Loudoun County Group Files Petition to Remove School Board Chair

School board member of Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Brenda Sheridan looks at her l
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

An organized group of residents of Loudoun County, Virginia, filed a petition with the county Circuit Court Tuesday that seeks the removal of board chair Brenda Sheridan from office.

“As Chairwoman, Brenda Sheridan has overseen and personally contributed to a complete breakdown in trust between the community and the Loudoun County School Board,” Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools, said in a statement, reported the Loudoun Times-Mirror.

“From violating open meetings law to ignoring the school board’s code of conduct to neglecting to keep our children safe, all for her activist causes, Sheridan has been nothing short of a disaster as the so-called leader of Loudoun County Public Schools,” he said.

Fight for Schools has reportedly collected 1,217 signatures from Sheridan’s home district of Sterling.

Prior also directly addressed the entire Loudoun County board and Superintendent Scott Ziegler in his comments.

“Let this serve as a message to the rest of the board and Superintendent Ziegler,” he asserted. “If you thought that this was all about an election, then you have once more failed to properly judge the resolve of your constituents. We’re still here and we’re not going anywhere.”

According to the news report, Sheridan emailed her response Tuesday that “citizens of the Sterling District elected me in 2011, 2015 and 2019 … My election was a mandate from those who came to the polls — three times — to choose me as their representative.”

“Tuesday’s filing is the result of a fraction of those citizens signing a petition, whether they voted or not,” she countered to the news of the court filing, adding she will “see this process through.”

The petition claims Sheridan restricted First Amendment rights at board meetings by shutting down public comments and enacting rules to limit speakers, depending on the views they expressed, the Times-Mirror reported.

According to the report, Fight for Schools is also seeking the removal of three other school board members: Ian Serotkin of the Blue Ridge District, At-Large member Denise Corbo, and Algonkian District member Atoosa Reaser.

In October, Prior told Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow the Loudoun County School Board ignored allegations that a male student, dressed in a skirt, entered the girls’ bathroom at Stone Bridge High School and sexually assaulted a ninth grade girl.

Juvenile Court Judge Pamela Brooks found the boy, who is also a minor, guilty of forcible sodomy and forcible fellatio. The boy has also been charged with another, more recent, sexual assault in October of another girl at Broad Run High School.

The Loudoun County sheriff’s office has another investigation underway as well after multiple reported incidents of a male student touching other students inappropriately at a district middle school.

Virginia Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares (R) announced Thursday he plans to investigate the sexual assault incidents in Loudoun County Public Schools.

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