The two incumbent Arlington School Board members whose terms are set to expire in 2024 – Cristina Diaz-Torres and David Priddy – have announced they will not seek second four-year terms.
They join an increasing roster of School Board members, both in Arlington and regionally, getting out after relatively short tenures in office.
In their statements to the Arlington County Democratic Committee (from Diaz-Torres in early December and Priddy last week), neither enunciated the reasoning behind deciding to depart a post each worked hard to attain.
It’s not easy being a School Board member, for a multitude of reasons, so we can’t blame those who have given it a try and decide, frequently after just a single term, that it isn’t for them. But at least in Arlington, this new tradition of one-and-done among so many board members in recent years seems to point to a broader dysfunction of some kind.
One thing is for sure: Having both incumbents whose seats are on the November ballot opt out is going to make the upcoming, wide-open race awfully interesting.
