Manassas City Council Candidate Survey: Schools

Early voting is open in Virginia! Starting on Sept. 20, Virginians can begin voting in the Nov. 5 general election and local election. Potomac Local News is dedicated to informing the community about candidates vying for one of three open seats on the Manassas City Council and the mayor’s seat.

To help voters make an informed decision, we are continuing a new feature series, “One-Question Manassas City Council Candidate Survey.” This series will run throughout the campaign season, offering insights into each candidate’s stand on key issues affecting our city. Our seventh one, which ran on Sept. 24, focused on power outages and the electrical grid.

The candidates are given 10 days to respond to a Google Form, and their answers will be compiled into a single post on PotomacLocalNews.com. This format lets voters quickly compare the candidates’ views on critical issues, helping them make an informed choice come Election Day.

Today’s topic: Schools.

The candidates were asked: Public school performance is a critical issue for many families in Manassas. With the School Board controlling school management but the City Council being a chief funding source, how do you plan to address the challenges our public schools face, such as lagging Standards of Learning (SOL) scores, provisional accreditation for Osbourn High and Metz Middle and the need for equal resources across all schools? Specifically, would you support setting benchmarks when the school board comes asking for funding during the upcoming budget cycle? Additionally, how do you propose to ensure transparency in the use of public funds, and how would you approach the ongoing discussions about funding and constructing new school facilities to accommodate growing student populations?

Mayoral candidates

Xiao-Yin “Tang” Byrom (R)

Improving our schools is near and dear to my heart and will be a key priority if I am

honored to be your next mayor. Our schools are underperforming, and this creates a ripple effect that impacts everything — public safety, economic development, property values and overall quality of life.

Osbourn and Metz have now failed to gain accreditation for the third year in a row. If our water supply were contaminated, we’d all act quickly to fix it. Our schools need the same urgency — they’re at a critical point, and it’s time to stop placing blame and start working together to find solutions.

Every day, voters tell me we need to fix our schools. I won’t rest until this decline is reversed. Despite having one of the highest tax rates in Northern Virginia, we’re not seeing results. During the 2022-2023 school year, we invested between $15,000 and $16,000 per student. We need to make sure this money is being spent effectively, ensuring students have the necessary tools and resources to succeed.

As your next mayor, I will unite students, parents, teachers, the School Board, Council and the community to address these challenges and aim for excellence. We need to identify the resources our students need to reach their full potential. No more excuses. Let’s focus on discipline, respect and responsibility, and give our kids the opportunity to achieve their dreams. It’s time for us to come together and take action.

Byrom, the owner of Tang’s Bridal and Alterations in the Canterbury Village shopping center at 8675 Sudley Road, opened her Manassas store as an alteration shop in 1999. She eventually expanded her business to include bridal and formal wear. Her business employs 17 people.

Michelle Davis-Younger (D-Incumbent)

NO RESPONSE

Davis-Younger is seeking a second term as mayor, after being elected in 2020. She owns and operates a Human Resources Consulting firm located in Historic Downtown Manassas called The1ForHR, LLC, which focuses on career coaching and resume writing.

City Council candidates

Lynn Forkell Greene (R)

Manassas City stands at a pivotal moment in our journey. Our community is calling for our public

schools to fulfill their mission of providing a quality education for every student. With lagging SOL scores and provisional accreditation for Osbourn High and Metz Middle, we must embrace a proactive and collaborative approach to set us on a path to success because right now, we are falling short.

The city’s current plan to replace aging schools every ten years was an important first step, but true transformation requires a stronger partnership between the City Council and the School Board. In our compact 10-square-mile city, sharing resources, such as land and building, is essential. Together, we can tackle challenges and create a sustainable vision for our current students and future generations.

Effective communication is key. We need a comprehensive strategy that addresses our current student population while anticipating future growth. Although projections suggest enrollment won’t exceed our existing capacity, we must remain innovative to ensure every school is equipped for excellence.

The lessons learned from the new Jennie Dean project highlight the importance of collaboration. We cannot afford to repeat past missteps; both the City Council and School Board must engage actively in long-term strategic planning. Embracing the spirit of #OneManassas means working together as a unified community.

While I do not support tying funding directly to performance benchmarks, I believe in establishing measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) to track educational outcomes. These KPIs serve as tools for accountability and transparency, demonstrating our commitment to continuous improvement without directly affecting funding decisions. Just as city departments are held accountable for measurable results, our schools can benefit from this culture of growth and evaluation. Public officials have a crucial responsibility to meet community expectations by providing the high-quality services residents deserve and pay for.

Investing in our educators and their resources is essential. We can achieve better results by combining accountability with robust support for our schools. Cutting support for struggling schools is not the solution; instead, we must empower them to ensure every child receives the quality education they deserve. Additionally, we must be open to evolving our strategies, recognizing when something isn’t working and embracing innovative approaches. This commitment to adaptation will help us create a stronger educational system for everyone.

By fostering collaboration, prioritizing equitable resources, and ensuring accountability, we can significantly enhance the educational experience for every student in Manassas. Education is the cornerstone of our community and deserves our unwavering investment and attention.

We are fortunate to have dedicated teachers, exceptional students and supportive families. Let’s acknowledge our challenges while celebrating our successes. Together, we can build a future where every student has the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. Let’s unite in this vision and illuminate the path to success for all.

Lynn Forkell Greene is seeking to regain a seat on City Council, where she served for 14 months, from fall 2021 to December 2022. Forkell Green served the remainder of Davis-Younger’s term, a seat vacated when Davis-Younger was elected mayor.

She is an administrative director for a nonprofit. Forkell Greene and her husband share four adult children and three grandchildren. Before announcing her reelection bid, Forkell Green was a freelance reporter covering city issues for Potomac Local News.

Ashley Hutson (D)

Through my work at the Heavy Construction Contractors Association, particularly

through our “Women in Construction” group, I have had the pleasure of participating in several career fairs and ‘women in the trades’ events at Osbourn High School. I have spoken to engaging and ready-to-work students at these events, and I am constantly impressed by the efforts of the Career and Technical Education department at MCPS.

Recognizing that SOL scores and accreditation are at top of mind for many MCPS families, I have spoken to School Board members to hear their perspective on the work being done to address these concerns. I learned about the “by name, by need” initiative in which teachers are actively assessing every student’s progress in key areas, like literacy and math, every day. Through their active assessments, teachers can consider the individual needs of each student and help them learn on a forward-moving path. This level of dedication to individual needs is only possible in a school system the size of MCPS.

Regarding funding, I want to ensure teachers and school staff are being paid competitive wages and our schools have the resources needed for every student to thrive. As more and more residents come forward with concerns about school quality and resources, I think increased school funding in the next budget cycle is highly likely, but there must be a clear and wise plan for spending. I expect budgets from both City Council and the School Board to address the concerns and needs of the community — if a particular service is commonly requested, then the City Council and School Board should strive to fund a solution in their respective arenas. In efforts to maximize transparency, there will be continued opportunities for public comment, and I plan to make myself accessible for conversation once elected to Council.

The city’s Comprehensive Plan sets a goal of providing state-of-the-art education facilities promote high quality learning. As such, Jennie Dean, a facility where the infrastructure and style is far outdated, is set to be replaced by a modernized school that will serve the community long into the future. Four years ago, our City Council and School Board worked together to set an increasing amount of funds aside each year to prepare for future school renovations and re-builds. When I am on Council, I will support the continuation of forward-thinking budgeting and smart spending to enhance Manassas City Public Schools.

Hutson is seeking her first term on City Council. She is the director of Member Engagement of the Heavy Construction Contractors Association in Manassas. Hutson has served on the Manassas Board of Building Code Appeals, Washington Council of Governments Transportation Planning Board and Community Advisory Committee. She graduated from Osbourn Park High School and Christopher Newport University.

Stephen Kent (R)

The situation with low academic performance from Manassas City Public Schools is a

crisis for this city. Poorly rated schools are one of the first things a prospective homebuyer will see when they research and consider moving to Manassas. As a commuter town with an amazing VRE commuter rail system for Washington, D.C. area professionals, we should be a top destination for families taking jobs in this area and looking for a place to settle outside the city. But we aren’t, and education quality is why. Underperforming schools are deterring would-be taxpayers who could come here and add to the local economy, and it’s driving away longtime residents who can see there are better rated schools just twenty minutes west in the county. Poor school ratings are greatly suppressing home values and local investments. If I haven’t been clear enough, this is an emergency for Manassas. First, it is absolutely the case that our educators and teachers are working overtime against a rising tide of stressors on their job, and I commend any teacher for their work in our schools. Second, city officials are not doing everything that can be done to set up teachers and students for success.

My primary concern with this as a candidate for Council is that our current leadership rejects responsibility for public education outcomes when it is convenient for them. If you point out the failing schools in Manassas, they point the finger at School Board. If you point out that almost 50 cents of every dollar Manassas spends is on public education and ask why our investment is not producing an above 60% pass rates in writing, they point to the School Board and say this is none of Council’s business. It is very much Council’s business. You can see that in how current council members seeking reelection change their tune very quickly if anything is working well in the schools, such as the CTE program within Osbourn High School.

The root issues are not a mystery. InsideNova reported accurately in 2023 that Manassas has the highest percentage of English language learners in the state of Virginia. This is a challenge, and those kids need our help. The pass rates for that cohort is 41% in reading, 38% in math and 28% in science.

We have a School Board that sets voluntarily low standards in the classroom such as 50% grade floor. Kids can’t make a 0 on their work. The low standards on behavior and academics diminish the authority teachers in the classroom, both to set expectations on assignments and also to enforce codes of conduct. City Council has a role to play in communicating these views to School Board and using whatever influence available to compel them to do the right thing for the city.

City Council, instead of having a worthwhile debate with the School Board about academic standards in the schools they help fund, chooses to fight with them over land and the use of buildings such as the old Jennie Dean Elementary School. Manassas City Public Schools owns that property and should make a determination about the future of that asset themselves.

I do not support benchmarks for the School Board’s funding requests. That’s an inappropriate carrot-stick approach to funding public education. You can always look for areas of wasteful spending and suggest changes be made. After all, the School Board did sign a four year contract with Evolv for a weapons detection system in Osbourn that costs $104,000 annually, and the company is now under federal investigation by the SEC and FTC for fraud and misleading buyers about the tech’s capabilities. But you don’t do funding cuts to attack low academic performance.

I like the idea of having new educational facilities for our steadily growing net population. I’m enthusiastic about the idea of using the now city owned land at Marsteller on Sudley for a trade school focused on providing high school students in Manassas a whole facility dedicated to skills training in high-demand trade jobs. We could also work with the School Board to use the Jennie Dean property for such a facility and vastly expand the CTE program for Osbourn to include more trades such as cooking and hospitality.

Manassas has a growing need for this, not a community center on Sudley. We also have to consider the need for an alternative school in Manassas to provide a different track for kids who decline to stay at school during the day. Truant teenagers skipping class are everywhere in Manassas, and our police department needs help in order to manage that problem. That will require investments in a facility those kids can go to until parents pick them up, and staff to manage it. This will free up teachers and students in Metz and Osborn who want to focus on education, to do so.

We have a lot of work to do, and that starts with Council being honest about the existence of the problem. Mayor Michelle Davis-Younger was asked in the Prince William County Chamber of Commerce debate last week for the grade she would give the school system based on performance. She declined and said it couldn’t possibly be graded and that “children want to hear about how good they’re doing.” Well, we are not children, we are adults, and our role is to be truthful and put together a plan for progress based on the best data. I will be part of that change if elected to Manassas City Council.

Kent is seeking his first term on City Council. He is an author and public relations professional. He and his wife, Melony “Mel” Kent, share a child. Mel Kent ran for the city School Board in 2022.

Tom Osina (D-Incumbent)

Should Benchmarks Be Set? I am on the record as not supporting benchmarks for

the Manassas City Public School Board because such an effort is not enforceable and it circumvents power rightly left to YOU, the voter!

For example, if City Council told the School Board that the graduation rate had to be 100% by the following year and it was not achieved, what happens then? The only power City Council has is to cut funding. How would that make schools better? The one thing it would do is put us out of compliance with the statutes of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Fundamentally, benchmarks skirt the power of voters to pick who they want leading the School Board every two years. Shouldn’t you and I be the ones deciding what we want in our schools when we vote? Beware of those who want such benchmarks as they threaten the choices we make in local elections. I have great faith in the decisions voters make. I will not be a party to any attempt to dilute the results of local elections.

Plans to Address Public School Challenges: If we are serious about improving education for our students, I believe a paradigm shift has to be made in our thinking. What if class size, especially for fundamental subjects, was reduced so that teachers could have more time to interact with learners? This would result in more individual attention and personal learning leading to better test scores and greater educational attainment. These are the very things that critics are saying are missing in Manassas City Public Schools. Just from my own personal experience as a teacher, I found working with smaller groups of students actually accelerates instruction especially with socioeconomically disadvantaged and culturally diverse kids. This would also benefit first generation learners who we have in our schools.

How to Ensure Transparency in Government? At the first meeting at which I was installed as a member of City Council, my proposal to have all Council agendas made public one week before a meeting was adopted — prior to my term, the practice was to issue it 2 work days before a meeting. This was then expanded to include any reports, documents, power points or videos that would be used at the actual meeting. That way, residents could see what would be discussed at a Council meeting at the same time as me. I pushed to have all City Council meetings and work sessions broadcast on a reliable network as well as recorded. I was successful and even Council’s annual retreats are recorded. Residents can watch our discussions in real time or later. This is a key and fundamental way that residents have transparency is our discussions, our funding decisions and our votes.

Approach to Future School Construction: I was part of the Democratic majority of City Council which developed a plan four years ago to have both the city and the schools set aside the same amount of money each year for the purposes of school repair and/or construction. Each budget cycle, both entities add an additional amount which is designed to pay for not only a replacement Dean Elementary School in this decade, but to be able to address future school construction needs in subsequent decades. As long as future City Councils and School Boards set aside money for this purpose, our residents and businesses will be saved any spikes in taxes for school construction.

Manassas is not perfect, but it has always been my goal to make it better. My motto is “Every day is a chance to make our city better.” I ask for your vote to another term on Manassas City Council. Thank you.

Osina is seeking his second term on City Council. He and his husband have lived in the Georgetown South community for more than 20 years. He is the father of two grown children.

Robyn Williams (R)

In 2016, when I first ran for the School Board, both of my children were about to enter

Metz Middle School, which was not accredited at the time. Many families, including my neighbors, faced difficult decisions: should they keep their children in MCPS, move out of the city or invest in private schooling or homeschooling? For me, it was essential that my sons attend their local schools because schools are the heart of any strong community. That’s why I chose to run for the school board — to work towards making our schools better for everyone.

After I was elected, I’m proud to say that all of our schools achieved full accreditation! Unfortunately, Metz and Osbourn High School are no longer fully accredited. Metz faces academic challenges in subjects like math and science, while Osbourn struggles with both academics and chronic absenteeism. If elected to the City Council, I intend to improve coordination between the School Board and City Council to address these needs. It’s crucial that discussions about funding also include large capital improvement projects as student populations grow and instructional needs evolve. My experience as part of a compensation task force, which involved collaboration between selected School Board and City Council members, demonstrated that this type of partnership can be highly effective. School funding needs to focus on flexible, needs-based support. Setting benchmarks for school funding is counterproductive.

I also plan to increase transparency by involving all stakeholders in discussions about City Council’s school funding decisions. Open forums for feedback will ensure that community concerns are addressed and that resources are allocated to where they are most needed. By working together and maintaining open communication, we can strengthen our schools and provide every student in Manassas with the quality education they deserve. The future of our community depends on it.

Williams is seeking her first term on City Council. She has served two terms on the Manassas City School Board. Williams holds a bachelor’s of science in economics from George Mason University. She found her background in finance and economics valuable on the MCPS School Board, in addition to her more than 10 years as a broker/owner of Redstone Realty, specializing in residential real estate.

Williams’ public service in Manassas began with the Beautification Committee, where she served as a member and eventually chairperson. She also volunteered as a teacher assistant at Haydon Elementary for several years and taught modules in schools through the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation Department.

Mark Wolfe (D-Incumbent)

NO RESPONSE

Wolfe is seeking a fourth term on City Council. He has lived in the City of Manassas since 1990. Wolfe has executive leadership experience in the corporate and nonprofit sectors and is currently the chief operating officer of MovieComm. Amy, his wife of 36 years, is the artistic director and CEO of Manassas Ballet Theatre. They have two children, both of whom graduated from Osbourn High School.

We hope this series engaged the community and fostered a more informed electorate. Thanks for tuning in!