Facebook - Sharon Griffin for Augusta School Board

I spent 40 years in education and was happily retired. However the children in America are in crisis and the schools have forgotten why they exist. I recently completed the Colson Fellows program on Christian Worldview and became a Colson Fellow. This energized me to make a bigger impact on the culture.
1. I think I can help students because of my 40 years of experience, my sharpened Christian worldview of the pressing cultural issues, and the call of my Father God to get involved once again.
2. As a Board member I want to redirect our district's focus to why schools exist and thus how they should educate. I believe they have forgotten this - to develop citizens who understand our Republic and its Constitution, our nation's history, the importance of contributing to the good of our community, and the ability to think rationally and clearly.

1. As I have gone to Board meetings, I notice that the members defer to the superintendent's ideas on all issues. The Chair of the Board (and my opponent) even publicly said that there had not been a time over many years working with this superintendent when they seriously disagreed with the him. I am a little suspicious because our superintendent is a leader in Virginia's American Association of School Superintendents (AASS) and was part of a leadership council that objected to Governor Youngkin's reforms (to undo our last governor's Transgender & CRT policies). For over a year, AASS' main web page featured a training for superintendents where they could learn to implement CRT into their schools & one of the association reports recommends tearing down the school systems as they are now & rebuilding them in a more equitable way. I want to be in a position to see what may have been slipped quietly into our schools (e.g., some teachers have privately reported CRT professional development though he denies this) and to develop a relationship with the superintendent to understand what he values.
2. I hope to address teacher retention. Too many are leaving the profession because of the leadership in some of our schools. Children with mental health issues are making it difficult for teachers to teach their subjects. I would like to reallocate money from some other areas to address this problem. One possible source of funds might be the technology line. I am concerned about the damage done to children's brains by excessive screen time. The school district must consider the down side of technology (e.g., they just allocated over $250,000 for new Chromebooks).

Absolutely. If we can elect enough conservatives to both legislative bodies in Virginia, we will have school choice, a favorite project of Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears. Over my career, I have seen too many children trapped in low-achieving schools with parents unable to afford private schools or home schooling. George W. Bush had a phrase has stuck with me over the years - too many schools practice "the soft bigotry of low expectations".

God holds parents responsible for raising their children. They are the authority in children's lives and yet too many schools arrogantly think their teachers and administrators know better. When I was raising my son, I was very aware of the fact that God had entrusted my husband and me for a short time with his education and his moral & spiritual development. We spent a lot of time praying for God's wisdom. I am on the Board of the Family Foundation of Virginia. One tragic case that our Law Center helped with involved a girl named Sage. (If you aren't familiar with the case, it is worth looking up on their website.) The school thought they knew better than the parents around a transgender issue. The consequences of this were horrific.

Absolutely not! America has a long history of racism and I grew up in the south surrounded by racist individuals outside of my family. Yet America fought a costly war to end slavery, passed a civil rights act to address ongoing racism, and over time there has been a cultural shift away from racism. I have read several books on critical race theory, from which this phrase comes, that address the problems with it. Two of these books include, Voddie Baucham's Fault Lines and Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams, both with a balanced view of racism in our culture from a Christian perspective. Williams's book is particularly good at refuting each argument for why America is inherently racist while acknowledging that there are still victims of racism.

As to sex education, what is being taught is inappropriate in almost every school. Parents should be the ones to help their children understand the proper place of sex in our lives. Christian parents must start with the story of creation to properly contextualize it. This battle is being fought right now in several Virginia school districts. I wish state code would change so sex ed could be removed from schools entirely. Norfolk School Board just adopted a Planned Parenthood developed curriculum that does a great disservice to children by sexualizing them at a young age.
Much of DEI has grown out of Marxism. In Virginia, it has resulted in our State Board of Education, under our former governor, lowering performance standards for reading and math in the name of equity, so now Virginia has the lowest standards in the nation. I find this shocking since Virginia has always been known for good schools. "Equity" is such a strange concept since it is very obvious that all people are different in their strengths and weaknesses. It is hard to believe that there are those who think equity is achievable or even rational.
Social Emotional Learning came to the forefront in the last 2 or 3 years because sometimes it was a way of hiding DEI within lessons. However, children learn social skills & emotional self-control and an understanding of their emotions through all of their life experiences, both within the family and outside of the family. In the classroom, teachers ought to create a welcoming environment. Sometimes good practices are lumped into the SEL category and viewed negatively. For example, classrooms that have a morning meeting where students greet one another and play a game together to create a classroom community are effective in lowering behavior problems and having more learning time. So, SEL will happen in the classroom, either intentionally or unintentionally. However when it is a cover for slipping in ideologies that Christian parents would find objectionable then it is a problem.

As I described above, Virginia now has the lowest performance standards in the nation in math and reading (evidence derived from NAEP data). Writing and science are also becoming problems. My goal is to work with the district superintendent to look at the curriculum and the expectations, to have the district set a goal of exceeding Virginia's expectations since they are so low, and to minimize classroom interruptions so that teachers can teach. There needs to be a sense of working hard together within the district on these goals, with principals who support teachers and provide them with what they need to do well, rather than giving criticism and having a cavalier approach to their staff. My last teaching position was as a Reading Specialist in a high poverty school. Powerful teams were developed and the focus was on achievement. The principal was a servant leader. This proved to be an effective approach. I would work with the Board and the superintendent to move the district in this direction.

Bathrooms and locker rooms need to be same sex and not shared with the opposite sex. This probably will become a major battle. Glouchester County in Virginia was where there was a major court decision that let a teen woman, who decided to become Gavin the boy, use the male restroom rather than the private bathroom to which she had been directed. Our former governor ordered that students could go to the bathroom that matched their feeling of being a male or female. In Loudon County, Virginia, 2 girls were sexually assaulted by a male using their bathrooms. Our new Christian Attorney General is investigating what happened there. President Biden is trying to force the bathroom policy onto all schools that receive federal dollars. As I have campaigned, some parents have told me they would rather pay for a law suit than compromise in this area. With Christian legal help, I would hope that the Board could uphold a bathroom and locker room policy of being same sex.

Absolutely, but there is hope on the horizon. To pretend that males and females are equal in strength is so irrational. Athletes and legislatures are pushing back against this insanity. Ultimately, I think common sense will win out.

I was endorsed by the Freedom Caucus of Western Virginia and I anticipate an endorsement from the Augusta County Republican Committee at their July meeting when Board candidates are invited to speak. In Virginia, candidates for school board run as independents, but can seek party endorsements. I have much support and encouragement within the Republican Committee since I am an active member. I was also endorsed by a local Republican leader, Marshall Pattie, who served 2 terms as the representative to the Board of Supervisors in my district and is well know and well-liked (and this probably is the most effective endorsement).