Alexandria City Council and School Board officials attempted to repair what they openly called a “dysfunctional” relationship on Monday night, with one councilman acknowledging that the tension had persisted for 12 years.
“We are five minutes into our meeting, five minutes into it, and already we’ve taken a tone of not being productive,” School Board Vice Chair Christopher Harris said. “Whether we like it or not, we have to communicate. We have to engage. We have to work together. This is dysfunction.”
The joint meeting, facilitated by former school board member Stephanie Kapsis, came after months of disagreement over a city proposal to use DASH buses for some high school students instead of traditional yellow school buses. School Board Chair Michelle Rief announced at the meeting’s opening that the board would not support the proposal, prompting Councilman Canek Aguirre to walk out.
“I’m very confused. I don’t know why we’re here if we’re already saying no. We haven’t even had this conversation,” Aguirre said before leaving. He later returned but declared, “Right now, my trust level is below the table.”
The confrontation exposed deeper problems that officials said have long plagued the relationship. Councilman John Chapman, who has served 12 years, said the dysfunction is longstanding.
“I’ve been here 12 years. It’s been a 12-year issue,” Chapman said. “So, as schools and council, we have not, as both bodies, been on the same side as it relates to the workings, the inner workings of schools and the cost.”
School Board member Tim Beaty cited a concrete example: a formal request from more than a year ago for staggered board terms that received no response from the council.
“So we asked over a year ago. We’d like, and we really think we need to, stagger the terms. It doesn’t cost a dime, or my cost is a few bucks. We got no response at all. It’s been crickets from you,” Beaty said.
Harris identified a fundamental problem in how the bodies collaborate, with one side developing proposals and expecting the other to simply respond.
“We’re two equal bodies, so you give us a proposal. Let’s take the proposal and make that proposal together and come up with it,” Harris said. “And don’t give us a proposal to comment on. Okay. That’s the first part of the problem.”
Kapsis acknowledged the structural challenges in her opening remarks. ‘I think there’s inherent tension in the structure of these two elected bodies,’ she said, noting that both sides had identified this issue in conversations leading up to the meeting. She also noted both bodies expressed interest in finding new approaches. ‘There was also a real desire to think creatively and think about, like, what can we do? Like, how does this even look?’ Kapsis said. The city council controls the funding and taxation authority while managing multiple city priorities. In contrast, the school board focuses exclusively on education policy and operations, with more than one-third of the city’s funding.
Despite acknowledging these deep-rooted problems, officials attempted to identify concrete solutions. Mayor Alyia Gaskins first addressed the immediate impasse over DASH.
“It doesn’t seem like at this time either of our bodies have equal interest in continuing to move forward with this proposal or with this discussion,” Gaskins said. “And so my two cents would be that if that is the case, then that is okay. We learned something, we went through something, and it’s time to move on.”
Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley suggested creating more focused subcommittees, referencing a previous successful joint committee on student law enforcement as a model.
“I thought it was a good experience in that I came to understand more about how the SROs worked in the schools,” Bagley said.
She also requested opportunities for council members to receive briefings from school staff on major issues. “I would appreciate, maybe, an opportunity for a briefing from school board staff. I don’t have the time to watch the three-hour school board, you know, meeting in October.”
School Board member Donna Kenley called for better use of liaison positions between the bodies. “I would like our two leaders to agree on how they would like the liaisons to work together, how we’re going to communicate,” she said.
School Board member Kelly Booz emphasized the need for better communication protocols. “We need to have better respect for one another amongst the two groups,” she said.
Gaskins proposed creating a joint scope of work to ensure both bodies have meaningful input from the beginning of any collaborative project.
“I think if we don’t all have that, then we’re going to create things and we’ll be back at this table and people are going to feel like they missed something or they didn’t get a chance to weigh in on that prioritization,” Gaskins said.
She also reframed the discussion about joint facilities to focus on trade-offs rather than simple support.
“I don’t think it’s a question of whether or not we support joint and shared facilities,” Gaskins said. “I think that we need to get to the point of like what would you give up in order to be able to achieve that or do that?”
School Board member Ryan Reyna called for openness regardless of where ideas originate. “I think we have a duty to both of the bodies [to] be open to solutions that come from either body,” Reyna said. “We should and can evaluate every option on its merits, regardless of where it originated.”
The discussion concluded with both bodies agreeing to apply these working norms to the following item on their agenda – a discussion about long-range educational facilities planning.
“Our community is counting on us,” Rief said.
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