County silent on MTC
The hard right continues to prove you can't work with them
Massanutten Technical Center is no longer a partnership between Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. It has become a facility that both localities have a right to use.
Partners share goals, motivations, and plans. The Rockingham County School Board and Board of Supervisors no longer do.
Much has been written about the topic, much of it here (https://stillnotsleeping.substack.com/p/what-do-they-want). Rockingham wants to fundamentally change how MTC is governed, and its leaders have yet to say why. They have claimed it’s about the money, and that the shared board should reflect the shared budget. Maybe. But that flies in the face of state law and they’ve been at best misleading about the budget.
And since a misleading press release several weeks back, they have been silent. Silence and misstating facts are not partnership.
The city school board has rejected the county attempt to take over the MTC board, while still suggesting changes that dilute the impact of county members missing meetings. Rockingham County has not replied.
Curiously, the county continues to explore building a new center. That would entail the county spending up to $100 million for the facility. County leaders are not spendthrifts. Do they plan to spend that much, or is their exploration a bluff to make the city blink? It’s hard to say. Intention is opaque when you don’t know motivation.
What, for instance, was their motivation for rejecting city school board Andy Kohen for vice chair? Did the Christian dominionist county board vote against him because he’s Jewish? Let’s hope not. Did they vote against him because they wanted a county member as vice chair? That raises the specter of a 5-5 tie when the MTC board elects a chair again next year, if county members refuse to vote for a city representative.
The city-county feud the county has invented is the more likely explanation, but bigotry cannot be ruled out. It raises the question, never answered, of what lies behind the county attempt to take over policy-making for MTC. The current county school board is obsessed with books and bathrooms. Are there books in the MTC library they want to ban? Or do they want to extend their preoccupation with bathroom use to MTC?
Although the latter can be summarized as bathroom fixation, it is more accurately a religious belief that there is something wrong with trans people. It is a shame that bullying, oppressive policies, and exaggeration are the only way far-right politicians can deal with trans issues. The number of trans students in the city and county combined is almost certainly small enough that the students affected could be dealt with on an individual basis. Using the adjective as a reflection of the philosophy described in Matthew, it would be the Christian thing to do.
Part of the county’s description of its motivation so far has been claiming they deserve to have more students in MTC, even though the city pays 29 percent of the budget and has only 23 percent of the students. Everything the county has said is based on money, and everything it has said about money has been inaccurate.
Obviously, when elected officials talk about money, there is often a political goal behind it. It’s worth considering that county School Board member Matt Cross is up for reelection in November and the seat held by moderate Republican member Jackie Lohr is also up and being challenged. Is it possible that the entire fabricated MTC dispute was created to give the far-right candidates the opportunity to say they saved MTC from left-leaning forces in the city? Or is it possible that the county board, recognizing they’ve overstepped in jeopardizing the future of MTC, have gone silent until after the election? If it were a partnership, we could ask them.
Their silence and, by extension, their refusal to let their constituents know what they’re thinking, is in keeping with the board’s behavior. The membership of their banned book review committee is secret, although that hardly matters; 12 apostles and a pope could be on it and they’d still ignore its recommendations. They’ve kept secret the letter from BotkinRose essentially firing the board as a client. But one can’t say they’ve refused to say what their motivation is with MTC. Refusal is active, and they’ve been completely passive in their silence.
Worth noting, some city School Board members, including Deb Fitzgerald, wanted to pass a resolution last year asking that the BotkinRose letter be released, but the board split on the topic. A desire by the city board to not worsen a dispute parallels efforts from Washington to Richmond to Harrisonburg to avoid open conflict because “we have to work with them.”
You can’t work with them. In a partnership, the two sides agree on a goal and try to reach it. City school officials cannot, however, help to reach a goal that’s hidden from them. Nor can they negotiate with a group of leaders who won’t talk to them. City officials have discussed MTC and the county’s actions in at least five open and broadcast meetings that I know of. The county hasn’t mentioned it.