Ryan Sawyers recall, Prince William County Public Schools, Virginia (2018)

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Prince William County Public Schools School Board recall
Officeholders
Ryan Sawyers
Recall status
Resigned
See also
Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2018 Recalls in Virginia Virginia recall laws School board recalls Recall reports

An effort to recall Ryan Sawyers from his position as at-large chairman of the Prince William County Public Schools school board was started in November 2016. Sawyers resigned from his position on March 7, 2018. In his resignation statement, he cited personal and professional reasons for leaving, and he described the district's school board and administration as corrupt.

On their official recall petition, the Prince William Committee for Quality Education said that Sawyers had misused his position, discriminated against district administrators, and tried to change sports policies to favor a specific organization. Sawyers called the recall effort silly and said speeches made by the committee members were, in his words, "political theater." Others said the effort against him was political backlash after Sawyers, a Democrat, won a seat that was previously held by Republicans. The school board is officially nonpartisan.

Sawyers was elected to a four-year term on the board on November 3, 2015. He was the first Democrat to get elected to the position as chairman of the board in modern memory, according to the Prince William Times. On April 3, 2017, Sawyers announced his intention to run for Virginia's 1st Congressional District in 2018. He suspended his campaign a week before he resigned from the board. His fellow board members voted 4-2 to censure him on September 20, 2017, after he publicly filed email exchanges between board members and school district counsel Mary McGowan.

Sawyers' fellow board member Diane Raulston, another Democrat, was also targeted for recall in 2016, but the effort did not go to court. Her effort stemmed from accusations that she ignored her constituents and threatened teachers who spoke against board decisions.

Recall supporters

The Prince William Committee for Quality Education, a political action committee (PAC), started the recall effort against Sawyers. Their petition stated:

“	On multiple occasions, Prince William County School Board Chairman-at- Large Ryan Sawyers misused his public office, in violation of Virginia Code section 24.2-233, by attempting to take, and taking, official actions for a private or personal purpose. Ryan Sawyers was elected Chairman-at- Large of the Prince William County School Board on November 3, 2015. Prior to Chairman-at- Large Sawyers’ election, he was engaged in an ongoing dispute with Dr. Michael Bishop, principal of the Patriot High School. After Sawyers’ assumed office, he misused his office by, among other things, attempting to engineer the illegal termination of Dr. Bishop’s employment contract. On June 6, 2016, the Prince William County School Board used non-public “polling,” to withdraw an employment contract from Dr. Bishop in violation of Va. Code § 2.2-3707. Sawyer’s involvement in this “polling” process constitutes a misuse of his office. Dr. Bishop’s contract was later reinstated. As part of the Dispute with Dr. Bishop, Sawyers misused his office by discriminating against and targeting for retribution specific Associate Superintendents of the Prince William County School District who were not supportive of his efforts to remove Dr. Bishop’s employment contract. Finally, Sawyers misused his office by executing a campaign from the School Board’s dais to change the School District’s sports field assignment policy to benefit a private organization with which he is affiliated. These misuses of office have had a materially adverse affect on the conduct of the office of School Board Chairman-at- Large resulting in justifiable mistrust between Prince William County citizens and the School Board, between Prince William County employees and the School Board and between the individual members of the School Board and Chairman-at- Large Sawyers. Because of the reasons outlined above, the undersigned seek to recall Prince William County School Board Chairman-at- Large Ryan Sawyers for misuse of office in violation of Virginia Code section 24.2-233. The undersigned also respectfully request that the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Prince William County recuse himself from participating in this case, to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest due to the party affiliation and campaign finance history of both the School Board Chairman-at- Large and Commonwealth’s Attorney.	”
—Prince William Committee for Quality Education

Diana Allen, spokeswoman for the Prince William Committee for Quality Education, said the petition did not include all of the group's complaints against Sawyers. She said an additional complaint was his vote to change the name of the former Godwin Middle School. “There’s something in here for every single person,” Allen said. “What we’re asking is that a judge take a look at these things. If we’re wrong, so be it. We tried.” Allen also wrote an editorial in the Prince William Times about the recall effort. Click here to read that editorial.

Jeannie Atkinson Lowder, treasurer for the Prince William Committee for Quality Education, said she objected to Sawyers giving a speech at the NOVA Pride festival in October 2016. Lowder said Sawyers encouraged festival attendees to contact school board members directly about expanding the district's nondiscrimination policy. “That irks me because it takes enough time and effort of our school board members to respond to [messages] from people who live in our own county,” said Lowder. “[Sawyers] has worked really hard with this one community… I understand that’s his baby and he feels really strongly… but I don’t think he’s really listening to everyone.”

Recall opponents

Sawyers called the recall effort against him silly and said that the speeches made by members of the Prince William Committee for Quality Education were, in his words, “political theater.” He also said, “They’re just kind of spouting off anything they think will land to get their petition signed and get people to click on their ‘donate button.’”

The Prince William Times said two of the recall petition's accusations were unclear. The publication said that the allegation that Sawyers "misused his office by discriminating against and targeting for retribution specific Associate Superintendents" was unclear because no associate superintendents had resigned or had been fired during Sawyers' tenure as of November 22, 2016.

The Prince William Times also said the allegation that Sawyers "misused his office by executing a campaign from the School Board’s dais to change the School District’s sports field assignment policy to benefit a private organization with which he is affiliated" was unclear because the district did not have a sports field assignment policy.

Dr. Michael Bishop, the principal listed on the recall petition, did sue Sawyers and board member Justin Wilk in civil court due to issues surrounding his contract, but he was not fired, according to the Prince William Times. The publication said his contract was temporarily put on hold in June 2016, but it was reinstated.

Supporters of Sawyers said the recall effort was political backlash from his election to the at-large chairman seat in 2015, a position historically held by Republicans. “They hate the idea that a Democrat could be chairman of the school board,” Harry Wiggins, chairman of the Prince William County Democratic Committee.

Mario Reynoso, a graduate of the district and gay rights advocate, said the recall effort “goes back to a very small, vocal minority that doesn’t know how to be a minority.” He also said he did not understand Lowder's complaint against Sawyers' speech at the NOVA Pride festival. He said it was a regional festival that included county residents. “The majority of people in the county support nondiscrimination policies,” Reynoso said. “This is a multi-cultural, multi-faith county with people from all walks of life.”

Sawyers said the recall effort would not change his mind about the expansion of the district's nondiscrimination policy. “I’m not going to stop pushing for protections for our most vulnerable students and staff members,” Sawyers said. “I’m going to continue fighting for that.”

The board voted 5-3 to pass an anti-discrimination policy for LGBT students and employees on June 21, 2017. It did not change the district's bathroom use policy, which gave principals the ability to accommodate situations on a case-by-case basis. Sawyers voted in favor of the anti-discrimination policy and said it made the district more responsive to its students. “Over half the school districts in the commonwealth already have a policy like this,” said Sawyers. “This is, in my opinion, Prince William County catching up with the times.”

Background

Board votes to censure Sawyers

The Prince William County school board voted 4-2 to censure Sawyers on September 20, 2017, after he publicly filed email exchanges between board members and school district counsel Mary McGowan. The emails were filed as part of legal action against McGowan and were considered legally privileged information, according to Inside Nova. Alyson Satterwhite introduced the motion to censure Sawyers, and she voted in favor it along with board members Shawn Brann, William Deutsch, and Diane Raulston. Board members Loree Williams and Justin Wilk cast the dissenting votes. Sawyers left the meeting before the censure vote, and Vice Chair Lillie Jessie was absent from the meeting.

“This puts us at risk as a board. You can’t just cavalierly release information like he did,” said Satterwhite, who was endorsed by the Prince William County Republican Party when she was re-elected to the board on November 3, 2015. “Those emails belonged to the board. He did not have the authority to release them in public.”

Deutsch was also backed by the county Republican Party in 2015, and Brann was appointed to temporarily replace Republican-endorsed member Gilbert Trenum while he is deployed. “Publishing privileged information is an incredibly egregious breach and has to be handled and dealt with," said Deutsch.

Raulston was the only Democrat-backed member of the board to vote for the censure. She said she was tired of the contention on the board and wanted the censure vote to be a message to the chairman. “In my opinion, it just simply states, ‘The people you’re working with have gotten tired of certain behavior patterns,’” said Raulston. “If I was out of control and wasn’t listening, maybe I would say, ‘Yeah, that’s what they had to do to get me to pay attention.’”

Sawyers started his case against McGowan after he said she withheld "emails containing legal advice to other board members," according to Inside Nova. He said that McGowan should talk to his attorney if she had problems with the emails he released, and he dismissed the censure vote. He said it was an effort by Republicans on the board to make issues come back to him, and Williams agreed with his assessment.

After the censure vote, the county's Republican Party issued a statement that said the censure was “a call for our community to demand that Ryan Sawyers take his job seriously or step down immediately.”

“We’re not seeing the chair of the GOP talk a lot about what we’re doing as a school board, but then we see this comment out there this morning,” Williams said. Deutsch said Sawyers' actions had gone beyond partisan politics.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing recall in Virginia

To move the recall forward, the Prince William Committee for Quality Education had to collect signatures from registered voters equal to 10 percent of the number of the votes cast in the last election in which the official was elected. A total of 64,092 votes were cast to elect Sawyers, so the recall effort had to collect just over 6,400 signatures. Sawyers resigned before the signatures were submitted to the circuit court.

Elected officials in Virginia can be recalled if the court finds they are guilty of drug charges or “neglect of duty, misuse of office or incompetence in the performance of their duties when that neglect of duty, misuse of office, or incompetence in office has a material adverse effect upon the conduct of the office,” according to the Prince William Times.

About the district

See also: Prince William County Public Schools, Virginia

The Prince William County school district is located in Prince William County, Virginia.

The Prince William County school district is located in northeast Virginia in Prince William County. The county seat is Manassas. The county was home to 451,721 residents in 2015, according to estimates by the United States Census Bureau. In the 2013-2014 school year, Prince William County Public Schools was the second-largest school district in Virginia and served 85,451 students.

Demographics

Prince William County outperformed Virginia as a whole in terms of higher education achievement from 2010 to 2014. The United States Census Bureau found that 38.1 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 35.8 percent of state residents. The median household income in Prince William County was $98,514, compared to $64,792 for the entire state. The poverty rate in the county was 7.2 percent, compared to 11.8 percent statewide.

Racial Demographics, 2015
Race	Prince William County (%)	Virginia (%)
White	63.7	70.2
Black or African American	21.8	19.7
American Indian and Alaska Native	1.1	0.5
Asian	8.7	6.5
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	0.2	0.1
Two or More Races	4.4	2.9
Hispanic or Latino	22.3	9.0

Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

See also

• Prince William County Public Schools, Virginia
• Prince William County Public Schools elections (2015)
• Recall campaigns in Virginia
• Political recall efforts, 2018
• School board recalls

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• Prince William County Public Schools
• Virginia Department of Elections
• Recall Ryan Sawyers
• Prince William Committee for Quality Education Facebook page
• Ryan Sawyers for Congress