No matter who wins Tuesday’s elections, two new people will be on the Stafford County School Board come January.
That’s because the incumbents in the Aquia and Hartwood districts didn’t seek re-election. School Board Vice Chairwoman Maya Guy is running for the Aquia slot on the Stafford Board of Supervisors, and Hartwood District rep Alyssa Halstead didn’t run for another term.
In their places, Josh Regan and Annette Scharpenberg are competing in Aquia, while Steven Epple and Shannon Fingerholz are duking it out in Hartwood.
Josh Regan
Regan, who is endorsed by the Stafford Democratic Committee, has lived in Aquia for the past 14 years, and is a teacher and the head girls’ basketball coach at Chantilly High School. He taught at Colonial Forge High School for four years and at Brooke Point High School for seven.
But, he said Monday, he was one of the too-frequent educators lured to another school division for higher pay. That’s why, if elected, he would want to ensure that Stafford can retain their quality teachers.
“So I don’t want another teacher to ever have to make that decision to leave a place that they love for money,” Regan said.
Josh Regan
He said he’d like to flip-flop the dynamic and try to attract teachers from Prince William and maybe Fairfax counties to Stafford, perhaps highlighting the slightly slower pace of life there and the natural beauty.
Regan also said he wants to make sure the Stafford schools are safe for students — not just physically with security measures but emotionally, as well.
He said he’s noticed, as a teacher, that school anxiety has been high among students, especially since the pandemic. Educators should focus on combatting this issue, in his opinion, which could ease absenteeism if students feel more comfortable coming to school.
In addition, Regan said he would like to see Stafford improve student achievement by using data-driven instruction and investing in training for staff in areas such as early literacy.
Annette Scharpenberg
Scharpenberg, who is endorsed by the Stafford County Republican Committee, has lived in Stafford for 28 years, and is married to her husband, Hank, who is the GOP nominee facing Guy.
Annette Scharpenberg has two-plus decades of experience as a teacher, and she said last week that she wants to see the Stafford School Board balanced with liberal and conservative views.
“So I’m definitely not in favor of people using opposite bathrooms other than their biological sex,” she said. “The same for in sports.”
Scharpenberg also said she doesn’t believe LGBTQ+ material should be in middle-school libraries, and that the educational target should be on the fundamentals.
“I know that there are students that get pushed through, and they graduate and they really don’t have basic skills,” she said.
Annette Scharpenberg
In terms of other educational issues, Scharpenberg noted that Stafford has a lot of students who are English-language learners, some of whom come from situations of poverty.
She also pointed to transportation as an issue in the county, which saw controversy with busing at the beginning of the previous school year.
“And then, finally, I would want to make sure, if I get elected, I’m really going to look at the curriculum to make sure that, you know, we’re not looking at climate change, but we’re learning reading, writing and arithmetic,” she said.
Steven Epple
Epple also is endorsed by the Stafford County Republican Committee. He has lived in Stafford for more than 35 years.
The candidate recently retired as a school resource officer in Loudoun County and works part-time doing the same job in Fredericksburg.
He decided to run after his family experienced firsthand the transportation commotion last year. It went on for months, Epple said Monday, and he spoke with school officials at all levels about the problem.
Epple, who has two children in Stafford schools, said he became so entrenched in the situation that neighbors were consulting him.
“I started becoming the transportation guru almost,” he said.
Steven Epple
He said the school budget is a big concern, and he is interested in exploring a revenue-sharing system with the supervisors, who control the educational purse strings. This would mean the supervisors agreeing to devote a certain percentage of local revenue each year to the schools.
On another financial matter, Epple pointed out that the current School Board members voted this year to give themselves a pay raise without funding as much of a bump for schools’ support staff as promised.
“And it’s not been discussed since then,” he said.
He also noted that Stafford will open three new schools next year, including two in Hartwood: Hartwood High School and Falls Run Elementary. The county will have to absorb the costs associated with them while balancing the desires of residents, many of whom won’t want their taxes raised.
“When you talk to the people in Hartwood, they don’t want more taxes because it costs more money out of their pockets,” Epple said.
Shannon Fingerholz
Fingerholz, who is endorsed by the Stafford Democratic Committee, has one child in school in Stafford.
She is a community activist who frequently attends School Board and supervisors’ meetings and who decided to take the next step and become a candidate.
“Because our kids really matter,” she said Monday, “they need to have somebody in that seat that knows exactly what they’re getting into, knows the different issues, knows the time commitment that is required to be able to support our schools and the massive infrastructure that they have.”
Shannon Fingerholz
Fingerholz said the School Board needs to work well with the supervisors, and she also identified the education budget as a major issue.
“As much as I hate saying it,” she said, “you know, money does give us all the things that we need. It gives us the safety. It gives us the education. It gives us experienced teachers. All of that.”
Fingerholz said the next school budget season isn’t going to be fun, especially given the new school openings.
She’s also afraid that, if money gets tight, the supervisors will want to delay planned rebuilds of Hartwood Elementary and Drew Middle schools.
The hopeful said she wants voters to understand that serving on the School Board means a lot to her.
“I’m not doing this because, you know, somebody asked me to or just to check a box,” she said. “This is a passion for me.”
