Opinion

When I moved to Prince William County in 1972, the population was 111,000. Today, we have almost 450,000 neighbors.

The County has had monumental growing pains in the interim with a need to build an infrastructure of roads, schools, and County services to this enormous population growth. Our population is 60,000 more than the City of Cleveland and more than twice the size of the City of Richmond.

Corey Stewart has been Chairman of the Board of County Supervisors for almost ten years. In order to fund his election campaigns, he has raised almost $1 million from real estate developers.

As we enter the final few weeks of campaign season, it is important to remember that we have a great school system in Prince William County.

Charter schools certainly have merit for some parts of the country but we don’t need them here in Prince William County. My campaign platform in 2015 focuses on class size reduction, competitive teacher pay and safe schools.

Every seated school board member and candidate in Prince William County readily agrees our class sizes are too big. Having the highest student to teacher ratios in the state is not “world class.” It is disgraceful.

In the 2015 Superintendent’s Budget presentation Dr. Walt’s stated, “Lowering class sizes by one is not likely to lead to clear and measurable improvements in test results. But it will provide teachers and students with increased one-on-one time.”

Every year at back to school night, teachers like myself are required to show a promotional video which boasts that Prince William County schools are “world class.”

Having taught in the school system for seven years now, I can assure you, we are far from achieving such a lofty title.

I wish to take this opportunity to heartily endorse Paul B. Ebert for reelection as the Commonwealth’s Attorney of Prince William County.

Mr. Ebert has dedicated his life to his chosen profession. He has built a solid foundation by skillfully and professionally prosecuting some of the most heinous, complex and highly-publicized crimes of our times.

If you live in Prince William County, the unfortunate reality is that, like the vast majority of us, you probably don’t also work in Prince William County.  

Sadly, we simply don’t have nearly enough high-paying jobs in our community to provide our residents with competitive salaries as compared to Washington and our neighboring counties. The average annual salary for jobs in Prince William County is $46,000 per year.  

While Supervisors are nominated by a political party, there is no place for partisanship in local politics, speed bumps, pot holes, traffic, sidewalks and bike trails are neither republican nor democrat.

Partisanship divides, segregates,  chooses winners and losers. Woodbridge residents I’ve talked to, over 3,500 so far, look to their supervisor to work hard in their best interest, and get things done, not play small, petty partisan politics.

In my opinion, Harry Wiggins’ Op-Ed Letter of September 10 misses the issue at hand and badly.

I’ve known Harry on a personal level for many years and I consider him a friend, however his letter is a red herring. James Young’s election as President of the Committee of 100, on a slated ballot for which Harry and many Democrats voted for, is not the issue.

On September 3, I had the opportunity to attend the Roundtable Discussion at Brooke Point High School with Governor Terry McAuliffe and Secretary of Education, Anne Holton.  The event took place in the brand new library – a high-tech learning space to foster collaboration and innovation among students. The takeaway from the discussion with 20+ parents that morning was that investing in teachers, reducing classroom size, and bringing innovation back into our schools will build a more prosperous Virginia for us all.

These parents made it abundantly clear that we must reform the SOLs. As one parent mentioned, previous generations sent a man to the moon and they never took a single SOL test.  We need to empower teachers to be creative and innovative in the classroom again.

As Prince William County tackles the various issues affecting our schools, the residents in this community deserve a School Board Chairman with leadership experience, values, integrity, and a proven record of success.

They also deserve someone they can trust. Tim Singstock’s leadership skills and sense of public service are rooted in the greatest institution in our nation, the United States military.