Jane Strauss' Agenda After Winning a Tough Re-election Campaign

School Board member Jane Strauss won a new term Tuesday night in a squeaker of an election that pitted her against school advocate Louise Epstein whose pitch to the voters was that it’s time for a change.

Strauss, who has been on the school board for 18 years and currently is chairman of the board, won on a platform promising to deal with large class sizes and on her successful record for nearly two decades.

Strauss won 52 percent of the vote, or 13,122 votes, to Epstein’s 48 percent – 12,128 votes.

“I will make good on my promise to address unusually large class sizes,” Strauss told the McLean Patch the day after the election. “I do believe that for the people I represent, they are concerned about the increase in class size first.”

The bottom line: “We need to provide outstanding services to all families and all children,” she added.

Epstein, a long time parent advocate, said she hoped the new school board of 10 Democratic-backed members and two Republican-backed members will be open and accountable.

“The campaign helped inform the public about the way the school board was doing business,” she said. “I hope that the school members just elected follow through with their campaign promises over the next four years.”

This close race really doesn’t signal much change, according to Toni-Michelle Travis, professor of government and politics at George Mason University.

"It’s clear that this is a community that provides quality education and looks out for the interests and welfare of the students,"Travis said.

But Strauss “has to be very open to new ideas and other approaches to the issues on local school issues,” she added.

Stuart Mendelsohn, the Dranesville school board member from 1993 to '95 and Dranesville supervisor from 1996 to 2003, said the tough election got Strauss’s attention.

“She made the case that to replace her would be too risky for the school system,” Mendelsohn said. “The message always would be, 'We have a great school system. Don’t mess with it.'"

However, Mike Thompson, a Republican long active in school board issues, noted that Strauss won by a very small margin that should make her sit up and take note of changes in the community.

“When you’ve been there as long as she has and only win by 1,000 votes, hopefully she will be more attuned to her constituency. She’ll be a better school board member if she understands there are concerns out there that need to be looked at,” said Thompson, president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.