Albemarle Supervisors want Virginia Department of Education to evaluate whether ACPS has complied with the law

The six members of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors have formally asked the Albemarle School Board to take a series of steps to ensure compliance with state law. That includes a crisis management plan to navigate through ongoing criminal investigations related to the indictment of a former employee on sexual assault charges.

“Recent events within the Albemarle County Public Schools—including the arrests of school personnel for alleged failure to comply with Virginia’s mandatory child‑abuse reporting laws, serious parental and community concerns regarding a reported culture of fear among employees, and significant erosion of public trust—have raised urgent questions about the ACPS’s internal climate, reporting practices, and transparency,” reads the statement read by Supervisor Ned Gallaway after coming back from closed session.

View the video here.

The resolution approved at a special meeting on October 15 quotes a recent statement from Governor Abigail Spanberger describing the situation as a “failure of leadership” and cites sections of state code that require school employees to report child abuse.

Supervisors also acknowledged they have little legal authority to intervene in areas where the Albemarle School Board has authority but said the Board of Supervisors would ask the Virginia Department of Education to evaluate the situation to ensure compliance with state law.

But Supervisors are asking for a lot of specific information from the School.

For instance, Supervisors have asked the School Board to report on mandated reporter policies as well as trends on the number of reports that have been made. They also want to see the full scope of an investigation approved by the School Board on August 4.

“If the approved scope does not fully address community concerns, a more comprehensive Division-wide review be initiated to evaluate governance, oversight practices, and compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws,” the resolution continues.

Supervisors also want the School Board to hire an independent auditor to review the “organizational climate related to psychological safety and employee retaliation concerns.”

They also want the School Board to develop a crisis-management plan that fully acknowledges the severity of the situation and “is explicitly designed to identify and resolve underlying problems—rather than to manage messaging or optics.”

The resolution ends with an order that a copy be delivered to the Chair of the School Board, the Acting Superintendent of Schools, the Superintendent of Public Instruction at the Department of Education, members of the Virginia Board of Education, and the county’s Department of Social Services.z

The Albemarle School Board next meets on October 22 for a work session beginning at 6 p.m. They have a full agenda which you can see here.

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