Teachers and support staff inside the Waynesboro Public Schools system think the Waynesboro School Board is rushing to hire Ryan Barber, the current assistant superintendent, to replace Jeffrey Cassell, who has served as superintendent since 2013, before Cassell’s retirement becomes effective on Dec. 31.
From what I’m being told by those on the inside, a move to hire from within, without any corresponding changes to what some perceive to be a hopelessly toxic workplace culture, could lead to a “mass exodus” of talent.
“God forbid, if Barber gets the job, you are going to see a mass exodus from the school system. I know many teachers who are already planning their exit and preparing their materials to apply in neighboring counties,” one teacher told us.
Caveat
Just to be clear here at the jump, this isn’t a one-man crusade on my part to get at Ryan Barber.
I don’t know Mr. Barber personally, don’t have any burned bridges with him, that I’m aware of.
I’m trying to walk a tightrope here to try to tell this story, about where it seems to me, based on what I know, where things need to go with our Waynesboro Public Schools system, with as much sensitivity toward trying to be fair as possible.
Like a lot of folks here in Waynesboro, I want what’s best for our school system, and ultimately, our kids.
And, let’s just say it directly, based on what I’ve come to know, man, I got concerns.
Background
The issues with the pending hiring decision by the School Board were first laid out to me in the spring, actually ahead of Cassell announcing in July that he was planning to step down at the end of the calendar year.
There were already rumblings that a change in command was coming, and that it was going to be an inside job.
Anecdotal stories about toxicity in the school system that have been circulating the past few years already had our attention.
The announcement that Cassell was stepping down, meaning, we were getting a chance at a do-over, got me to start paying more attention to the status quo in the school system, in terms of the measurables.
I’m a numbers guy at heart, as anybody who reads my in-depth analyses in our sports section knows, so my focus, at the outset, was to get a feel for how our schools are doing data-wise.
The answer there, from the data: not good.
Inside the numbers
I’ve reported this first set of data, from the Virginia Department of Education, previously, so if you’ve seen it already, I think it bears repeating, for those who haven’t.
VDOE evaluates K-12 schools in the Commonwealth using a four-tier system that assesses student mastery, academic growth, readiness and graduation rates.
The system assigns one of the following ratings to a school:
- Distinguished: Exceeds expectations
- On Track: Meets expectations
- Off Track: Does not meet expectations
- Needs Intensive Support: Significantly below expectations
The bad news for Waynesboro:
- Westwood Hills Elementary and Kate Collins Middle School rate as Needs Intensive Support.
- Our other schools – Berkeley Glenn Elementary, Wenonah Elementary, William Perry Elementary, and then Waynesboro High School, are all Off Track.
Relative to our neighbors:
- Augusta County: Four of the county’s five high schools are Distinguished, the other is On Track; three of the five middle schools are On Track, the other two are Off Track; one of the nine elementary schools is On Track, with five Off Track and three Needs Intensive Support.
- Staunton: The high school and McSwain Elementary are Distinguished; Bessie Weller Elementary is On Track; Ware Elementary is Off Track; the middle school Needs Intensive Support.
We got our second stinging set of numbers from VDOE last month, from Standards of Learning assessments taken by Virginia students during the 2025-2026 school year.
I’ve also already reported on this, but again, I want us all to be on the same page.
Statewide, the data show small increases in proficiency from the prior school year, 0.4 percentage points in math and 0.4 points in reading, that were shared broadly across local school divisions, grade level tests and student groups.
Here are the passing grade numbers for Waynesboro for 2025-2026:
| English: Reading | 64.48 |
| English: Writing | 51.94 |
| History and Social Science | 62.60 |
| Mathematics | 57.59 |
| Science | 62.37 |
Now, to the 2024-2025 numbers:
| English: Reading | 60.99 |
| English: Writing | 55.40 |
| History and Social Science | 57.20 |
| Mathematics | 58.85 |
| Science | 53.17 |
Analysis: more kids passed the English: Reading test in the 2025-2026 school year, but the increase there was offset by the decrease in the number of our kids who passed the English: Writing test.
History and social science passing scores were up, mathematics was down.
Here are the statewide numbers for 2025-2026:
| English: Reading | 74.45 |
| English: Writing | 75.51 |
| History and Social Science | 69.60 |
| Mathematics | 72.91 |
| Science | 70.90 |
We are way behind the statewide trend.
Now, relative to our local peers (numbers for the 2025-2026 school year):
Staunton
| English: Reading | 77.32 |
| English: Writing | 86.71 |
| History and Social Science | 61.00 |
| Mathematics | 75.81 |
| Science | 74.16 |
Augusta County
| English: Reading | 69.97 |
| English: Writing | 51.61 |
| History and Social Science | 71.85 |
| Mathematics | 70.14 |
| Science | 70.99 |
As I’ve written recently, it’s not that our school system has been underfunded, vis-à-vis our neighbors.
Each of our three localities here gets in the vicinity of 35 percent of its annual budget from local tax dollars.
Staunton commits a little bit more in local tax dollars per student – about 3.9 percent more than Waynesboro in the 2025-2026 school year, per my quick math.
But then, Waynesboro commits 15.6 percent more in local tax dollars per student than Augusta County does.
We’re not getting the bang for our bucks here in Waynesboro.
The rest of the story
The data tell an important part to this story, about what we need to do, with regard to the effort to hire a new superintendent.
I’ve used this analogy before – if the football coach is stepping down after years of posting losing records, you don’t hire one of his top assistants to replace him, because the top assistant is part of the reason for the losing records.
The other part to this story, and this is where I’m treading lightly, is, the sense from within that it’s not just the years of losing records on the field that’s at issue here.
At last count, 20 current teachers have reached out to us in recent weeks to share specific concerns about the status quo inside Waynesboro Public Schools.
Here’s a sampling of their comments:
- “Don’t get me wrong. There are some wonderful people at WPS. But most of those at the top are making each day here a struggle to want to even continue. Over 90 new employees this year should tell you everything you need to know.”
- “I have worked under other school divisions’ superintendents who have made themselves readily available to hear staff concerns, have honest discussions, and make frequent visits to each building in an effort to truly know and understand students and school employees. Currently, many WPS teachers feel as though our input is not valued or our concerns taken seriously.”
- “We’re told to ‘do more with less’ every single year. At some point ‘less’ becomes ‘nothing,’ and you’re just improvising.”
- “We’re expected to be therapists, security guards, and miracle workers with a budget that wouldn’t cover a decent field trip.”
- “Some mornings, I sit in my car in the parking lot and have to talk myself into walking inside. Nobody should dread a building full of kids they love teaching.”
- “You learn to smile in meetings and vent in your car afterward. That’s survival here. Say nothing, feel everything, tell no one.”
- “Part of the problem is central office. Most of them are just one big, unqualified clique. People overseeing programs they have no business overseeing, having not even served in roles that would make them remotely qualified. It’s really, really concerning.”
- “I used to think speaking up made you brave. Now I know it just makes you a target. So, I stay quiet, and I hate what that’s turned me into.”
- “I can count the number of people that left the schools this past summer on two hands because they feared the direction things were headed and the lack of proper leadership from administration. These are great educators. Our loss is somebody else’s gain.”
- “I’ve watched good teachers, the kind who actually change kids’ lives, walk out the door for good. We are bleeding talent.”
- “I recognize COVID did a lot of damage; kids aren’t at the level that they are used to, but those are reasons why we must fight harder to serve our kids. It all starts at the top, and at the top, we have somebody that many teachers fear, that admin suck up to, and I worry about what the school system will look like. We need an outside leader to turn this around.”
Culture matters!
The workplace culture in any organization plays a role in setting the tone for the day-to-day.
With respect to Waynesboro Public Schools, it’s not hard to see that having a staff that feels that they’re not being treated well or listened to, that they’re not being given the resources they need, would end up coming across in the data from the VDOE.
It’s almost like the central office folks need to watch “Ted Lasso” for ideas on team-building, and invite everybody out to the pub for trivia night, to try to work around the cliquishness that seems to be pervasive.
This would be where hiring somebody from the outside would be a good thing, because a new superintendent wouldn’t come in with any baggage or history, and at a base level, she or he would have to make the rounds of the six schools to shake hands, get acquainted, and invite teachers and support staff to drop by the office on the top of the hill for a cup of coffee and a chat sometime soon.
If Ryan Barber is, indeed, the top internal candidate, he could, of course, make a similar effort, which on his part would have to include offerings of contrition, because there is baggage and history there, as should be evident, based on my reporting here.
The bottom line
Whatever ends up happening, I think it’s clear that we can’t just continue with business as usual.
The data tell us that our schools are failing, and the comments from teachers and staff that have made their way to us tell us why our schools are failing.
Change can certainly come with an internal candidate, as long as that internal candidate recognizes that the way things have been done here for years hasn’t worked, and is willing and able to steer the ship in the right direction.
I personally think we’re better off starting over from scratch, out of concern that expecting somebody from the inside to be able to turn the ship around is actually just us failing to apply the classic definition of insanity – doing the same thing that we’ve always done, and just expecting a different result.
Contact the Waynesboro School Board
- Debra Freeman: [email protected]
- Amber Lipscomb: [email protected]
- Erika Smith: [email protected]
- Nigel Stewart: [email protected]
- Diana Williams: [email protected]
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Chris Graham
