SBMA Threatened Goodwin Prior to Vote for New Chair
A letter from Jan Dudley, York County Purchasing Agent, to Sherri Story, Chair and Executive Director of the School Board Member Alliance of Virginia (SBMA) rejects SBMA as a ‘responsible’ vendor and outlines a dramatic tale of Story’s intimidation and coercion of York County School Division Board Member Kimberly Goodwin.
In concluding that SBMA failed to meet the criteria to do business with YCSD, Dudley’s letter reports on a Zoom meeting between Goodwin and Story in which SBMA leadership advised Goodwin on “…how she needed to vote in an upcoming Special Meeting related to the Direction of the Leadership of the York County School Board; and that all SBMA members needed to stick together and support Lynda Fairman.”
The letter continues: “Goodwin relayed to (Dudley) that the SBMA told her if she did not vote the way that the SBMA wanted her to, and support Mrs. Fairman, that Mrs. Goodwin would no longer receive support from the SBMA. In order to continue receiving support from the SBMA, Mrs. Goodwin would need to have a 'no’ vote with regards to the unseating of the at-that-time chairperson, Mrs. Lynda Fairman.”
SBMA, a partisan and ultra-conservative group, is a new organization founded by disgraced school board member Sherri Story after she came under fire for racist social media postings. Though SBMA said it was qualified to provide policy and legal advice to Virginia school boards, when they were briefly chosen to provide services for YCSD, they, in fact, had no attorney on staff.
[Read our previous news post which includes links to sources: https://saveycsd.org/news/alert-yscd-school-board-to-expected-to-pay-for-advice-from-political-group]
At the April 22, 2024 YCSD meeting, the Board decided to abandon SBMA and receive policy services from the nonpartisan Virginia School Board Alliance (VSBA). Fairman, then Chair, cast the lone vote against obtaining policy services from VSBA. Fairman stood alone as her fellow board members supported the VSBA over the SBMA.
[Read our previous news post which includes links to sources: https://saveycsd.org/news/update-sbma-rejected-fairman-lone-vote-against-vsba]
The Zoom meeting in which Goodwin was bullied by Story and SBMA leadership occurred “a couple of days” before the May 28, 2024 YCSD Board vote to replace Fairman as Chair, passing the gavel to Goodwin instead.
After the May 28 vote to change leadership, Goodwin issued a statement saying, “My goal is to restore trust and strengthen relationships within our community by listening to and addressing your concerns. Ultimately, we all share the same goal: to inspire and support student success and if we can look forward, rather than backwards, we can do just that.”
Read the full letter, in which Dudley summed up her decision on SBMA by writing: “I have determined that the SBMA did not act with the moral and business integrity and reliability that will assure good faith performance, and is therefore a nonresponsible organization.”
Read the full letter from Jan Dudley, York County Purchasing Agent