This fall, Stafford’s voters will choose their representatives for the School Board and Board of Supervisors for Garrisonville, Hartwood, Falmouth, and Aquia. George Washington, Rockhill, and Griffis-Widewater are up for election in 2027.
To help local voters learn more about their candidates, Potomac Local News invited all School Board candidates to a virtual interview with the same five questions; their answers have been condensed into a series of articles. This is the second article of the series.
The videos are available here.
Other than funding, what do you think the School Board’s top priorities should be in the coming years?
Scharpenberg (Aquia): 
My number one priority would be to ensure that our students are safe. A safe environment, whether you’re walking to school, you’re on the playground, you’re in the bus, at an extracurricular activity, or especially in the classroom. There have to be consequences for poor behavior. We do have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, but that is something that we need to stay on top of. Number two, I want to make sure all students, whether they’re ESOL, special ed, are getting the services that they need. The school board needs to make it a priority to develop a good relationship with the Board of Supervisors. There should not be this pull and tug every time we’re talking about funding. And my personal priority, and why I’m running, is I don’t want to see one student graduate who cannot read and write. I don’t want them to fall between the cracks. I don’t want to leave a child behind.
Regan (Aquia): 
The top priorities that I think the school board should have are also my top priorities as a candidate. Everything that we do should be aimed at giving the students the best chance to be successful after high school. Whether they choose college, trade school, military, going right into the workforce, we need to prepare those students. Every decision we make should be geared towards that goal. The top priority is retention and attracting top teachers. I left Stafford County because I had to make more money. I have four children, and as much as I love teaching at the school that I taught at, I had to – and it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. I don’t want other teachers to be in that situation; we need to improve compensation for teachers. We need to give teachers a real voice in decisions. We need [teachers] input when the school board is designing curriculum. Teachers know what happens in classrooms and buildings, so their ideas need to be heard, and we’ll not only retain the teachers we have but also attract teachers from other counties. I want Stafford to be a destination for teachers, not a stepping stone in a career. My second priority is getting the resources we need to improve student performance: investing in early literacy and into training for data-driven instruction. Using data in a positive way, teachers can identify areas of weakness for every single student and implement a learning plan tailored to each student. We need to be able to differentiate our instruction to teach effectively to students’ [different learning styles].We need resources to train teachers to do that. My third priority is maintaining and upgrading security in schools – not just physical security, but also outdated equipment to ensure the safety of our students. We need to provide resources for mental and emotional health, and well-being. In my district, principals said they had over a 20% chronic absenteeism rate last year. 1 in every 5 students is missing instructional time. A lot of that is anxiety and depression-based. There’s so much anxiety with going to school right now, we need to invest in resources to make schools comfortable, safe environments where our kids feel like they belong. If kids to want to go, kids are going to go. Our families and parents have to be confident that their children are safe when they’re in our schools – physically, emotionally, mentally. We need to invest a lot of attention into making those buildings a more comfortable learning environment.
Breedin Chase (Falmouth, incumbent): 
It’s the top priority I’ve had for the entire 8 years that I’ve been on the board – teacher salaries. Research shows the biggest impact on student success is having a highly qualified and effective teacher. This is a real struggle for Stafford. Our pay is not comparable to Prince William, a few miles up the road, so we have to focus on salary – not just teachers, but service staff, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, our principals, everybody. When you open three new schools in a year, [it costs another] $9 million. Last year, we got an increase of $8 million. If we get $9 million, and we don’t get anything else, we can’t give anybody a raise. It’s a constant struggle to make sure people understand the need to advocate for our schools.
Chergosky (Falmouth): 
Competitive pay, not only for teachers but also for staff and the technology staff and training that may come with that. I’m concerned about computers and resources. Everything happens on a computer now, and the cyclical replacement for the computers that we got during COVID, there’s not much in place for that. It’s hard to get that in the budget.
Siegmund (Garrisonville, incumbent): 
For me, it is the recruitment and retention of high-quality educators. We have some amazing talent here, and some are first-year teachers that are incredible, because we’re their first stop on their career, but I would like to be their last stop on their career. I do not like that we have families or teachers here that feel like they have to move to another division to either earn more money, or get leadership experience. They’re looking for the next step in their career. I feel very, very strongly about making sure we have those opportunities here for our teachers, so that they can grow in leadership, and we can keep that here in our county for our students. Having the money to pay them a little bit more would be great as well, but even the money wouldn’t keep them here if there aren’t enough opportunities for them to grow and develop.
Mojica (Garrisonville): 
There are a lot of challenges facing the school system. Redistricting is one, with the overcrowding of the system in general. We hear that no kid left behind, but we have students who are being left behind when they move to the next grade level, and can’t read or write well. Then they fall further behind. A teacher I spoke to mentioned that reading textbooks and handwriting help students retain more than learning from the Chromebook. When it comes to redistricting, students really should be attending schools nearest to their homes. Students live right next to a school, and are sent 6 miles away to a different school. Parents also want more stability when it comes to their children not being shuffled around. It’s disrupting stability. I want to see Stafford County thrive, improve, and be a supportive environment for all students, focusing on the curriculum with more involvement from parents in their children’s education.
Fingerholz (Hartwood): 
Someone I talked to once said, unfortunately, everything comes back to money. In the end, when you talk about, hey, let’s have this opportunity, for the kids, or let’s build a building or a pipe, it all does kind of go back to funding. The three top priorities should be the three main things. When you think of a school, you picture kids sitting in a classroom with a teacher. Without that safe space for them to sit in a building and learn from a teacher,no amount of technology, gadgets, or vocational access will matter if there’s not a building for kids to sit in, with a teacher to teach them, where they feel safe. A lot of the teachers don’t feel supported when they discipline or a child needs [an established consequence]. It goes back to supporting the teachers.
In Stafford County, early voting will be held Monday through Friday at the Registrar’s Office at 124 Old Potomac Church Road, Ste. 205, from Friday, Sept. 19, through Friday, Nov. 1, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The only Saturday voting days will be Oct. 25 and Nov. 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 4, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The deadline to register for voting or request an absentee ballot is October 24.
👉 Next in our series: What’s the ideal relationship between the School Board and Board of Supervisors? Stay tuned for the answers in our next installment.
