Virtual meeting on equity and inclusion scheduled tonight

The theme of the meeting is Partners in Equity and Inclusion. The goal is to extend an invitation to community leaders who work with underrepresented communities to learn the needs of the community, distribute information on government services and events, and expand opportunities to collaborate in partnership with community events, according to a county press release.

Participants are asked to register to attend before 6:30 p.m. The virtual meeting will begin at 7 p.m.

The meeting comes on the heels of a report from the county’s Racial and Social Justice Commission to the Board of County Supervisors. Last year, the commission met monthly, searching for cases of inequality within the county government and its school division.

According to commissioners, disparities exist between white, black, and Hispanic students in the county schools after a massive reduction in testing scores following the school division’s shift to online learning during the pandemic.

Jahanzeb Akbar, the commission’s vice-chairman, delivered the education section of the commission’s report to Supervisors. He recited statistics like black children are three times more likely to be expelled than whites but make up 20% of the student population in county schools.

Akbar also said one year was not enough time to identify the cause behind many disparities. In a party-line vote, Democrats on the Board of County Supervisors agreed to implement some of the recommendations made in the report like giving preference to veterans who apply for county government jobs, tracking how many county employees have disabilities, building a new youth detention center, and creating a tip line to report on the actions of School Resource Officers who work in schools.

Originally due to wrap up its work in December 2021, Supervisors agreed to allow the commission to continue to meet. The commission is a separate entity from the county’s Commission in Human Rights, established in the early 1990s to hear cases of alleged equal-opportunity discrimination.

Meanwhile, three Racial and Social Justice commissioners called the commission’s report a “sham” and urged county leaders to disband the entity. One of them, Commissioner Mac Haddow, said he was barred from reviewing information from the school division about graduation and learning disparities between whites, blacks, and Hispanics.

Eight members appointed by the Board of County Supervisors sit on the Prince William County Racial and Social Justice Commission. Last year, they were joined by former County Executive Christopher Martino, Police Chief Peter Newsham, Loree Williams from the county School Board, and Curtis Porter, who leads the county’s Commission on Human Rights.