This article originally appeared here, at fairfaxtimes.com

During a Fairfax County School Board staff meeting on Monday, school board staffers were stunned to hear Stephanie Sheridan, the top staffer to board chair Sandy Anderson, openly admit that four school board staff members aren’t available for constituents during work hours because they are busy working for the political campaign of board member Rachna Sizemore Heizer, as she seeks higher office on the Board of Supervisors, according to people familiar with the meeting.

According to an Oct. 1 complaint obtained by the Fairfax County Times, an anonymous writer asked the school district’s auditor general, Esther Ko, to investigate the case. Anderson didn’t return requests for comment, but on Wednesday at 3:25 p.m., she sent an email, canceling future staff meetings until “standard operating procedures,” or SOPs, are developed, writing, “At this time, I request that all-staffer meetings are suspended until further notice. We have work necessary to complete related to the SOP for Board Staffers that needs to be finalized by the Board before these meetings should resume.”

The allegations raise serious questions about partisanship, corruption, conflicts of interest, and professional negligence within the school board, at a time when Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) is facing mounting controversies over transgender policies, abortion politics, and football recruitment scandals.

In the Oct. 1 complaint, signed by “FCPS Taxpayers against Fraud!” wrote, “I request an immediate investigation into fraud, waste, and abuse by Rachna Heizer and Kyle Mcdaniel [sic] and their staff.”

An earlier complaint, dated Sept. 28, to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, also obtained by the Fairfax County Times, raises similar concerns. Both complaints request formal investigations to determine whether the staffers and their bosses violated state law, county ethics rules, or campaign finance statutes.

All 12 members of the school board are Democrats. 

County veterans say that the complaint underscores just how blatantly partisan and political some members of the school board have become, no longer even creating the pretense of nonpartisanship. Many previous school board members, including local Democratic politicians Stella Pekarsky and Karen Keys Gamarra, have used their positions as stepping stones to higher state office on the Democratic ticket.

McDaniel told the Fairfax County Times that he hadn’t received notice of a complaint. “The Auditor General has informed me that no such complaint has been filed,” he said.

The FCPS Office of Media Relations didn’t respond to a request for comment. Neither did Sizemore Heizer nor their staff members. Former board chair Karl Frisch also didn’t return a request for comment.

McDaniel, who has faced a civil lawsuit alleging he embezzled money from a former business partner, said his staffers are using vacation time to campaign for Sizemore Heizer. He wrote, “Some staff are using their personal vacation time to volunteer for Rachna — as is their right. This is how things are done in any workplace. If an employee wants to do personal things, they take leave. Constituent services are continuing without interruption, just as they would whenever an employee takes a scheduled vacation. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised to see attacks like these in the closing days of an election.”

4 School Board Staffers Double-Dipping? 

The four aides have strong ties to the Democratic Party. Their school board jobs are supposed to be nonpartisan.

The four officials include two staffers from Sizemore Heizer’s office: staff director Stephanie Sedgwick, whose LinkedIn profile also lists her as Vice-Chair North of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, and staff assistant Gillie Cuda, a former staffer and campaign aide to Democratic State Sen. Jennifer Boysko.

As a county Democratic Party official, Sedgwick says she coordinates the county’s nine district committees for “branding, messaging, and strategy.” She dates her political activity back to 2020, when she served as precinct operations director for the Dranesville Democrats, and then rose to become assistant finance director and chief of staff to Democratic Delegate Dan Helmer. 

These staffers seem long familiar with blending K-12 education with partisan political work. In 2023, Herndon High School published a photo of Cuda with Boysko, congratulating students who did an internship for Boysko, saying they “sent mailers, canvassed, phone banked, took part in campaign events and anything else for the campaign.”

The other two staffers are from McDaniel’s office: district director Laura Stokes, former campaign manager to Democratic State Senator Saddam Salim, and staff assistant Liam Fischer, a George Mason University Class of 2022 graduate who has risen from the ranks of Young Democrats to become a former deputy campaign manager and former legislative staffer to Salim. 

On her LinkedIn, Stokes lists herself as a campaign manager since 2022 for Democratic politicians, including Salim and Fairfax Mayor Catherine Read. She has identified herself as “chief deputy clerk/chief of staff” in the Fairfax Circuit Court since December 2023. Her LinkedIn profile emphasizes her experience in “political consulting & government.” On her Facebook page, she lists herself as chair of the “City of Fairfax Democratic Committee.” 

In the middle of the work day on Sept. 19, at 2:02 p.m., Stokes promoted the Democratic slate for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general as “The Ticket” to vote for. She didn’t respond to a query about whether she was working for the school board at that moment. In 2022, she shared a photo on Facebook that read, “Divorce your Republican husband.” When a friend responded, “Withhold sex…,” Stokes responded, “just get out of there full stop. Divest from fascism.”

On his Facebook page, peppered with photos with Democratic politicians including Sen. Tim Kaine, Fischer promotes his political activism, sharing a picture of himself smiling next to Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, Ghazala Hashmi, with a message rallying voters to support the Democratic slate for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general: “First of 45 days of early voting in Virginia – Go vote for Abigail Spanberger, Senator Ghazala Hashmi, & Jay Jones!” 

In a post after last year’s presidential election, Fischer wrote: “Even with Kamala Harris’s strong support across Northern Virginia, we must take steps to understand and reverse these shifts as we look ahead to next year’s gubernatorial election.” He described himself as the 2024 Campaign Manager for the “City of Fairfax Democratic Party.”

Political Campaign Hubs on the School Board

At the heart of the complaints is a question of whether board members’ offices are doubling as political campaign hubs while teachers and families struggle for attention and resources.

During the call, Sheridan informed staffers that constituents have been complaining they cannot reach them for Sizemore Heizer and McDaniel. That’s when she explained the aides for those members are busy with Sizemore Heizer’s campaign work.

In the Oct. 1 complaint, the complainant wrote: “Heizer’s staff Stephanie Sedgwick and Gillie Cuda and Mcdaniel’s [sic] staff Laura Stokes and Liam Fischer are working fulltime for Heizer’s political campaign for Braddock Supervisor. These staff are doing campaign work using FCPS cell phones, computers, offices, and resources during regular business hours when they are being paid to do work for taxpayers. This is illegal and unethical. They are not allowd [sic] to use my tax dollars for their campaign!!! This illegal conduct was admitted during the staff call last week. Them doing work for the campaign was openly known and discussed. Please investigate and hold them accountable!”

For local observers, often stunned by the level of alleged corruption and cover-up in the school district, this development is a shock.

Second Complaint 

The first complaint, submitted Sept. 28 by a Fairfax resident, described similar allegations and warned of broader ethics risks. “School Board staff members, including Laura Stokes and Liam Fischer … have performed campaign-related activities for Ms. Sizemore Heizer during regular working hours,” the complainant wrote.

The complaint added that Sedgwick was “performing campaign work during county time, with additional compensation connected to campaign duties.”

The filing alleged that aides may be promised “future employment in the Braddock District Supervisor’s office,” and in some cases “additional compensation connected to campaign duties.” It also flagged Andrea Vasquez, employed in the Clerk of the Court’s office, as “serving as a campaign staff member while maintaining her government position, creating potential conflicts of interest.”

The complaint said several county staff “have reportedly been pressured to support Ms. Sizemore Heizer’s campaign, creating an appearance of undue influence or fear of retribution.”

Secret Meeting with Secret New Jobs

The Sept. 28 complaint also raised concerns about a closed-door meeting where the school board doubled its personal staff at six-figure salaries — decisions watchdogs say should have been made in public, especially since the school superintendent, Michelle Reid, had complained that the school system wasn’t being adequately funded.

At the secret, closed-door meeting, held on Feb. 25, Fairfax County School Board members quietly created new, six-figure staff jobs — “directors of district operations ”— with annual salaries of $121,535, exceeding those of many veteran teachers. The staff directors received a 5% pay increase, effective July 1, to $127,612.

To make matters worse, many school board members filled the slots with Democratic political operatives, including the two district directors at the center of the new controversy.

Fairfax Schools Monitor founder Mark Spooner, a retired attorney, has accused FCPS of deliberately concealing the hires. After the Fairfax County Times reported on the secret meeting, Spooner filed a Freedom of Information Act request, which FCPS officials fought, challenging Spooner’s legal efforts to get documents about the secret meeting. 

“Hiding the Ball”

The school district’s top in-house counsel, John Foster, testified in a hearing in Fairfax County Circuit Court that the school district wasn’t obligated to release any documents related to the meeting because Spooner had asked for records about the rationale for “creating” staff director jobs, but the jobs were simply an “upgrade” for the staff aide jobs.

That wasn’t the case, however, because most board members, including Sizemore Heizer and McDaniel, have a staff aide and a district director – both of whom are now accused of doing illegal campaign work while on the job. 

Spooner accused the board of running “a case study in hiding the ball.” 

“Why did FCPS try to misrepresent the facts and stonewall public inquiries for so long?” he wrote in a column on his watchdog website, Fairfax Schools Monitor. “The probable answer is that FCPS was engaged in difficult budget discussions when this staffing was being considered. Pay increases for teachers were being pared back. In this environment, it would have been highly embarrassing and controversial to disclose that the Board members would be getting additional, highly-paid assistants … So FCPS tried to hide the ball in every possible way.”