Jacinta Greene says that her two three-year terms on the Alexandria School Board have prepared her for City Council.
Greene faces 10 opponents for the six City Council spots in contention for the June 18 primary. She’s running against four incumbent City Council Members, against a fellow School Board Member, two candidates who are running for their second chance at the nomination after losing in 2021, and some newcomers. She’s raised about $50,000 for her campaign, and as of June 5 has about $31,000 in the bank, according to recently released quarterly finance reports.
“More than anyone else running for City Council, I can foster relationships between the city and school system,” Greene said.
The last six years have been tumultuous. After closing and reopening schools due to the pandemic, Greene and her eight fellow Board colleagues were sworn into office virtually in 2022. The Board has since spent years picking up the pieces for a school system deeply impacted by safety issues, a staffing crisis, as well as learning loss in all grade levels.
“I probably didn’t get much sleep during my first term in School Board,” Greene said. “Now in my second term, we are trying to make up for what happened to our families and to our students during that time period.”
A Richmond native, Greene moved to Alexandria in 2002. She’s has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University, and has owned her own marketing firm for a number of years. Her previous clients included McDonald’s and HJ Heinz, and she says that she lost most of her international clients when the pandemic hit in March 2020. She also says that she was kept afloat by a single client and her now-depleted savings.
“All the clients came back and I have new ones,” Greene said. “I pretty much lost everything professionally, had to live off savings, but the biggest part of me knew I was gonna be okay. It completely allowed me to focus on making sure my students and my families that I governed the school system for were okay.”
In retrospect, Greene believes the school system could have returned early childhood education students to classes sooner than August 2021, but overall looks back positively on how the school system adapted.
“I feel that we did the best that we could do with what we had,” Greene said. “If there was something we could have done differently, which I did fight for, was to bring our K-2 students back sooner. Our youngest learners are the ones who suffered the greatest. We could have brought them back earlier, and figured out a way to do that.”
Greene continued, “I do feel that we came out on top. When I look at other school divisions, I don’t feel that they were as successful with their pandemic plan as Alexandria was. When you don’t get much guidance from the state or from the federal government, when they say make a plan and send it to us, you are on your own.”
Greene, who was vice chair of the Board from 2021 to 2023, also supported a recent tax increase to fund ACPS staff raises.
“I will always be pro-schools,” Greene said, defending the expenditure. “Because I believe that a city is only as strong as a school system, and we need to take care of our teachers. There are not enough teachers for each and every classroom, and this is not acceptable. We need to make sure that we are paying our teachers at a rate where they’ll want to stay and providing them with a culture where they want to remain.”
This year’s winter and spring months were busy for Greene, as she worked as a legislative aide to Del Alfonso Lopez (D-49) in Richmond during the General Assembly’s sessions.
Greene lives in the city’s Lynhaven neighborhood, which is near to where the failed Potomac Yard arena deal was planned. While the proposal to move the Washington Wizards and Capitals to a new arena at Potomac Yard died in the Virginia State Senate, but generated a ton of controversy in Alexandria.
“I like basketball, but I also like what’s right for Alexandria,” Greene said. “I also want transparency. This deal was very rushed. Potentially it could have brought diversified tax revenue to Alexandria, but we need to do it so it’s not on the backs of residents. The city needs to come out on top.”
On the city’s controversial Zoning For Housing overhaul, which eliminated single family zoning, Greene said that the city needs to do more to bring affordable housing to the city. She also said that Council needed to improve its outreach to residents.
“It’s an issue when you still have residents who feel that they weren’t heard through the process,” she said. “I think the city council has done great work towards providing a basis for affordable housing, but I think there’s still much more work to be done.”
As for her long-term goals, Greene said that she wants to see per-pupil spending increase in Alexandria, and for the city’s public buildings and facilities fixed that are more than 50 years old with deferred maintenance.
Greene is endorsed by Sheriff Sean Casey, Clerk of Court Greg Parks and retired Sheriff Dana Lawhorne. While she has not endorsed a mayoral candidate, she said that she needs a mayor who is collaborative.
“Representation matters, and I need a mayor that cares about the future of Alexandria,” Greene said. “I need a mayor that cares about our schools, our public service workers that deserve to be able to live in the place that they work.”
