Mark Broklawski says he takes pride in the fact that he is the product of the public school system.
The IT professional has lived in Stafford for 17 years. His wife, Amanda, is a public school teacher, and his children attend Stafford public schools. Broklawski also has other family members that work in public schools reaching back at least three generations.
Broklawski wants to put his experiences and knowledge to use by running for the Hartwood District seat of the Stafford County School Board. He wants to continue improving taxpayer value for their dollar and making the biggest impact possible while, as he puts it, "we reimagine education to ensure our schools, kids, and community meet the challenges of our technological era."
Broklawski already has some experience with the school board in helping to build broad coalitions of stakeholders to improve efficiency and ensure that resources can be deployed where they're needed most, as he has done with the Capital Improvement Planning and Multicultural committees created by the Stafford County School Board.
Potomac Local News talked to Mr. Broklawski about his campaign for the School Board as well as his perspective on events and how they've affected the way Stafford schools will run moving forward.
What inspired you to run for the school board?
After years of underfunding and mismanagement, the Stafford County public school system is in disarray. We are 35.3% below the state average in funding while being the 17th wealthiest county in the country. This is unacceptable. I'm running for Stafford County Schoolboard because our community deserves better.
Strong schools make strong economic sense for our community. Even if you don't have children in school now, strong schools protect your home value and increase our ability to attract businesses that pay well and grow our commercial base.
As we return to in-person instruction, we need to reimagine the way we do things. In this age of advanced technology our education system has been left in the dark. That needs to change. We need to invest in our teachers and our students. We need more classrooms not trailers. We need to empower all students to prepare for life after high school. We need more teachers per student and they need to be competitively compensated.
If I'm elected I will work tirelessly with our community members, parents and teachers. I will do everything I can because I believe that education is at the core of our community's health. It's time for our schools to be brought into a future we can be proud of, and if I'm elected I won't stop until we get there.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
The Fredericksburg City Council has approved an agreement between Virginia Attorney Mark Herring regarding allocating funds obtained through court settlements concerning the opioid crisis.
According to City Attorney Dooley, the city's piece of the litigation pie is expected to be between $300,000 and $400,000. While Fredericksburg has not set a plan for the disbursement of funds from the settlement, a percentage of what the city could get has been set by the Virginia Attorney General.
The agreement allows 30 percent of the settlement funds to be distributed to participating localities such as Fredericksburg. Of that take, 15 percent would be used for approved opioid reduction costs, while the other 15 percent would be totally unrestricted and used by the city on other items.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
A middle school in Fredericksburg will send its students home for virtual-only learning just two weeks after the start of the new school year.
The city schools system announced that students at Walker-Grant Middle School would return to virtual learning after seeing a growing number of new coronavirus cases.
After consulting with the Virginia Department of Health, Fredericksburg City Public Schools announced it, which had determined the situation as a high-level concern due to Walker-Grant's reporting of several new cases over the last two weeks, which has resulted in the quarantining of staff and students.
According to FCPS, there have been multiple presumptive and positive new coronavirus cases just in the last week. FCPS also disclosed that just in the last two days, those cases had been linked together, resulting in multiple outbreaks and other ongoing cases resulting in high levels of student absenteeism and school staff being at critical levels.
VDH considers a coronavirus outbreak to be at least two cases reported at the same address.
Updated stats on the FCPS school website reveals that between August 8 and August 23, a total of 95 students within the entire school division have been quarantined due to exposure to the virus. Out of that total, 25 students had been tested positive for the virus.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
Alyssa Halstead has a long history of service when it comes to public safety and health.
She's worked as a public health emergency manager for the City of New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, has a Master's degree in public health and education, and worked for 15 years in infectious disease planning for a pandemic.
Now she's running to represent the Hartwood District on the Stafford County School Board.
Halstead and her husband, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, came to Virginia In 2012 and settled in Stafford three years later. The couple has two children and two rescue dogs from a boarding facility in Woodbridge, where she developed a curriculum to help children learn social and emotional empathy by bonding with shelter animals.
Potomac Local News talked with Halstead about her campaign for the school board seat and other issues related to the Stafford County Schools.
What inspired you to run for the School Board?
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
The Stafford County Government is formulating a teleworking policy for its employees.
Although the practice of teleworking is not new for the county, this past year saw an increase in demand for remote-work options in the wake of social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic.
The county shuttered its government building twice in the past 12 months, limiting the public's access to the local government hall, moving most government business and public meetings online. Neighboring Prince William County, on the other hand, largely kept the doors of its government center open while since the start of the pandemic.
Now the Board of Supervisors is looking into making a telework policy permanent for some employees.
County staffers told the Board of Supervisors that many workplaces in the private sector and government are allowing people to work remotely. A study by the Society for Human Resource Management found that the benefits of teleworking included flexibility to employees, job satisfaction, and keeping the county competitive in the job market by increasing recruitment and aiding in retaining staff, staffers told the Board.
Many departments would benefit from telework, including the Commissioner of the Revenue's office, which assesses private property values, the county's top-tier administration offices, including County Administrator Fred Pressley, and the county's Public Works staff.
Several Virginia counties, including Prince William, Hanover, Loudoun, Chesterfield, and Henrico counties, all have telework policies that determine the maximum number of days that would be allowed to telework. Many allow for unlimited days for teleworking, while Hanover only allows two days a week. Chesterfield only allows telework in cases of inclement weather.
Spotsylvania is the only neighboring county that does not have a policy in place for teleworking.
In addition to how many days employees could work from home, the county will also work on a checklist that teleworkers would have to follow at home to comply with the policy.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
Of the four School Board members whose terms expire at the end of the year, Falmouth District representative Dr. Sarah Chase is the only one running to retain her seat.
She's also the only candidate whose running unopposed.
During her four years on the Stafford County School Board, Chase, a psychology professor who teaches at St. Mary's University in Maryland, experienced the coronavirus pandemic's issues, the departure of the district's school superintendent, and political redistricting in the county.
"It took a long time for me to decide to run again, but it's an important responsibility and we need different people on the board who have done their due diligence and their research in making these decisions," said Chase.
Chase said that her experience not only as a member of the Board but as someone who volunteered in the schools before her term would help with the transition that the school board will go through with three new members coming onto the board and a new superintendent to be hired in the next few months to replace the outgoing Dr. Scott Kizner, whose leaving in September.
"We're going into a situation where we have two members of the Board who only have two years of experience and one who has twenty years of experience and we're getting a new superintendent. I want to stay on and help whoever becomes the new superintendent to acclimate to the school system," says Chase.
Chase is also proud of some of the board's success during her term, such as purchasing the old Fredericksburg Christian School off Garrisonville Road in North Stafford, which became the Northstar Early Childhood Education Center. The center, according to Chase, provided necessary space for the developmental needs of the students.
Chase also touts the opening of Moncure Elementary, stating that they got it open on time as a success. Chase is also staying on when students are coming back to school after having to adapt to the issues brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. While some teachers and students with special needs or in need of internet access did stay in the buildings, most were relegated to virtual learning throughout the 2020 school year.
Students began to trickle back into the school soon after some elementary school students returned in October, while some high school students could return in February 2021. Many worked on hybrid programs during that time, spending half the time in class and the other half online.
"It wasn't ideal, I'm not going to pretend that everything worked out great. But for a difficult situation, it worked as well as we could make it work," says Chase of the school's adaptations to the pandemic.
Another issue for some Stafford residents is requiring students, teachers, and staff to wear masks as they returned to school on Aug. 9. Gov. Ralph Northam says a new law requires all school divisions across the state to require masks, although the author of the law disagrees. The forced mask mandate for everyone inside school buildings will stand until September 21, when the board will revisit the issue and decide whether or not to continue with the mask mandates.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
Gateway Comics and Toys will participate in Free Comic Book Day, a worldwide event, on Saturday, August 14.
This year will mark the 20th time the event has occurred and involve more than 2,000 participating comic shops in 60 countries.
Gateway plans to host special guests at both their Fredericksburg and Woodbridge locations to celebrate the occasion.
Those who visit the Fredericksburg store at 2368 Plank Road will see the local business Reclaim Arcade joining the festivities. Reclaim Arcade offers the experience of retro arcade gaming similar to those popular in the 1980s and 90s. Reclaim Arcade also owns Reclaim Video, which offers a similar nostalgic experience but with VHS tapes.
Other guests will include Fredericksburg-based Freddy Donuts, as well as an appearance by local comic creator Charles McElvy. McElvy is known for his creation Spider Squirrel which is published through his own label Xion Press.
Among the guests for Gateway's Woodbridge location, at 3112 P.S. Business Center Drive, just off Smoketown Road, will be writer/artist Jonathan Luna, known for his series Alex and Ada, published through Image Comics. Luna will be joined by local comic book writer and artist Lauren Keely whose book 20XX was also published through Image Comics.
Also appearing will be cosplayer Laney Jade, pop culture podcast host of The Great Geek Refuge Mike Lunsford, and Dave's Dogs providing food for the event.
Free Comic Book Day was originally founded by Joe Field, the founder of Flying Colors Comics, which is based in Concord, California, to introduce comics to new readers while giving thanks to current fans.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
To all artists who use the sidewalk as their medium of choice, Stafford County wants you.
The Stafford County Economic Development and Tourism Board, the count's Museum and Cultural Center, and the North Stafford and Stafford Rotary clubs are currently looking for artists to participate in the county's first sidewalk art event known as Via Colori Stafford.
The groups are recruiting artists to participate in a Via Colori piece, where they will create a patchwork of different pastel murals to be drawn on the sidewalks. The art form is a modern version of a centuries-old tradition that can be traced back to 16th century Italy when artists would paint religious icons in the courtyards of cathedrals.
Artists will be given a square to paint in the commuter lot located off of Exit 140 in Stafford, where the public is invited to attend and watch the artists create their works.
Each square artist will be sponsored by a business, organization, or family with the proceeds, after expenses, to benefit the museum and various services in the region. The event is expected to have 100 artists from various arts organizations. So far, 40 have signed up for the event.
Stafford Economic and Tourism recently held an event in anticipation of Via Colori Stafford called Via Tutori for the artists that had already signed up, which gave them a primer on the art style by those experienced in the medium.
Via Colori Stafford will occur at the commuter lot off of Exit 140 in Stafford on Sept. 25 and 26 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. More information is available online.
Maureen Siegmund is running to become the representative for the Garrisonville District on the Stafford County School Board.
Siegmund says she's right for the job as the Director of External Relations for Active Policy Solutions, a government affairs firm that provides government relations and advocacy support to clients specializing in sports, health, wellness, education, youth development, and civil rights policy.
Siegmund says that this, along with her work with the Board's Gifted Advisory Committee, where she has served as both chair and vice-chair, gives her extensive insight into the issues Stafford County is facing in its schools and the experience to read, understand, and consider the impacts of policy.
Siegmund and her husband Steve have called Stafford County home since 2005, after spending many weekends exploring the area as tourists. They lived in South Stafford until 2016 and then moved to Austin Ridge in the Garrisonville District.
- The couple has four children attending the 2021-2022 school year with an eighth-grader at Rodney Thompson Middle School, fifth and third graders at Anthony Burns Elementary School, and a toddler still at home.
Potomac Local News spoke with Siegmund about her goal to become a member of the school board and other issues related to Stafford County Schools.
What inspired you to run for the School Board?
I have been serving on a School Board advisory committee for five years. I've learned a lot and met many incredible people. However, I noticed that there were no School Board members with young children serving, and I think that perspective is something missing from the board's deliberations.
This article is exclusively for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade to become a Locals Only Member today!
Your support helps us continue delivering more in-depth community news that matters to you.
New survey findings show that the majority of respondents, at least 31%, favored extending Metro south of Springfield.
One of the options being discussed in the feasibility study is the possibility of extending the Metro's Yellow Line from Huntington station Alexandria south along Route 1 to Woodbridge, Potomac Mills, and Quantico.
- The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation has revealed the findings of a survey conducted to find ways to improve transportation in our region.
- The survey was conducted between April 19 to May 18 and asked 1,352 residents from Prince William and the southern portion of Fairfax counties what methods would improve transit.
DRPT sought to understand local and regional use of public transit in both the pre-and and post-pandemic eras. Public transportation serving Prince William County saw very low ridership due to pandemic restrictions, which had a detrimental effect on the revenue streams of public transit organizations such as Omniride and the Virginia Railway Express.
