Snowflake Lynda Fairman Charges Illegal Removal as Chair

On Monday, January 13, 2025, the YCSD School Board held its annual Organizational Meeting. At the top of the agenda that evening was election of a new Board Chair and Vice-Chair. But before the election could take place, District 5 Board Member Lynda Fairman, dressed in a cardigan sweater adorned with snowflakes, snowflake necklace, earrings and hair clip, interjected. She read an opinion letter from an attorney in the Virginia Attorney General’s office that she hoped would affect the proceedings but, in reality, had a snowball’s chance of making a difference.

The letter, dated December 13, was written by Amanda McGuire, Special Counsel for Opinions in the Virginia Attorney General’s office. The letter was generated at the request of W. Chad Green, Sr. member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 69th District, which represents parts of Gloucester, James City and York counties and parts of the City of Newport News. McGuire’s letter makes clear that it reflected her opinion alone and was not an official opinion of the Virginia Attorney General’s office. Official Virginia AG opinions can be found here.

McGuire’s opinion letter concluded “…that it is my view that a school board does not have the authority to remove its chairman or vice-chairman from that position prior to the expiration of the one-year term required by the relevant statute.”

Fairman read the three-page letter aloud in the meeting and when asked why she was bringing it up said, “You illegally removed me in May from being the chair and the board also illegally remove removed (Kimberly Goodwin) from being Vice Chair and is against code.”

Fairman’s fellow board members did not seem impressed or concerned.

Chair Kimberly Goodwin pivoted immediately from the letter to the way in which it was inserted into the meeting. She noted that the letter was a month old and as soon as Fairman had received it she should have brought it forward for consideration. “You know what the process is for getting items on the agenda, if you wanted something on the agenda to discuss,” Goodwin said to Fairman, “You were to give that to me so that I could get it on the agenda to discuss. You did not.”

Fairman argued that, “I believe this needed to be in front of the board as a whole for transparency to the public.”

Goodwin’s next comment drove straight to the heart of how Fairman felt entitled to apply special circumstances to herself and how those actions led to her removal as Chair. “Part of the reason why the whole change and process took place,” Goodwin said referring to Fairman removal as Chair, “was because you do your own thing, when you want to do your own thing.” “Rules apply to us,” Goodwin said, gesturing to the board and Dr. Shandor, “and we're supposed to follow rules, but when it's about you, they don't.”

Goodwin tried to move on to the first item on the agenda but Fairman pressed her point once again. “You know since according to this,” Fairman said referring to the opinion letter, “and according to the statute, that (Goodwin’s) term was illegal, there is a possible problem that anything that you have signed is invalid.” Goodwin said that she would refer the matter to the board’s legal counsel.

The board proceeded to make Fairman’s point moot by electing Kimberly Goodwin as Chair and James Richardson as Vice-Chair of the YCSD Board. The tally of the votes was unanimous except for Fairman who voted against both.

View the entire meeting on the YCSD YouTube channel.

From Wikipedia: “Snowflake is a …slang term for a person, implying that they have an inflated sense of uniqueness, an unwarranted sense of entitlement, or are overly emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions.”