Parent Sues Virginia School Boards Association for Lack of Transparency

VSBA uses its status as a public body that provides “essential government functions” to avoid paying taxes but won’t disclose required documents under the Freedom of Information Act

The battle to free students from unaccountable, woke school apparatchiks has taken a shocking turn that the Left would prefer to keep under wraps. But one mom is fighting back.

For at least 30 years, the Virginia School Boards Association (VSBA)—which receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding to provide training and policy development to school boards throughout the commonwealth—hasn’t paid any taxes on income and refuses to disclose its financial documents. That’s especially alarming given that this self-described “nonpartisan” organization advances the radical Left’s agenda in thousands of schools statewide influencing hundreds of thousands of children—something woke activist are desperate to protect.

Now those same ideologues are trying to shield VSBA from financial scrutiny by the families whose kids they’re targeting.

On June 26, 2023, a parent in Hanover County filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for copies of VSBA’s financial records—only to have her request denied. VSBA, the association argues, is not subject to FOIA requests, despite being a public organization.

The mom turned to the Founding Freedoms Law Center, the legal arm for the Family Foundation, which filed a lawsuit against the VSBA arguing that it is subject to FOIA because it is a governmental organization that receives a majority of its funds from tax dollars. The VSBA attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed but a circuit court judge ruled against them. LATEST? A date for the next hearing has not yet been set by the courts.

That would be less alarming if VSBA was truly as nonpartisan as it claims to be. But the association’s leftist agenda has become obvious to parents in recent years, prompting demands to open the books. When Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) spoke at a VSBA conference in Nov. 2023, for instance, he was booed and heckled by attendees.

Filings show the VSBA keeps three paid lobbyists to actively oppose Republican-sponsored legislation. A leaked video from a 2022 VSBA conference in Richmond reveals their chief lobbyist, Stacy Haney, attacking Republican legislation that advocates for parental rights as “unconstitutional.”  

What kind of legislation? VSBA battled one bill in 2022 that would’ve mandated parents be notified of sexually explicit library materials and required school bathrooms and locker rooms to be designated by biological sex. Haney snidely dismissed the bill as “the whole Republican agenda all rolled up in one bill.”

Haney has similarly mocked other Republican bills referencing family life education and stricter security in schools while addressing school board members, saying, “[The] good news is this bill has failed already” and “that might be the only piece of good news I have this year”—when Republicans controlled Virginia’s House of Delegates and executive branch.

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Don’t Threaten the Monopoly… Or Else

Through 2023, the VSBA held a monopoly over Virginia’s 132 school divisions as dues-paying members, pulling in over $1 million each year from taxpayers—until the first school board woke up to their partisan agenda. The Warren County School Board was the first to decide not to renew its membership with the VSBA, which cost Warren County’s school division $9,353 in membership dues plus fees for conferences and other services. Since then, 6 more school boards have left with many more considering exiting VSBA.

To this writer’s knowledge, there has never been another entity in Virginia that has offered governance training or policy development services to school boards. This monopoly has permitted the VSBA to operate unchecked which led to them taking a far-left turn. That monopoly has ended, with the creation of a new school board organization formed in 2022, the School Board Member Alliance (SBMA).

SBMA offers individual memberships for school board members rather than memberships that encompass all board members, which is the only option under the VSBA. That means more than you might think. Prior to SBMA’s creation, school board members who didn’t share VSBA’s left-wing views were stuck in the association with nowhere else to go, forcing conservative board members to support VSBA against their wishes. If a board voted (or just contracted without a vote) to adopt VSBA membership, a dissenting member had no recourse to remove themselves from the organization.

Not surprisingly, the leftist media has been attacking SBMA for being “partisan.” Yet they have been completely silent on the actions of the VSBA, not even reporting about the VSBA’s pending lawsuit.

Evidence submitted by the Founding Freedoms Law Center in the lawsuit against the VSBA includes an IRS letter determining the VSBA is excluded from income tax due to being an entity providing an essential government function. If the VSBA is dissolved, its assets would be “divided among the school divisions”—clear indications that the VSBA should be subject to provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

Since the VSBA doesn’t file tax returns and takes millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars, they must be held accountable. They should publicly disclose their finances, and all other communications, to the citizens of the commonwealth. Virginia parents deserve to know what kind of education their kids are receiving.

(READ MORE: Leftists Are Losing Their Monopoly On K-12 Public Education)