COURTHOUSE — State Del. Kelly Fowler is running to join the Virginia Beach School Board.
Fowler filed paperwork to seek the local office shortly before the filing deadline on Tuesday, June 18, though local election officials have not yet determined whether she has qualified for the ballot.
Fowler, D-96th House District, hopes to join Rose Dwyer in challenging incumbent Jennifer Franklin to represent the District 1 seat on the board. Franklin, the vice chairperson of the School Board, was elected in 2020 to the former Kempsville District seat on the School Board.
Fowler, a former teacher who now works as a real estate broker, told The Independent News she wants to remain in public service but be more involved in the local community.
“I know right now our School Board is in need,” Fowler said. “Our schools are in need. Our educational system is in need.”
She said her experience in the classroom and as a parent, combined with government service, will benefit Virginia Beach schools.
“We need leaders who know the education system and are willing to take the politics out of our School Board,” Fowler added.
She said she plans to remain in the General Assembly while she seeks local office in Virginia Beach and would leave the House of Delegates if elected to the School Board.
“If the voters decide they want me to serve on School Board, I would resign from my seat,” Fowler said.
Fowler was elected in 2017 to the General Assembly in the former House District 21 seat and won reelection in 2019 and 2021. This past November, she was elected to the new House District 96 seat following redistricting.
“I think that it’s disappointing that a current sitting delegate is interested in doing something away from the position she was elected to,” Franklin said during an interview, noting Fowler should resign from the legislature if she is serious about the School Board race.
Franklin is a mortgage banker who is a retired from military service on active duty and as a reservist and has volunteered for more than two decades with parent-teacher organizations in Virginia Beach.
“I feel like I’ve done a lot to bring a good working relationship to the board,” Franklin said.
Dwyer said she is not concerned another candidate is in the race.
“I’m not worried about a thing,” she said. “I have confidence in who I am and why I’m running. I’m not a politician. I’m all about those kids. That’s my passion – the kids and the future.”
Dwyer, who works in retail, said she has volunteered extensively, including working with parent-teacher organizations, and she previously was an appointed member of the School Board in Southampton County.
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Lord help us if Kelly Fowler grabs a seat on the school board. We need to run away — as fast as we can — from her woke, leftist nonsense. That’s the very stuff that has put schools in such a bad place. How she got elected as a delegate I’ll never know, but at least there she can be drowned out by more serious voices. On a school board she’ll just have a platform to spew her vitriol and further degrade our institutions just when sanity has started to arrive on the scene.
These people who try to make a career out of politics are the PROBLEM, not the solution. As she, Aaron Rouse, and others have attempted to profit from politics — with little experience yet heaps of word salad, leftist talking points — the very constituencies they claim to represent suffer. Face it, their version of solutions is just more of the same class warfare, race baiting, patriarchy blaming nonsense that cuts against the very fabric of the American values that allowed this country to thrive. We won’t accept more of their brand of societal erosion.
I read the word ‘left’ a couple times, which remains the de facto accusation of Republicans who have no constructive details about exactly what they want to do. Nor are their examples of class warfare or other generalities offered. My support is with Kelly Fowler who has a clear record of working to improve the lives of ALL citizens.
Agreed, run away as fast as we can. SCHOOL CHOICE!
We have problems with our public school system as it is currently. Fowler being a far left ideologue will make it much worse. This is why we need SCHOOL CHOICE, MONEY FOLLOWS THE STUDENT. Put parents really in charge and challenge the Public school system. If the public system teaches what you as a parents expect, then you pay it. If the public school system doesn’t teach what a parent wants, then they can take their child someplace else and not pay into the public school system. All those of us who do not have children of school age or no children don’t pay. Fowler is very bad for Virginia Beach. The worst possible.
This is John, the editor. A comment was removed for inflammatory language. The user is banned if it happens again. This is a community paper. Please consider what you are posting here. Thanks.