund school construction and major repairs.
She said she would also push for an external forensic audit of the budget going back five years.
“Let’s do a forensic audit that can be accomplished by an outside entity, and then the board will have a report that they can then use to move forward,” she said.
In accordance with state law, RPS already undergoes an annual reporting and auditing process, known as an Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. An ACFR details how the district’s finances look as opposed to a financial investigation.
6th District needs
Richmond’s 6th District is one of two districts (along with the 5th) that stretches across the James River, encompassing communities with different neighborhood profiles and school needs on both Northside and Southside.
Both candidates said families in the district are raising concerns about aging facilities, teacher recruitment and retention and growing student populations. They’re also hearing from families navigating immigration enforcement concerns and questions about whether students with disabilities are receiving required services.
Holton said that RPS is committed to educating all students, but that the linchpin is finding high quality special education teachers: “Our teacher shortages in special ed are worse than in any other field.”
“A family with a student with some of our biggest challenges will see three different special ed teachers over the course of a year. They don’t always identify it as a staffing issue. They identify it as my child’s — ‘I can’t get my child’s IEP finalized, or I can’t get my IEP followed,’” Holton said.
To remedy this, she said the district needs to do a better job of attracting and retaining special education teachers, and of educating the entire teacher workforce and leadership better on how to adequately serve RPS students with special needs.
McDonnough said while she understands that every student and case is different, it requires conversations with all parties involved.
“When parents relay experiences they’ve had with their special education students with RPS, I get the sense that not all of the parents understand what their rights are,” she said.
One of the most effective ways to combat this, McDonnough said, is to have honest and direct conversations with every stakeholder so they know what their choices are. Aside from increased communication, McDonnough said the district must invest in special education teacher recruitment and retainment.
Voters will decide between the two candidates this fall. Early voting starts this week on Friday, Sept. 18, and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
