Superintendent's Arrest Tinges Board Race

Sheryl K. Gorsuch, also running in the east, said most voters have told her they would like to move on. "They are more inclined to judge the superintendent on her results," she said. "In the last five years, we went from two schools accredited to 14 out of 16 schools accredited."

Most outgoing board members have cited personal demands from work or family as reasons for stepping down. But member Sally Ann Baynard added that "the majority of the board was hammered from without by misinformed people and undermined from within by those with hidden agendas that did not include the welfare of our students."

Last month, three board members who supported Perry and are leaving published an open letter in The Washington Post, advising the incoming board to be humble and straight-talking and warning that "personnel matters are explosive."

"I think we were concerned about some of the things that were being said by some candidates," said Mark Wilkoff, one of the three. "A lot of the criticism was simply untrue -- that we hadn't made progress, that nothing was being done in the schools."

Perry would not comment for this article.

Gwen Lewis, one of two dissenting votes on Perry's contract renewal, said she might run again in the future and added that she hoped the new board would "understand that they have one employee, and that's the superintendent, and to not get so close [to her] that they can't be objective."

The one board member running for reelection, Charles H. Wilson, said he had planned to leave until he realized that everyone else was.

"I feel an awesome sense of responsibility," said Wilson, from western Alexandria. "I feel I am a sort of corporate memory, a voice of reason."

Wilson said he worried that some candidates were running on a single issue, which could lead to another generation of board infighting. "When someone comes on the board with an ax to grind," he said, "we lose our focus."