Albrecht wants to keep helping children on Manassas School Board

By KIPP HANLEY, Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger
Published: April 21, 2008

Manassas School Board vice chairman Scott M. Albrecht never thought he would be seeking a third term when he was first elected in 2000.

But the long-time businessman still has the drive to help children become productive adults.

“People get into politics for whole bunch of reason, lining their pockets or they have an ego the size of the Capitol rotunda,” Albrecht said. “You got to go to meetings wanting to make a difference.”

Albrecht and chairman Arthur P. Bushnell are campaigning together for the May 6 elections. Current board member Sheryl L. Bass, newcomer Kermit Holmes Dance and former member Edward W. Pratt Jr. are also vying for the four available seats.

Some of the primary challenges for the board, according to Albrecht, are working with a fiscally constrained environment that is seeing less and less state funding. On top of that, federal mandates like No Child Left Behind are missing their mark, Albrecht said.

Albrecht cited how pigeonholing schools as failures can not only damage the reputation of the school but downplay the improvements of a child who might be coming in from an inferior school district.
“No Child Left Behind is a noble law that has some basic failures,” Albrecht said. “… If a kid is at 40 to 50 to 60 percent and we get them up to 70 percent but the goal is 73 percent, than my opinion is that we didn’t fail.”

Albrecht said his work experience, which includes his current stint as a program manager for Northrup Grumman, has helped bring fiscal responsibility to a board that was missing some of that before 2000.

“There were basic financial things like roofs that were leaking and buses that needed to be replaced,” Albrecht said.. “I think we built that financial discipline and that part of the model is continuing with the students. Let’s see where else we can go with this.”

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-369-5738 or