Back in 2021, Spotsylvania school district in Virginia was where books were being protested and pulled and two board members thought maybe the books should be burned. The ban was centered on "sexually explicit" books, but Kirk Twigg, besides expressing his interest in burning objectionable material also added that he would like to broaden the criteria for rooting through the school libraries, saying, “There are some bad, evil-related material that we have to be careful of and look at."
Twigg had first been elected in 2015, but in 2019 he ran for a second term on a more well-financed platform of fire and brimstone. He allegedly told a Tea Party gathering that there would be big changes once his "constitutional, conservative, Republican, Christian" majority takes over. His support included $2,204 of his own money, $1,200 from Peter DeChat, and $908 from the Republican Party of Spotsylvania County. (DeChat could be this guy, a Christian motivational speaker).
In running for board chair, Twigg promised that he would start out by firing superintendent Scott Baker--an award-winning super who was due to leave at the end of the school year anyway. Not soon enough, said Twigg and his supporters. Twigg won the chairman's seat, and in a crazy-pants amateur hour meeting in January, 2022, the board canned Baker.
There was an interim super to plug the gap (this will be important in a few paragraphs) while the board pretended to search for a new district leader.
They settled on county executive Mark Taylor, a long-time friend of Twigg's with zero experience in education. His qualifications? He told 7News reporter Heather Graf:
Thirst for truth. The citizens' thirst for truth now is all about getting to truth and helping the school division forward in 2022. That's what I'm all about. Let's go find the truth together and do positive things with it. For the good of citizens and the children.
In that same interview, Taylor leaned heavily on the idea that parents should have a major role in the upbringing of their children, which turned out to be one of his more ironic utterances. Jael Taylor, the daughter that he had homeschooled, wrote a letter to the board saying her father was "beyond underqualified," that the charges he had made social media posts both racist and disparaging LGBTQ persons were entirely credible (he went with "my accounts were hacked") and that she "never in a million years really thought that they would actually consider my dad to be superintendent." Jael Taylor had not spoken to her father in years.
Thirst for truth. The citizens' thirst for truth now is all about getting to truth and helping the school division forward in 2022. That's what I'm all about. Let's go find the truth together and do positive things with it. For the good of citizens and the children.
In that same interview, Taylor leaned heavily on the idea that parents should have a major role in the upbringing of their children, which turned out to be one of his more ironic utterances. Jael Taylor, the daughter that he had homeschooled, wrote a letter to the board saying her father was "beyond underqualified," that the charges he had made social media posts both racist and disparaging LGBTQ persons were entirely credible (he went with "my accounts were hacked") and that she "never in a million years really thought that they would actually consider my dad to be superintendent." Jael Taylor had not spoken to her father in years.
Taylor had to get ana special superintendent's license, which the Youngkin-appointed members of the state Board of Education approved.
“We are not confirming anybody,” said BOE member Andy Rotherham, an appointee of Gov. Glenn Youngkin. “We’re saying, do they meet a baseline standard under the law to be on this list (of candidates eligible to obtain a superintendent’s license)?”
The issue raised such a ruckus that the county sheriff's office announced they would no longer send deputies to provide security at school board meetings.
At least one lawsuit was filed. Taylor signed on to the job on November 1. The lawsuits went nowhere. Meanwhile, book challenges continue, resource officers deal with fights, and there was a crackdown on snacks.
Which brings us up to the newest Spotsy story. Twigg's indictment.
That takes us back to the interim super. Apparently over the summer, Twigg just went ahead and gave her a raise without actually talking to the board. "But aren't there legal documents involved with something like that," you ask. Well yes--and allegedly Twigg forged them.
He turned himself in last Thursday and was released on personal recognizance.
Twigg's critics are unsurprised that he's willing to bend rules to exercise control over a situation.
Authoritarianism is messy, particularly when you get right-wing book-burning authoritarians who don't know what the heck they're doing. I'm reminded for the too-manyth time of Katherine Stewart's Power Worshippers and the insight that for folks in that christianist camp, legitimacy of government comes not from democratic processes or principles, but from alignment with the Right Beliefs, which leads quickly to the notion that if you are aligned with those Right Beliefs, if you believe yourself to be in fact justified by faith, then the rules are whatever you say the rules are.
Well, until someone with the power to correct you happens along. We'll see what's in store next for Twigg and his Very Righteous friends.
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