School safety is a top priority for the two candidates running for the Spotsylvania County School Board seat in the Berkeley District.
Larry DiBella is a first sergeant with the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office, where he’s been employed for 18 years.
DiBella was a school resource officer (SRO) for 13 years, including in 2015, when he worked at Riverbend High School and helped thwart a mass shooting plot.
“It’s kind of what’s given me the passion to step forward and do this,” DiBella said of that incident.
DiBella and realtor Amanda Monroe, a former substitute teacher in the school division, are angling to replace outgoing representative April Gillespie.
Monroe was unavailable for comment after several attempts, but she did speak at the Oct. 13 Spotsylvania School Board meeting. She discussed a grievance with the division, stemming from a complaint she made about a teacher alleging her 5-year-old daughter was in the boys’ restroom with six young males.
“With tears streaming down her face, our daughter stood before us and insisted that the teacher’s statement was untrue, assuring us that only one other boy was present, a classmate of hers,” Monroe said. “The next morning, another teacher confirmed our daughter’s account and urged me to report the incident to school administrators.”
Amanda Monroe is running for Spotsylvania County School Board in the Berkeley District. (Photo courtesy of Monroe 4 Schools Facebook page)
Monroe said discussions with administrators yielded no results. She also alleged she was “punished for defending my daughter” and lost her job despite positive remarks about her ability from administrators and school officials.
“Parents, we must rise to the vile corruption poisoning our schools, where malicious lies fester unchecked and parents’ voices are silenced,” Monroe said.
Spotsylvania Superintendent Clint Mitchell confirmed Monroe worked as a substitute teacher. But he said the information she shared at the school board meeting was incorrect.
“She is eligible, she has always been eligible to continue to sub in our district,” Mitchell said. “However, based on her interfering with school administrative functions and responsibilities at one of our schools, I made the decision to not allow her to sub at that school. She did a very good job when she was subbing with us and she’s more than welcome to come back as long as it’s not the school where she interfered with the administrative functions.”
However, Monroe would be ineligible to work in the school division if she wins the election.
DiBella said he’s concerned his opponent will bring vitriol to the school board and would be an extension of the dysfunction and chaos that have plagued it over the past several years.
He said that the way the board has operated, including yelling and screaming matches — not to mention several appearances in court — is embarrassing to the county.
“I feel very confident,” DiBella said of his thoughts on the race. “The thing I’m most proud about is the wide amount of support I have from people all over the aisle. So, our community’s definitely fed up with the way our board has been run. They want to see somebody who’s not going to do that.”
DiBella said that while he’s cautious about putting too much on the school division’s plate, he said there may be opportunities to bring in gang experts from law enforcement to speak with staff about youth violence issues in the community. He also said the school division can be more efficient with its use of SROs.
“I think the community is invested in having 31 police officers in our schools,” DiBella said. “We need to best utilize that resource while they’re there. We have some administrations that do a great job at it, and I’ve already spoke with Dr. Mitchell about an opportunity to provide some joint trainings between the administration and the sheriff’s office … So, I think that’s the direction we should be going.”
DiBella said one community-based initiative that’s working is called “Handle with Care.”
It allows Spotsylvania deputies to alert school officials when a student may have witnessed or been involved with a traumatic event at home, so that they can be proactive about checking on their well-being.
“I think that’s really helped, and as we get everybody on board and make sure those notifications are always made, it allows the schools to be able to follow up and maybe even get the family the resources they might need that aren’t necessarily available to deputies on the side of the road,” DiBella said.
Teacher salaries have long been an issue in the county, as officials regularly express concern about losing talented staff to northern competitors such as Stafford and Prince William counties. DiBella said he would be an advocate for closing the gap, although he acknowledged it’s highly unlikely to match salaries with those localities. He shared one anecdote about a teacher who left for Prince William to earn $30,000 more per year.
“That’s a crazy amount of money,” he said. “That’s like another full-time job for some people. We will never get to Prince William or Stafford. But I think we need to be competitive in our compensation packages to encourage them not to have to make that commute every day.”
Early voting is underway, and Election Day is Nov. 4.
