A Fairfax County, Virginia, Circuit Court judge has dismissed a removal petition, with prejudice, filed against a school board member who a group of parents alleged failed to provide in-person learning for all students during the pandemic.
The recall effort to unseat Springfield school board representative Laura Jane Cohen concluded Wednesday, when Judge Richard E. Gardiner wrote that the petition “is not based on facts sufficient to show probable cause for removal.” Michael Caudill, the special prosecutor appointed to the case, filed the motion to dismiss.
The group Open FCPS Coalition, which identifies itself as a “bi-partisan, grassroots, volunteer group of concerned parents and citizens,” filed the petition in December. It alleged that Cohen, who was elected in 2019, ignored local and national health guidance when she “voted to keep all Fairfax County Public Schools closed” during fall 2020.
In a December statement, the group said it submitted the petition after collecting more than 8,000 signatures. It added: “For over 18 months, the Fairfax County School Board has focused on every political issue of the day, and in turn, has not focused on what’s best for our students and families in Fairfax County.”
Cohen said in a statement Wednesday that the dismissal is “long overdue.”
“There’s no question that over these last couple of years, everyone in any policymaking position has worked their best to try to walk the line between safety and ensuring that our kids got what they need,” Cohen told WTOP. “It’s an imperfect process for sure. I feel very much like we did our best with the information that we had, as we got it. Just like everybody else, we pivoted an awful lot of times as we got new information.”
In response to the dismissal, Open FCPS Coalition said on Twitter it “accomplished a lot,” including: “schools opened in the spring, we shone a light on sb corruption, we prompted recall movements all over the country, informed citizens of what is really going on in schools,” among other things.
The group said online that it worked to unseat Cohen, Dranesville District board member Elaine Tholen and at-large member Abrar Omeish from the 12-member board. In August, its recall effort against Tholen was dismissed.
In recent years, Cohen said, “people think it’s OK to get what they want by trying to bully people.” She said she has received death threats, added a security camera to her house and has had to communicate threats to her kids’ principals.
“It’s the perfect storm of some political bad actors who were able to glom on to parents who were really struggling in what I hope will be the hardest time that we’ll have had in this generation,” Cohen said. “I don’t dismiss in any ways that there were people who signed the recall who were just desperate to get kids back in school and felt like I wasn’t doing everything I could — I can assure them that I was, but I understand how they felt that way.”
