Ryan Sawyers: Lord of the School Board? Or Lord of the Flies?
By Heather Steele
The Prince William County School Board made statewide news this week with an article in Virginia Lawyers Weekly. The subject? School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers’ attempt to have the Board’s attorney, Mary McGowan, unilaterally removed from the dais at school board meetings.
According to the article, Sawyers claimed, via email, that he had sole authority to remove the Board’s attorney from the dais, and demanded her immediate removal. When the Board actually convened for a meeting to take a vote on the issue, Sawyers was strangely absent. The remaining Board members voted to continue having their attorney at the dais with them during Board meetings.
Sawyers is splitting his time between campaigning for a Congressional seat in the 1st District and attempting to exercise sole control over the school board and its billion dollar budget. However, to date, his finest achievements have apparently been spending valuable education dollars on renaming schools and fighting with prior board members, the little league, and now, the Board’s own attorney.
What he ought to be spending his vitriol on, instead, is fighting for our kids. Fighting to put our incredible County resources to their absolute best and highest use: raising teacher pay, lowering classroom congestion, getting kids out of temporary trailers and into classrooms, and pursuing the World Class education that we want to provide in Prince William County.
As long as the School Board’s time and energy (not to mention the time and energy of their attorney, who is a long-time well respected member of the Prince William County Bar Association) is wasted on infighting, it is PWCS and its students and teachers who bear the resulting harm.
Ryan Sawyers and Justin Wilk should quit playing games with the valuable time and funds of the Prince William County School Board and get back to focusing on our kids and their future.
—
Heather Steele is a litigation partner practicing in Northern Virginia who is working on a book about her experiences as a litigation attorney. Mom to three young daughters, she writes about parenting and lawyering on her blog, “What’s The Deal, Heather Steele.”
