A confidential settlement between Balow and the state, first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, offers a look into her abrupt departure. In the settlement, which was signed Feb. 28 and obtained by The Washington Post, the state agreed to pay Balow $266,213 in salary payments over the next year. In exchange, Balow agreed not to file legal action against the state.

“The Governor and the Superintendent have agreed that the Superintendent will resign from her position,” the settlement reads. “The Parties now desire to fully and completely resolve any outstanding issues between them and to ensure that they have amicably resolved and settled all possible differences, claims, or matters related or pertaining to, arising from or associated with the Superintendent’s separation from her employment.”

Along with the salary payments, Balow will be paid more than $22,000 for health-care costs and more than $10,000 in unused vacation and sick time.

Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter declined to comment on the agreement, and Balow could not immediately be reached on Wednesday.

Virginia Democrats questioned the agreement Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said he was stunned by Balow’s severance deal. “I have never, ever heard” of a governor providing such a golden parachute to an appointee who resigned, he said.

“I can’t see how he can ever complain about people getting welfare again,” Saslaw said.

A person familiar with the settlement who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter, said Balow is a constitutional officer, which is different from other appointees. Because of her designation, it was possible that she could make the argument that the constitution says her term is the same as the governor’s, meaning she should be paid for the full four years.

Rather than test that in court, they reached a settlement, the person said.

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, agreed that the designation of Balow’s position allowed her to make the argument that she should be paid for her term, but the move was unique.

“I don’t think it’s very common, and in some ways it seems kind of unorthodox,” he said.

The settlement includes a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting Balow from discussing the terms of the settlement with anyone other than her spouse, attorneys and financial advisers.

“I don’t think this is a transparent way to operate the state of Virginia,” Tobias said. “You want to be as open as you possibly can. This looks like a fair amount of secrecy, and it makes people uncomfortable.”

In a statement Wednesday, Youngkin congratulated Coons, as well as Jeremy Raley, former Goochland County superintendent, who was appointed Education Department chief of staff. Youngkin also announced the appointment of Dale Sturdifen, a former Mecklenburg County school board member, to the state Board of Education.

“I’m pleased that education leaders like Dr. Lisa Coons and Dr. Jeremy Raley have decided to join our team and further our commitment to empower parents, restore excellence in education, and address catastrophic learning loss in our K-12 system,” Youngkin said in a statement.

Coons will be coming into a department that has faced some controversies over Youngkin’s first year in office, including challenges to the ongoing revision of the state’s curriculum standards for history and social studies, backlash over “model policies” that would limit the rights of transgender students, and a school funding error that required correction by the state legislature.

“The governor has set a bold academic agenda that puts students first and empowers families to help set priorities for their children,” Coons said in a news release Wednesday announcing her appointment. “We have an opportunity in Virginia to be the country’s best state for education, and we’ll achieve that vision through partnerships with families, educators and school division leaders.”

Coons most recently served as chief academic officer for the Tennessee Department of Education. She has also worked as an executive officer of division priority schools for Metro Nashville Public Schools and executive director of instructional leadership at the Tennessee Department of Education.

“She has demonstrated success in addressing learning loss, creating and implementing evidence-based literacy policy and practices, and building strong partnerships with teachers, communities, school and division leaders, and parents,” Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera said in the news release.

Coons was also named as a finalist for Nebraska’s top education position by a search committee last week, and was supposed to be interviewed for the role at a public meeting March 30. A spokesperson for the Nebraska Department of Education said staff was aware that Coons had accepted the Virginia job, but did not know specifics on when she withdrew from consideration in Nebraska.

Coons’s appointment is effective April 17. Balow’s resignation was effective March 9, and her severance will be paid until March 2024.

However, there have been 13 arrests this school year, compared with three arrests in the 2021-22 school year. Fifteen cases have been referred to the Department of Juvenile Services, compared with 39 referrals last school year. There have been zero citations this school year for marijuana possession, compared with two citations last year.

“What’s clear is that more needs to be done … we need to be open to all and every solution that’s out there,” said council member Gabe Albornoz (D-At Large).

The data was shared at a joint meeting between Montgomery County’s Education and Culture Committee and Public Safety Committee. Council members also questioned school and police officials about the community engagement program and the updated relationship with police that allows officers to have a limited, but not permanent, presence in schools and still respond to incidents. Last school year, Montgomery County Public Schools removed school resource officers from school grounds, but after a shooting at a Rockville high school critically injured a student, the school system and the Montgomery County Police Department reached an agreement for the revised setup. The agreement stipulates that school officials, not police, respond to discipline and policy issues.

But some parents and educators have argued for a full return of police in schools to combat rising violence. As council members reviewed the data, some members of the audience held up signs that read, “Bring Back SROs!”

A county pulled police from schools six months ago. Now it wants to bring them back.

The arrest and referral data does not include breakdowns by race or for students with a disability, noted Will Jawando (D-At Large). “That was a key measure that we talked about tracking with the school system … where that was going to be monitored as a part of the larger process,” he said. Police said they would provide the data.

The school safety report also showed an increase in school-based incidents that show a bias toward a race, religion or other identity, such as incidents of antisemitism. The school system reported 100 incidents so far this school year, compared with 65 during the entire previous academic year. In February alone, there were 42 incidents. Forty-five of the incidents occurred at middle schools, 35 at the county’s high schools and 20 at elementary schools.

Of the bias incidents, 48 targeted race, 43 targeted religion and 15 targeted the LGBTQ community.

The school system recently announced it would toughen penalties for students who commit acts of hate by recording the incidents in their student file, and their parents will be brought in for follow-up conversations.

Montgomery County schools report another spate of antisemitic acts

School officials also presented suspension data that showed higher numbers particularly for students with disabilities and students of color. Data from the 2021-22 school year showed there were 2,392 suspensions total. Black students were suspended the most — 1,077 times total, according to data in a state report. There were a total of 889 Hispanic student suspensions and 739 suspensions for students with a disability. Meanwhile, White students were suspended 197 times and Asian students had 80 suspensions. There was no suspension data provided for this school year.

Shauna-Kay Jorandby, the district’s director of student engagement, behavioral health and academics, said the school system is reviewing its disciplinary training for conduct violations and working to build relationships with students who have higher numbers of suspensions. “We must always acknowledge that we must continue to work on the disparities within our suspensions,” she said.

School officials also discussed efforts being undertaken to discipline students without removing them from school.

Council members asked police and school officials to return before June with more information about what incidents led to those student arrests this school year, as well as race and ethnicity breakdowns of arrest and referral data.

There’s usually little attention on the bureaucratic revision process that happens every seven years as required by state law. But this year’s review became contentious, drawing national scrutiny as versions of the proposed standards were criticized for their framing and omissions.

With the third set of proposed standards being considered before an expected vote by the state Board of Education next month, supporters praise them as being a fairer representation of history that better matches the state’s law banning “inherently divisive” topics in the classroom. Critics are concerned about limited representation of marginalized communities, unrealistic expectations for students and the rushed process to develop the standards.

This dispute over social studies has become part of the education culture wars as lawmakers increasingly introduce legislation limiting what schools can teach about race, gender and inequality. Lawrence Paska, executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies, said the national debate has shifted from arguing about what gets included in standards to mandating topics that are excluded.

“This notion of, we’re going to tell you what you can’t teach,” Paska said. “That is a very different tone.”

In Virginia, a state with a complex past, those debates about how to present its history extend beyond the classroom. They include tearing down Confederate statues in Richmond and updating tours of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s estate, to include additional details about the enslaved people who lived there, including the story of Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman on the estate with whom Jefferson had children.

Some of Virginia’s storied locations were sites for the public forums hosted by state education officials that ended this week, where people could weigh in on the proposed social studies standards. At the Mount Vernon forum, 17-year-old Yahney-Marie Sangare approached the microphone in the small conference hall.

“The truth is that no history exists without opinion or context, the way we teach and learn is deliberate,” she said. “To unravel the trends of history, we must fundamentally embrace varying schools of critical thought. We may not make educational standards weapons of ideology.”

The crowd had thinned by the time the Alexandria City High School junior — the 61st speaker of the night — had her turn.

“See,” one woman in the crowd whispered to another. “This is why I want to stay.”

Long road for revision process

The standards debate in Virginia began in August when appointees of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on the Board of Education rejected a 400-plus-page version of the standards started under Youngkin predecessor Ralph Northam (D).

The Department of Education proposed an alternative 53-page version of the standards in November that quickly drew criticism from left-leaning politicians and education advocates for generally placing less emphasis on marginalized groups. There were errors, including a characterization of Indigenous people as “immigrants,” and omitted references to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth holidays.

Jillian Balow, who led the Education Department, was sent back to fix the mistakes and integrate content from the August version. Balow, who resigned as superintendent this month, came back with was a third version of the standards in January, and that is the draft that is up for consideration.

The newest standards include language that notes U.S. history is complicated and must be taught with nuance. There are also grade-level changes that place greater emphasis on Native Americans. The new guidelines, unlike the previous version, mandate discussions of racism, and students would learn, for the first time in Virginia, that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War, not just one cause.

But critics question how state education officials got to this version, particularly whether the standards are politically motivated. During review forums, they have raised concerns about a state list of top contributors to the proposal that includes organizations such as the conservative-leaning Civics Alliance, Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Hillsdale College.

Amber Northern, vice president for research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said some of the criticism leveled at the proposed revisions was misguided, after several speakers at a Charlottesville forum — held a few miles from Monticello — condemned things that have been part of the standards since 2015 when Northam was in office.

“I actually think that a lot of the comments tonight have not been accurate in terms of the partisanship,” she said in an interview. “It’s sort of been alluded that there’s … right-leaning partisanship because we have a Republican governor.”

In a statement, the Civics Alliance and the National Association of Scholars called the latest version of the standards a more concise and appropriate approach than the August proposal, which had become “lengthy, repetitive and extremely difficult to understand,” the groups said.

Youngkin said in a statement that the January standards reflect input from an array of subject-matter experts, residents and organizations.

“The current draft honors a robust set of diverse voices, figures and moments in history and prepares our students to be informed stewards of our future,” the governor said. “Our goal is to make Virginia’s standards the best in the nation.”

On a corner near the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, about 30 demonstrators lined the sidewalk with signs, protesting the January standards. Organized by the Hamkae Center, which describes itself as organizing “Asian Americans to achieve social, economic, and racial justice in Virginia,” the protesters called for more representation of diverse communities — specifically more Asian American and LGBTQ history.

Zowee Aquino, policy and communications lead at the Hamkae Center, said the January standards only discussed Asian American history twice.

“With the amount of feedback from Virginians, I’m really hoping that the board will take it as a wake-up call that, no, the public does not like these standards,” Aquino said.

Inside the library, Jaya Nachnani, a 19-year-old freshman at William & Mary, criticized the standards for excluding mentions of the Stonewall riots and the Defense Against Marriage Act, and referring to the October holiday as Columbus Day rather than Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

“With this curriculum, we are erasing a lot of history,” Nachnani said. “While some of it may be bad, how are we as Americans supposed to move forward if we do not acknowledge and learn about all of our pasts?”

Labor organizers argue that the January standards remove most teachings on the impact of the industrial revolution on working families and lessons about the rise of organized labor.

Eric Pacheco, a father of three students in Stafford County and member of IBEW Local 26, a union of electrical workers, pleaded with the board that lessons on unions and labor are important to students and understanding American history.

“We don’t need less labor history,” Pacheco said. “We need a whole lot more of it.”

Education leaders also raised concerns about the expectations for young students to learn complex material that isn’t “developmentally appropriate” for the assigned grade levels. A collection of state and national education groups issued a response to the January proposal, calling it “unrealistic.”

The standards also contain “a vast quantity of rote memorization that is neither useful nor likely for content knowledge retention,” the organizations wrote. They urged the board to instead adopt proposed “Collaborative Standards” that some of the groups wrote as an alternative in December.

The groups point to a standard that requires second-graders to learn about issues such as the War of 1812.

“With 24 people listed in one standard alone … the time it would take to teach this one standard is unrealistic, it would take weeks,” said Jennifer Brown, an educational specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools who shared similar concerns from other elementary teachers.\

Neeley Minton, lead coach for social studies instruction in Albemarle County Public Schools, cited the more than 100 new topics added to the proposed standards. Covering so much new material would not allow enough time for sixth-graders to think deeply about topics such as urban renewal and Vinegar Hill, a majority-Black neighborhood in Charlottesville that was razed in the 1960s.

“Inquiry is what makes the facts stick,” Minton said during the forum in Charlottesville. “Learning facts in isolation does not lead to learning at all.”

Freelancer Chris Suarez contributed to this report.