{"id":2659,"date":"2023-01-11T19:29:12","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T19:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/notesnletters.com\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2023-01-11T19:30:45","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T19:30:45","slug":"statement-to-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/?p=2659","title":{"rendered":"Statement to School Board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last night I made the following comments in a meeting of the Loudoun County School Board:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let me thank you all for your good work \u2013 I do appreciate your service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My name is Jim Barnes. From 1989 through 2010, I served as the public information officer for the Loudoun County government. In fact, I was the county\u2019s first public information officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After leaving that job, I worked as a journalist covering local news across Northern Virginia for about a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you might imagine, I have sat through hundreds of public meetings, but I have never gotten up to speak as a private citizen \u2013 until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many of the years I was working for the county, Wayde Byard was my counterpart for Loudoun County Public Schools. So I can appreciate what a hard job he has, and how good he\u2019s been at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when I was working as a journalist, covering Loudoun schools, he was always honest and straightforward with me, and helped steer me in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have always found Mr. Byard to be a hard-working public servant and a person of integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he is facing a serious charge, and I understand that he has been placed on leave without pay. I don\u2019t know the facts behind the charge, or even what he is alleged to have said that led to his indictment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I trust that those facts will become known in his trial. But that won\u2019t take place until June 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six months is a long time to go without a paycheck. Six months! Please consider how that would affect your household budget. And he may not have even done anything wrong. He deserves the presumption of innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems only fair that Mr. Byard\u2019s pay be restored until he has his day in court. I respectfully ask that you consider doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I made the following comments in a meeting of the Loudoun County School Board: First, let me thank you all for your good work \u2013 I do appreciate your service. My name is Jim Barnes. From 1989 through 2010, I served as the public information officer for the Loudoun County government. In fact, … Continue reading “Statement to School Board”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[21,107,3,49,6],"class_list":["post-2659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-courts","tag-education","tag-loudoun-county","tag-school-board","tag-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notesnletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}