Manassas City Public Schools

After serving on the Manassas City School Board since July 2010, Chairman Sanford S. Williams will resign when his term ends December 31.

Williams made his announcement during board comment time at the city school board's regular meeting. Williams thanked the Manassas community for allowing him to serve and stated that his decision comes from wanting to spend more time with family.

In retirement, he'll spend more time with his daughters who live in California.

"I'd like to thank the community for allowing me to serve. It's a pleasure and an honor to serve. It's not easy, but it's a pleasure to serve, so thank you for that," said Williams.

Williams's departure from the board comes soon after Scott Albrecht, who stepped down a year earlier after serving on the school board for 20 years.

As chairman, Williams oversaw the implementation of new anti-racism and diversity, equity, and inclusion policy which calls for hiring more teachers based on race, to not just narrow, but to eliminate the achievement gap between high and low achieving students and to create a new curriculum that incorporates "the contributions of diverse cultural groups."

According to school officials, the school division would spend three years working to achieve these goals.

While white students make up less than 20 percent of the student body in Manassas City, they do outperform other historically underrepresented groups such as Hispanics, African-Americans, Native Americans, and others on state assessments.

Members of the public were also critical of the board's new policies, such as the only metric used to study performance was by race and left out other metrics like zip codes or class.

While Williams plans to stay until the end of his term, he announced he wouldn't be present for the next school board meeting, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 11.