Mount Vernon Republicans Endorse Michele Nellenbach for School Board

Mount Vernon Republicans voted to endorse Michelle Nellenbach for the Mount Vernon seat on the Fairfax County School Board Tuesday night at their monthly meeting at the South County Government building.

The endorsement comes less than two weeks after the Nellenbach’s opponent, incumbent Dan Storck.

Championing fiscal responsibility, Nellenbach criticized officials for being too quick to cut school programming, while failing to decrease unnecessary costs.

"For too long, the county has offered parents only three options: cut programs, increase class sizes, or raise taxes," Nellenbach said. She said there is a fourth choice should be added to that list: cut bureaucracy.

If elected to the school board, she said she hopes to cut inefficient expenditures and open the lines of communication between the school board and members of the community.

The budget process is "really broken" and needs to be more "open, honest, and transparent," she said.

Nellebach also said achievement in Fairfax County public schools has lagged compared to neighboring school systems, and characterized the fact that performance has failed to correlate with the steep rise in Superintendent staff and budget as "alarming."

Nellenbach told the Mount Vernon Republicans that she would be knocking on as many doors as possible, in addition to holding private meet and greet receptions in the coming months.

"I want to be an advocate for parents and teachers," she said.

Tina Guthrie Fairfax County School Board, an at-large school board candidate, also expressed concerned about the budget process.  If elected, she said she hopes to press for the adoption of an external auditing process to the County School Board.

"The Superintendent and the Vice-superintendent currently create their own budget, and then undergo an internal audit," Guthrie said.

Guthrie also expressed concern over the discipline process, particularly relative ease in which children are expelled from their home-schools.

She argued that it should be more difficult to kick kids out of school, and hoped that schools would work harder to involve parents in the discipline process.

"Being able to attend your home school is a right, not a privilege," she said

Finally, Guthrie offered her hopes that her presence on the School Board could ushered in the use of reading aids in every K through 3rd grade classroom. She believes an audit could find inefficiencies in the budget that might allow for this type of additional spending.

The Fairfax County Republicans will endorse candidates in June.