45th District: Krupicka, Engle on Education, Transportation

by Drew Hansen

While much of the focus this election season has centered on a hotly contested race for Virginia governor, Tuesday’s ballot in parts of Alexandria, Arlington County and Fairfax County includes a contest for the 45th seat in the House of Delegates.

Independent candidate Jeffrey Engle is challenging incumbent Rob Krupicka (D) in a race that has been void of any interaction between the two.

Krupicka said Engle has not appeared in any of the regional debates leading up to Election Day.  

Krupicka claimed the seat a year ago in a special election created by David Englin’s resignation. He said he found his one session in Richmond to be much more bipartisan than expected, something he welcomed. He also discovered the incremental nature of legislation in the state house.

“Richmond likes to take baby steps,” the former Alexandria City Councilman said. “It doesn’t like complex legislation. There’s a push to study stuff. That’s something I have learned and tried to apply moving forward to kind of take smaller steps working on different policy issues.”

The former State Board of Education member said he has formed more relationships within the state’s schools and education communities. He has tried to become a point person of sorts when it comes to those issues in the state house.

“You try to be an expert on certain topics,” he said.

He plans to introduce “fewer, more focused” education bills if he’s elected to a full term.

“All education policy needs to be looked through lens of ‘Does it work for kids?’” he said.  

Engle, an Arlandria resident and analyst with Cubic Applications who has never run for office before, said he wants to make school safety his top priority.

A Purple Heart recipient who did six tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, Engle used to perform terrorism vulnerability assessments of schools and other facilities while in the Army.

“I’m passionate about school safety,” Engle said. “There’s a constitutional right to a quality education, and first and foremost we have to deal with things that may threaten that.”

He criticized Krupicka for introducing legislation that would “lower standards for poor and minority students,” Engle said, adding that an impoverished childhood didn’t preclude him from learning.    

“There’s no reason why every student in this area should not have the best education,” he said. “There are great examples in the community, one or two good examples in your life, even if you live in a depressed area.”

Krupicka said the academic struggles of impoverished students and English-language learners are consistent in schools across the commonwealth, not just in schools labeled as struggling. Even schools considered successful routinely fail impoverished students, he said.

“You look at data and make good informed choices in the best way,” Krupicka said. “That’s what I try to do with education and everything else.”      

Krupicka has continually opposed Gov. Bob McDonnell’sOpportunity Educational Institution legislation, which requires any school that has been denied accreditation or has been accredited with warning for three consecutive years to be transferred to the control of an OEI board. Alexandria’s Jefferson-Houston School, where three-quarters of the school’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch, is a target of the legislation.

Krupicka said he plans to introduce a bill to get rid of OEI.

“We certainly have work to do, but the issues of poverty and ESL permeate and we need to talk about those issues across the board,” he said. “It’s not that we shouldn’t do something. We’re just tackling the problem backwards [with OEI].”

Engle said he generally opposes government usurping local authority, but the issues of struggling schools like Jefferson-Houston are “unacceptable” and that OEI is one method to consider, along with more parental control.

“If the right answer is adjusting the legislation to where we can have more charter schools, allowing students to move between schools, then that’s something to look at,” he said.

After his medical retirement from the Army in August 2012, Engle decided he wanted to keep serving. A longtime political science student (he recently earned a masters from Virginia Tech), Engle said he’s never been a member of any political organization. He said he’s found support among fellow retired veterans, Libertarians, Tea Partiers and some Democrats.

“These are people who want to make sure we leave things better for the next generation and that examples are being set,” said Engle, whose low-budget campaign has been waged mostly by knocking on doors. “I’m committed to taking on critical issues where I can build a bridge across party lines.”

Both candidates agreed on a need to using state and regional transportation resources effectively.

Krupicka introduced a bill last session seeking financing for a Potomac Yard Metro station by aligning state and local economic interests. He said he’d hold off on introducing it again until siting issues for the station are resolved.

But the idea of aligning economic interests between the state and localities to pay for transit is an idea that’s not going go away, he said, and could be critical in creating future transit connections beyond Metro.

“It’s a big discussion on extending south down Route 1 with transit,” he said. “We’ve got to figure it out. If transit is the only tool we have, then we have to think about it.”

Engle said the state has to be at the table when it comes to transportation solutions in Northern Virginia.

“We can’t stop traffic for 10 years just to have the projects,” he said. “But when it comes to Hotlanes or Metro lines, I am not difficult to convince that a project is worth funding if the math makes sense. … We need to make sure what we’re getting is worth getting some skin the game.”

Engle said he is personally opposed to abortion but that he “errors on side of liberty, and not using your opinions” when it comes to legislation. Taking on the issue of abortion wouldn’t be at the front of his mind if he is elected, he said.

Krupicka has co-sponsored a range of bills focused on protecting women's right to choose.