ELECTION 2023: 3 Three Chopt candidates seeking to replace Ogburn on Henrico School Board
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All five seats on the Henrico School Board are up for election this November, and three candidates have their eyes set on the Three Chopt District seat: Eleina Espigh, Madison Irving and Kristen Vithoulkas.
Three Chopt District board member Micky Ogburn is not seeking re-election. She joined the board in 2014 after winning a special election to fill the remaining term of former representative Diana Winston, then won re-election in 2015 and 2019. She resigned her role as board chair in 2021 after she received criticism for sharing an offensive post on her personal Facebook page. She quickly deleted the post and apologized profusely for it, saying she had not read the entire post before sharing it.
As of June 8, Espigh had raised $700, while Irving had raised $4,335 according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Vithoulkas joined the race only recently, and no finance reports are currently available on VPAP.
Eleina Espigh
Espigh, a director of enterprise data at Capital One, officially entered the race June 8. She declined the Citizen's request to discuss her campaign shortly thereafter, writing "As you know, I've just joined the ballot, so I'm busy assembling a team and talking to voters; thus, I cannot take media at this time. I hope you will extend the opportunity again in the future when I can be available."
Two emails and one phone call and voicemail left by the Citizen for Espigh during the next nine days went unanswered by the publication date of this article.
On her campaign website, Espigh described herself as "a voice for parents and students, an advocate for teachers and administration, and a corporate technology leader with a reputation for complex problems solving and driving high impact imperatives."
Espigh wrote that she "recently led the way to return schools to normalcy, to restore the mental and developmental health of students, which led to further involvement in school and county policies and their implementations."
In a post on LinkedIn, Espigh wrote that "years of learning the HCPS and Virginia public education environment, serving on our School Board's Equity and Diversity Committee, and engaging with the school board and Department of Education, as well as alignment of the stars, led to this moment [running for school board."
Espigh defined her priorities, if elected, as transparency and strengthening parental and student involvement in education; performance, focusing especially on increasing reading, math, STEM and "balanced history options" for students; responsibility, related both to student performance standards and fiscal standards; support for teachers; and accountability, ensuring that policies reflect the needs and interests of constituents and are implemented effectively districtwide.
Espigh is married, and her children all attended Henrico public schools.
Madison Irving
After teaching at Henrico's Varina High School and Hermitage High School, and now James River High School in Chesterfield County, Madison Irving wants to join the Henrico County School Board to use his insight from teaching to work for the benefit of the administrators and the students.
Irving will continue teaching economics and personal finance at James River if elected to the school board. He believes his position as a teacher gives him invaluable insight into school buildings and seeing how school board decisions affect the teachers and students.
“My experience in both those rooms will be super useful to the board,” Irving said, “because I can say ‘Hey, if we do this policy, this is how people are going to perceive it.’”
Starting next year, Irving will be department chair of the career and technical education department, which is a leadership role that will give him access to knowledge that he would not have as a classroom teacher, he said.
Irving believes in prioritizing the mental health of students, recognizing it as a crisis and treating it as such, he said. He supports the placement of more mental health professionals in schools in addition to guidance counselors.
Inviting parents into schools as safety volunteers is one way Irving believes physical well-being can be improved, because the presence of familiar adults as hallway monitors, cafeteria monitors or bus loop monitors may make students less inclined to misbehave, he said.
Recognizing that there is a teacher shortage crisis was a motivator for him to run, Irving said. He believes it is important to treat teachers like professionals and pay them fair wages in correlation to the type of education required to become one.
“I remember when I had my daughter, I had to take unpaid leave in order to go home with her and I think these things, you know, maybe prevent people from becoming a teacher when they otherwise would want to.”
Irving believes smaller class sizes are the best single way the school district can improve student outcomes because they lead to more one on one time with teachers. He believes spending needs to go to programs that have been tangibly proven to increase student outcomes and to making sure students have enough resources like calculators, textbooks and technology.
“A big thing for me is hiring more instructional aides who can be in classrooms,” Irving said, “so that there's potentially two teachers present and students can get more one-on-one time.”
Irving looks forward to finding common ground with other board members to make progress in improving the education for the students in the district, he said. He hopes to define goals and have good working relationships with his colleagues to meet their specified goals, he said.
If elected, Irving wants to make sure there is a high level of parent involvement with the school board during his term. He believes transparency is important, but that communication between the school board and the community should be fine-tuned so that parents recognize that messages from the board are important ones.
Irving is the son of two teachers and grew up in the public education sphere, he said. He has an 18-month-old daughter who will go into Henrico County Public Schools, and he also has coached varsity football in the district.
Kristen Vithoulkas
Twenty years ago, Kristen Vithoulkas left her full time job in the finance sector to be a stay-at-home mom, dedicating her time to her four children and volunteering in their schools. Now that her children are older, Vithoulkas wants to continue her involvement in education and take her knowledge to the Henrico County School Board.
“I feel like my 20 years of service as a volunteer has been leading me to this moment,” Vithoulkas said, “where I'm ready to step up and try to make more positive changes for the county as a whole.”
Vithoulkas wants children in Henrico County to be safe, feel supported and have opportunities, she said. She believes that the school board has already taken good steps to ensure security, such as the installation of metal detectors.
Vithoulkas has been a strong advocate for removing the class rank system in Henrico County Public Schools. Programs like the International Baccalaureate give some students the option to take weighted or dual enrollment classes earlier in high school, and Vithoulkas believes this leaves other students who are not in those programs at an unfair disadvantage, she said.
Vithoulkas takes pride in her leadership skills, and has a passion for helping students. She served as a team manager for Destination Imagination and FIRST LEGO League, during which she helped students with their critical and creative thinking skills, she said.
Vithoulkas attended Henrico County Public Schools for 13 years, and after 20 years of volunteering feels she has the necessary background knowledge of the school system to serve on the school board. She has served students in many capacities, such as president and treasurer of parent teacher associations, she said.
“I've always been in leadership roles,” Vithoulkas said. “I think the reason I have been successful in those roles is because I'm always willing to listen and try to build consensus amongst people, because I know a lot of people have different views.”
Vithoulkas believes students’ attitudes toward school develop young and wants to prioritize building confidence in students during elementary school. She hopes to make sure counseling is available to all students and to build a support network where students can form more bonds with adults at school so they can feel comfortable talking to them.
With her background in accounting, Vithoulkas is willing, if elected, to look deeply into the county budget to make sure that resources are being properly allocated to maximize student outcomes. She values teachers and prioritizes making them feel valued, she said.
Vithoulkas plans to hold town hall-style meetings to speak to community members in person, she said. She also hopes to visit schools in the county to help out in the classroom and try to understand every school in the district, she said.
Vithoulkas is married to the brother of county manager John Vithoulkas.
“I really do support public education,” Vithoulkas said, “and feel like we have a great thing going in Henrico County. I'd love to continue that and make it even better, however I can.”
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LEARN MORE
Eleina Espigh's campaign website
Madison Irving's campaign website
Kristen Vithoulkas's campaign website
Virginia Department of Elections – Citizen Portal
