No More Excuses. The Fight for Our Union Starts Now.

An Eventful Week

What a week it has been for Alexandria educators!

As if navigating the end of a grueling school year wasn't enough, many of our 10-month licensed colleagues opened their inboxes this weekend to find inaccurate employment contracts from ACPS, followed by a frantic message from HR telling them to "disregard" the documents and wait.

While ACPS finally pushed out corrected 10-month salary notifications midday Monday, our 10-month staff are still waiting on their actual contracts. Meanwhile, all our other colleagues have already had their salary notifications and contract timeline delayed.

This is what happens when administrative systems fail, but it is also a symptom of a larger, chronic problem. For years, the EAA leadership has been completely absent. A ghost ship of a union.

This weekend's contract blunder is just the latest symptom of this long-term neglect. When our union leadership is entirely missing in action, defensive, and consumed by internal politics, the ACPS administration operates without accountability. We deserve a union that stands as a reliable bulwark against administrative incompetence and ensures our contracts are accurate the first time around.

Instead, look at what current EAA leadership and the School Board are focusing on.

The 8-1 Betrayal: ACPS Passes an Unpopular Budget

On Thursday, June 11, 2026, the ACPS School Board officially passed its controversial SY26-27 budget by an 8-1 vote. For years, the School Board has habitually ceded its power to the Superintendent, blindly accepting Central Office recommendations. While this trend started years ago, under Superintendent Dr. Melanie Kay Wyatt, this trend has drastically accelerated. The community is rightfully furious and distrustful, especially since Dr. Wyatt is leaving the district this upcoming October 2026.

This toxic culture has already caused an exodus of quality educators and administrators to surrounding districts which actually honor years of service. Meanwhile, ACPS has frozen our step increases (aka our hard-earned raises) a staggering 30% of the time over the last ten years.

During the budget hearings, over 20 community members, parents, and students pleaded with the board. They made direct, explicit demands to protect vital programs like the Communities in Schools (CIS) program and positions like the Afghan Parent Liaison. While the Afghan Parent Liaison was barely saved due to immense public pressure, the Board completely folded to the Superintendent and CFO Dominic Turner at the last second, choosing to only partially fund the CIS program.

This is fiscally irresponsible, considering the CIS program yields a massive 371% return on investment by securing our students' most basic needs. Central Office chose to use our students as bargaining chips in hopes the remaining funds for CIS will be given by the city and/or state.

As RUN Presidential Candidate David Paladin-Fernandez sharply put it in his testimony:

"If Central Office were my students I would tell them to take their assignment back and try again."

Worse yet, Dr. Wyatt displayed a stunning lack of awareness during the work session, imploring the School Board to "think of the feelings" of Central Office staff facing potential position cuts. When that same empathy has not been extended to educators and students.

We want to extend our sincerest gratitude to School Board Member Abdulahi Abdalla, the lone "No" vote against this flawed budget. Mr. Abdalla fought for us, forcing a vote to reveal Central Office job descriptions so we could cut administrative waste rather than student programs. Only to be voted down by the rest of the board.

At the end of the day, Central Office ran out the clock on us, leaving us in a system so broken that educators are being pressured to sign employment contracts without even knowing what their final collective bargaining compensation packages look like, despite the recent distribution of salary notifications.

The "Dog Ate My Homework" Defense

On Sunday, June 14, current EAA leadership finally broke weeks of silence to issue a statement regarding the upcoming VEA run election. Crucially, there was no apology to EAA membership for the undemocratic chaos of last month, nor was there any real explanation for how they allowed our union to collapse into this situation.

Instead, they chose to play the victim and shift the blame entirely to the Virginia Education Association (VEA). In their email, EAA leadership offered a laundry list of excuses:

• They didn't know the rules: EAA complained they weren't informed that our local union was subject to federal LMRDA campaign guidelines. A labor union leadership admitting they don't know standard labor union compliance is a terrifying admission of incompetence.

• Two days wasn't enough time: They complained that compiling required election documents for the VEA took "more than two business days" because they are busy volunteers, even though these documents should have been readily producible.

• Blaming the Parent Organization: They claimed a lack of communication from the state level, despite explicitly admitting that VEA Staff Attorney Moriah Allen directly assisted them in developing their local campaign regulations. Which is a direct contradiction.

• Deflecting with Distractions: During their June 4 meeting with VEA leadership, instead of focusing on fixing the crisis in Alexandria, they tried to attack the VEA's competency by dragging up a past ballot error in District H.

Let's be completely clear.

The VEA is starting the election over because they did not receive a single valid candidate petition or relevant election document from the EAA. The current EAA leadership weaponized the rules to silence your voice in May, dragged their feet when called out, and is now upset that they have to face a clean, fair, democratic election.

It is time for us to usher in change!

A Clean Slate: The VEA Notice of Election

On June 12, VEA President Carol Bauer officially issued a Notice of Election.

It is official, the slate has been wiped completely clean. David Paladin-Fernandez’s wrongful disqualification has been nullified, and the VEA is stepping in to run a secure, independent, secret-ballot election through BallotPoint Election Services.

This is our moment to take back the EAA and build a Responsive Union, Now. To do that, we need to sprint across the finish line.

In order to do that we need to know the math.

When VEA dropped official ballot on Friday, June 19, 2026, we learned that our Board could have anywhere from 43-44 voting seats, meaning a majority would be 22-23 seats.

Thanks to your efforts we were able to recruit 30 RUNners to join in the race to 23!

The excellent news is, 12 RUNners have won their races by acclimation, giving us nearly 50% of the seats we need to secure our Board majority.

However, the concerning news is that 8 of our opponents also won their races by acclamation too, including the race for Secretary.

The news about the Secretary race is especially shocking because the winner of that race is none other than our current President, Dawn Lucas.

Which is why the EAA was so cagey about who was running for Secretary when we started asking in May. They know our voters would be mobilized if they knew our current President was running.

We would be remiss if we didn’t take this moment as a learning opportunity. This shadowy sidestep into sustaining power is the exact reason why we need to be informed and active members within our organization.

However, we can’t change what is in the past.

Looking forward here is what the Secretary can do according to EAA’s own bylaws. According to Article IV.4 the Secretary is responsible for:

• Keeping accurate minutes for EAA meetings

• Overseeing official documents

• Assisting the President with EAA’s correspondence

EAA’s bylaws do not get into any more specifics nor do they specifically define things like “overseeing official documents.” This lack of specificity opens our bylaws to vague interpretations which could, ultimately, make passing our aggressive transparency agenda more difficult.

However, the best defense to all of this is to secure a true voting majority on the EAA Board of Directors.

You can do so by keying in the most vital races to secure the EAA Board of Directors majority. These races include our Officers (RUN Candidate):

• President (David Paladin-Fernandez)

• Vice President (Tyron Barnes)

• Treasurer (Howard van der Sluis)

and the following building representative races (RUN candidates):

• ACHS (Amanda Kropp, Alex Perez Reyes, Philip Engle, Jennifer Lay, Shannon Campos-Dowdy, Victoria Ignacio, Veronica Yale, Erin Hudson, and Patrick Deville)

• Francis Hammond (Jasmin Johnson)

• George Washington (Melissa King, Samantha Parton, Karla Martinez)

• Jefferson-Houston (David Paladin-Fernandez, Howard van der Sluis)

• Patrick Henry (Tyron Barnes)

• William Ramsay (Nilda Ocasio, Lois Lansing)

Here is the exact timeline so you can make your calendars for the rest of the election season:

• June 25 @ 6 PM: Virtual Candidate Forums: Tune in to hear the candidates in contested races speak directly to the membership.

• June 26 – June 28: Vendor Notifications: BallotPoint will email official voting instructions directly to your personal email address. Be sure to check your spam folders in case you don’t receive anything.

• June 29 @ 6 AM – June 30 @ 7 PM: The Voting Window: Voting will take place entirely online through a secure electronic platform.

• June 30 @ 8 PM: The Results: An all-member webinar will be hosted by the VEA to officially announce the results of the election.

CRITICAL ACTION: Because this election is being run electronically by the VEA, they must have your correct personal email address. If you are unsure whether the VEA has your current personal email, contact vea.elections@veanea.org right away to verify your records.

We have a choice. We can accept a chronic, absent union leadership that makes excuses for why they don't know labor law and why they can't protect your contracts from an overreaching Central Office.

Or, we can vote for a complete, proactive leadership team that is transparent, legally compliant, and ready to fight for the compensation and working conditions we actually deserve.

Let’s hit the ground RUNning!