School Board member Sara Brescia told her colleagues Tuesday that three of them used a private Aug. 3 meeting to talk about moving her elementary-age children out of Baldwin Elementary School. Then the board approved the minutes of that meeting, which never mention the children.
Brescia asked that one sentence be added to the official record. The board did not add it. After a messy voice vote — yeses, nos and an abstention, with no full list of who voted which way — Chair Jill Spall said the original minutes passed.
Virginia law lets school boards meet in private only for certain reasons. Members must announce that reason out loud before they go behind closed doors. When they return, they vote to stay on that topic. The clerk then writes minutes that match the announced reason — not a play-by-play of who said what.
On Aug. 3, the announced reason was legal advice on “a specific employee legal matter.” The two-page minutes say that and almost nothing else. They do not mention children, Baldwin, or any talk of moving students from one school to another.
Brescia says those minutes are wrong. She says the private talk left the employee topic and turned to her children’s seats at Baldwin. She wanted the minutes to say the closed meeting included “the school placement and safety plan for board member Brescia’s children … over her objections.”
Why the children are at Baldwin
In an interview Wednesday, Aug. 26, Brescia said her children have always attended Baldwin and have never attended R.C. Haydon Elementary, the school the attendance map assigns them. She said the family lives on the Haydon boundary, Haydon is farther from home, and Baldwin is closer and has a bus.
She said she used a transfer waiver — a written request any parent in Manassas City Public Schools can file — and that she did not use her board seat to cut the line. Baldwin’s test scores are higher than Haydon’s, she said Wednesday, but that was not why she asked. She asked because of distance and the bus.
Those transfers are not a right. The division can deny them and can take a seat back. On Tuesday, Brescia told the board that three members, “one in particular,” called the Baldwin seats a “courtesy” and said the board could “forcibly remove” the children if she did not pull them herself. She would not name those three. She said they also asked about “private personal safety arrangements” for the kids.
What the Aug. 3 minutes show
Six members met at Osbourn High School. Member Lisa A. Stevens was out. They went into the private session at 4:20 p.m. Brescia seconded the motion to go in. They came out at 6:05 p.m. All six, including Brescia, then voted that they had stayed on the announced topic.
She said Tuesday that later legal advice convinced her that the certification vote was a mistake. She said she and the division’s lawyer, on the phone, had warned the room they were off the advertised topic.
She made the motion Tuesday to take the minutes up so the board could argue about them. Then she said she would vote no.
Tuesday night the board went into another private session, this time citing consultation on actual litigation. Members voted 6-1 to take a five-minute break so she could talk to her own lawyer.
How this ties to Baldwin staff
The investigation Brescia is fighting in court traces to complaints about June 1 at Baldwin. That afternoon she spoke with family liaison Michael Gramajo. Gramajo’s partner, Marcus Still, is running for the School Board.
On Tuesday, Gramajo said Brescia asked to talk away from the building and asked for his cell number. He reported it. In mid-June he posted a video about the encounter and said a board member had discussed his personal relationship with parents at school. He told the board those Baldwin families had not learned of the relationship until she brought it up.
On July 30, Spall wrote that employee discipline rules do not cover Brescia because she is elected. Gramajo read from that letter Tuesday. He said he has filed a federal EEOC complaint. That filing has not been made public, so the exact claim is not known.
Victoria Diaz said she saw Brescia ask Gramajo for his number after Monday Market. Additional reporting found Monday Market is MCPS’s free fruit-and-vegetable giveaway for families, run from the Baldwin Intermediate side of the campus. Other staff asked what they are supposed to do when the person they are complaining about sits on the board. Brescia did not respond to those speakers during public comment, as is common practice. She said she had hoped to “resolve all of this tonight.”
Member Suzanne W. Seaberg said the board has spent 19 months rewriting its rules and still has no “remedies” when someone breaks them.
The November map
Spall is running for City Council on the local Democratic ticket and is leaving the School Board. Still is on that ticket for school board. Brescia has not said that ticket is why her children’s school came up on Aug. 3. She has said the pressure on her is political because she is on the ballot.
Member Dayna-Marie Miles is the only other board member who has talked on the record about the investigation. She said she did not want to investigate Brescia on what she knew at the time and was surprised when Spall later called it “the will of the board.”
Brescia sued on Aug. 11 in Prince William County General District Court. She says a majority used texts and phone calls to order Superintendent Dr. Kevin Newman to investigate her, and that Virginia’s open-meeting law does not allow a vote that way. The hearing is Sept. 24. Case number GV26019633-00.
Help fund the records
Potomac Local’s request for records on the investigation vote at the center of Brescia’s court petition is pending. MCPS priced the search at about $1,067. To help pay for the records and this reporting, become a member: https://potomaclocal.memberful.com/join
