Let’s just admit it. Those of us who thought Aaron Spence was a disaster as Virginia Beach School Superintendent are experiencing a shameless bout of schadenfreude.
Yep, we’re enjoying the misfortune of others.
Those “others” would be Loudoun County parents and taxpayers. Aaron Spence is their problem now. He left Virginia Beach last year for the greener pastures of Loudoun County, the richest in the U.S.
According to excellent news reporting by tenacious ABC News7 reporter, Nick Minock, Spence has only been on the job for just nine months but has spent 30 days out of the district at a variety of boondoggles, er conferences.
Spence who makes a whopping $375,000 a year, ducked out of Loudoun County 10 times this school year for destinations such as Miami, West Palm Beach, San Diego and Puerto Rico, as well as several closer to home. According to records obtained by the reporter, it appears taxpayers picked up the tab for his conference registrations, hotels and travel, while at least in one instance he slurped up $15,000 for teaching two seminars at the conference seminars.
This would be just another example of a greedy public official living large off the generosity of unsuspecting taxpayers, but this case is much, much worse.
You see, while Spence was exploring warmer climes, children were overdosing in Loudoun County schools and parents were not being notified.
In fact, it took Loudoun County Schools 20 days to communicate with parents last fall when eight students in three weeks overdosed at Park View High School. Reacting to that inexcusable delay, Gov. Glenn Youngkin took the extraordinary step of signing an executive order forcing school officials to notify parents within 24 hours after an overdose.
Spence’s nine-year stay in Virginia Beach was tumultuous, due mainly to his unwavering commitment to wokeness.
For instance, Spence tried to ban zeroes from the grading scale and would have been successful if not for fierce resistance from old-school teachers who believed kids should face consequences when they failed to turn in school work. He was successful, however, in abolishing valedictorians and salutatorians (reinstated once he fled for Northern Virginia). Test scores fell during his tenure, discipline problems increased and there were reported staffing shortages. During covid, Spence kowtowed to the leftist majority on the school board that fought hard to keep schools closed and then forced useless masks on students once they opened.
After the school board elections of 2022 — which saw a slate of good-government types displace several lefties — Spence realized he was exactly one vote away from being fired. Not long after he was bound for Northern Virginia
Now the Fun Couple is living in Loudoun and those lucky taxpayers get to deal with his shenanigans.
If he is still employed by the Loudoun County Public Schools after one year on the job, Minock reports, Spence is due a $20,000 bonus.
It’s a lot more entertaining to watch Spence in action when it isn’t YOUR tax dollars paying him.
Pass the popcorn.