Two candidates in the race for Elaine Furlow's seat on the Arlington School Board are now embroiled in a controversy, one that boils down to a case of "he-said-she-said."
Fomer president of the Arlington Traditional School's (ATS) PTA, Charles Bouldin, said Thursday that the manager of Democrat Ed Fendley's campaign, Kate Mesches, threatened him with a lawsuit over his endorsement of Democratic contender Jim Rock.
In a letter sent to local media along with members of the School Board, the County Board and the Fendley campaign, Bouldin said Mesches approached him after a May 1 candidates forum and attempted to intimidate him into keeping quiet, a charge Mesches denies.
"She was very annoyed with me," Bouldin said in an interview. "What she said was basically all to the effect of that I'm not a nice person for writing the letter."
The endorsement letter that sparked the argument was also signed by current and former members of the ATS PTA. He added that Mesches then told him the endorsement would jeopardize the PTA's status as a non-profit group and that she threatened to sue him. Mesches said otherwise.
"It's not true," she said Friday. "The Fendley campaign is not engaging in any legal action. We don't want to waste our time."
In an interview Thursday, Fendley said he was unaware of any such incident.
"We're not in the business of filing lawsuits," he said. "We're trying to run a campaign."
BOULDIN SAID the threat came after some heated debate over Fendley's proposal of a guaranteed school admissions zone near ATS, one that covers a swath of 30 houses including both Fendley's and Mesches'. Students within that zone would be granted automatic admission to the school. Fendley has sat on committees looking at similar proposals at t H.B. Woodlawn and another that would have granted admission to ATS to students from Nauck. Bouldin said in both cases, Fendley was the only committee member who voted against them.
"He's a hypocrite," said Bouldin. "He's for it at ATS, where he lives. Yet he's against it for Nauck, where he doesn't live, and he's against it at H.B. Woodlawn, where he doesn't live."
As for the alleged threats, Bouldin said he is not making them up. Fendley, he said, called him after receiving his letter of complaint to apologize, telling him that he had directed Mesches not to speak with him again.
"He was trying to step around it as much as possible," said Bouldin, who pointed out that Fendley advertises endorsements from other PTA leaders on his own Web site. "If I made this up, I'm pretty clever to connect the dots. And if we're going to talk about [non-profit status], let's talk about everything involved here."
In a statement released Friday, Mesches took aim at Rock's campaign, accusing Rock of using the charges as a distracting political tactic.
"It is unfortunate that Jim Rock has chosen this approach as the basis of his School Board campaign," said Mesches. "These allegations are ridiculous, inaccurate and wasteful of our time. Jim should know the difference between a person acknowledging their status as a PTA president in an endorsement versus using PTA machinery to run a campaign."
THE STATEMENT goes on to say, "If Jim Rock's campaign wanted to reach out to the press and our elected officials, we wish he had focused on how to help our children succeed — as we have consistently done. Ed's campaign will continue to concentrate on world-class schools for all of our children, foreign language proficiency, community use of school facilities, and exercise and good health. It is a shame that Jim Rock has chosen to distort Ed's position on ATS in order to scare parents. They deserve better."
Rock responded to the charges directed at him by saying the proposed admissions zone would result in inequality of opportunities between students in North Arlington and those in South Arlington. South Arlington students, he said, could find it harder to gain admission to ATS.
"I've tried to do whatever I could to confront this issue," Rock said. "The last thing the school board needs to do is carve out preference zones. It would discriminate against South Arlington."
Rock stressed that Bouldin's letter endorsing him does not violate campaign laws but, rather, was authorized by him.
"I want to help parents and PTAs, not sue them," he said.
The letter that began the controversy, endorsing Rock, states that Fendley's proposal for the creation of a new admissions zone in his neighborhood is unfair and will plunge ATS into a divisive debate.
"Establishing such a guaranteed admissions zone would reduce countywide access to ATS," the letter reads. "It could put sibling and pre-kindergarten admissions at risk, create larger classes at ATS and disrupt the ATS waiting list. It would inevitably establish two distinct populations for ATS: those with a guaranteed right to enter ATS, and everyone else. Odds of gaining admission via the admission lottery, currently 1-in-8, would get worse. We believe, as does Jim Rock, that this would be divisive and unfair."
It continues by stating, "The candidate advocating a guaranteed admissions zone lives near ATS — in the proposed zone, in fact — but takes advantage of Drew Model School's countywide admissions. Curiously, when the guaranteed admission zone was approved at Drew two years ago, he was the only member of the School Board-appointed committee to vote against it."
Rock, it adds, "will not take ATS and Arlington into another polarizing and divisive debate over admissions policy. His campaign is focused on improving educational opportunities for all students, at all schools."
The Fendley campaign filed a complaint with the Virginia State PTA against Rock, but, according to its president elect Dianne Florence, both parties are at fault.
"Our members can support anyone they want to, but they cannot use PTA credentials to do it," Florence said, adding that such endorsements violate the IRS's rules for organizations that enjoy non-profit status.
In a letter sent to Rock on Monday, state PTA President Ramona Morrow admonished Rock for using the endorsement. Fendley, Florence said, can expect the same.
"We train our PTA units all the time in the IRS regulations," she said. "When one unit violates them, it even has the potential to effect the state PTA's non-profit status, and that's something very important to us. Both of the campaigns just need to cease and desist. They need to drop it and get on with running the campaigns."