PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — The candidates running to become the next Prince William County School Board Chairman At-large will attend a forum Thursday.
Interim School Board Chairman Dr. Babur Lateef, sitting Gainesville District School Board member Alyson Satterwhite are billed to attend.
Retired Woodbridge resident Stanley Bender who is also on the ballot for school board chairman at-large is not scheduled to attend.
The forum will be hosted by the Prince William Committee of 100 and the League of Women Voters and moderated by this reporter.
While school board candidates run as independents, Lateef ran in 2012 as Democrat in a race against Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman At-large Corey Stewart.
He was appointed interim board chairman this spring when the former chairman Ryan Sawyers stepped down a year and a half into his term, and at the same time suspended his run for Congress.
Satterwhite is a conservative who represents the Gainesville District, a once-republican stronghold in Prince William County that flipped blue during last year’s state election.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the candidates have raised $35,500 and $6,000, respectively.
Bender has not raised any cash, according to VPAP.
The forum is free to attend and open to the public. It will begin at 7 p.m. inside the Howsmon Lecture Hall at the Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College.
