4-20-2023 10:06pm

Local school board candidates to participate in online public forum

Erika Christ Editor

The New Gum Springs Civic Association (NGSCA) will hold an online public forum Tuesday, April 25 featuring three candidates for the Mount Vernon District seat on the Fairfax County School Board.

According to NGSCA President Queenie Cox, the 1.5-hour forum, to be conducted via Zoom, will be co-moderated by local education advocate Cathy Hosek and a second individual soon to be named.

Following welcome remarks and ground rules from Cox, the moderators will explain the format and enable each of the three school board candidates to make brief introductions. A question and answer period will follow with questions from the online audience, and the event will wrap up with closing remarks from the candidates. The League of Women Voters will provide information about registering to vote, the voting process and redistricting.

The three candidates for Mount Vernon District Representative to the Fairfax County School Board are Mateo Dunne, Harold Sims Jr. and Stori Zimmerman. They are seeking to fill the seat of retiring school board member Karen Corbett Sanders.

This is the second time NGSCA has organized a candidate forum. The last one took place in October 2019 at the Gum Springs Community Center and featured candidates for more than a dozen elected offices. Cox said she opted to organize a forum focused on the local school board seat this year due to the number of questions floating around about the qualifications and integrity of the candidates.

“We want people to get involved and identify the candidate they think is the best fit for replacing Karen,” said Cox.

Members of the community who wish to submit questions in advance of the event can do so through this weekend, Cox said. Questions should be emailed to president@ngsca.org.

To attend the candidate forum, which takes place April 25 at 7 p.m., access the Zoom link at http://bit.ly/40XHon5.

On the MoVe contacted all three school board candidates for Q&A profiles and has published ones received to date on April 2 and April 11.