LETTER TO THE EDITOR: School Board Should Honor Brentsville Member, Voters

Gil Trenum has served as the Brentsville District representative on the Prince William County (PWCS) School Board for nearly eight years. During much of that time, I have been a resident of the Brentsville District, a parent of students attending schools in the Brentsville District and an administrator at a school in the Brentsville District. From my perspective in all three capacities, Mr. Trenum works hard to serve his community and his constituents faithfully and ethically. He is seemingly omnipresent at back to school nights, community events and school activities. His commitment to the Naval Reserves is an additional illustration of the high esteem in which he holds public service, and he should be commended for serving his country. By all accounts, he has made good faith efforts to appropriately and legally find three qualified Brentsville residents to represent him on the Board during his absence. To date, the Board has declined to approve any of those three choices. Do those three people embody similar beliefs as Mr. Trenum? I presume so, and honestly, I HOPE so. If the Chairman’s desire is to simply follow the law, and is seeking the Attorney General’s input for only that reason, fine. However, if it is deemed unacceptable (by AG Herring or anyone else) for Mr. Trenum to provide guidance on who should serve in his absence, it would seem even less acceptable for the Chairman to be the one to suggest a replacement – a replacement that, no doubt coincidentally, is of a different political bent that Mr. Trenum. Put simply, as a resident of the Brentsville District who has been happily represented by Mr. Trenum, I want my temporary representative to embody the same principles and beliefs. It is a disrespect to Mr. Trenum as well as to military veterans and reservists to show such flagrant disrespect to their wishes. As parents, we often lament the lack of common sense that seems to be missing from our kids at times. As adults, we have an opportunity to lead by common sense. Mr. Trenum’s actions to find a temporary School Board representative to serve in his absence have been the embodiment of a common-sense approach, and the School Board should be anxious to show their support of such an approach, and to support a patriotic, dutiful community servant like Mr. Trenum. This is an opinion piece that represents the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of Bristow Beat, its staff or sponsors.