Mike Lunsford

I don't know how to write this. I'll just do my best. Mike Lunsford is gone. He died yesterday, a little more than a week after suffering a stroke. I know that the entire LCPS leadership is in a state of shock and mourning today.

Mike has been the Director of Transportation at LCPS for I don't know how long. He stood astride the link between the old and the new Loudoun County, and became one of the cornerstones of the modern LCPS. He worked for LCPS for over 40 years, starting as a bus driver in the 60s while still a student at Loudoun County High School. If your child rode safely on an LCPS bus for years, as mine have, you owe a lot of that safety to Mike.

He worked his way up to senior administration and provided a special kind of leadership. I want the people who worked for Mike to know how much he believed in them, in their ability to carry out a complex and critical mission. He gave them the framework and the tools with which to do their work, he ensured that they were well trained and held themselves to high standards in a way that gave them confidence in themselves. He left them in good hands... their own.

He was the very definition of unassuming confidence. The Board could always count on Mike to have the information we needed to make decisions, and to make it easy to understand. Nobody was more trusted at LCPS. I never once heard him say an unkind word about anyone, nor heard an unkind word about him.

Mike was one of those administrators who didn't ever work directly with kids anymore, but for whom it was difficult to have a conversation lasting more than a few minutes without the kids he served becoming a part of it. I want the people of the community to know that Mike, and many others like him, invest their whole selves into LCPS purely for the meaning of their work, and that is the community and its children. Mike has lost his opportunity to retire, to sit back and see the result of his efforts over so many years from the outside. We will still benefits from his work for many years to come.

I only knew Mike professionally; I won't pretend to know him the way that his friends did. But I feel a great loss today, personally and for our community. My heart goes out to his wife and his young sons, and to the many people who worked with him for so long and knew him so much better than I did.

Summer break should be in the winter

I am in favor of a year-round school calendar, with three-week breaks in between ten-week sessions. I don't see that happening though, so don't panic, I'm not pushing for it.

Today though, as I was walking my dogs in bright sunshine and pleasant temps at 6:30AM, it occurred to me that this is a lousy time for a long vacation from school. It's easy to get up early and get the day going when the sun rises long before school starts. It's easier to wait for the bus when it's 70 degrees than 30 degrees. Summertime commuting is rarely interrupted by snow storms.

Contrast this with the dark and cold month of January... the perfect time of year to sleep in late and avoid shivering in the dark at a bus stop. The perfect time of year to head for warmer, sunnier places.

If we're going to have a 10-week vacation between academic years, let's have it in the winter time, taking off from just before Christmas until the end of February. Think of how many snow days we'll avoid.

No? Oh well. It was just a thought while I was walking my dogs.

Comments on Ting-Yi Oei Reimbursement

My comments on reimbursment of Assistant Principal Ting-Yi Oei for legal expenses incurred when he was wrongfully prosecuted for doing his job in a 'sexting' incident.

Quite a night

At tonight's School Board meeting, the Board voted to:

• Implement a 0.5-point grade weight to all Honors, AOS and Dual-Enrollment courses
• Reimburse Freedom High School Assistant Principal Ting-Yi Oei for his legal fees in the amount of $167,621.64
• Appoint Mr. John Duellman, Assistant Principal at Potomac Falls High School, as principal of Mercer Middle School
• Appoint Dr. Marianne Hardebeck, currently the Director of High School Education at LCPS, as Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Services
• Revise its policy on Student Expression
• Delay motion on a revised Code of Ethics