Who Owns the Outcome When Responsibility Is Shared?

Recent testimony before the Board of Supervisors highlighted a critical question: when responsibility is shared, who is accountable? When everyone is responsible, there is a danger that no one is accountable.

Parents shared their frustrations. Students shared their fears about getting injured while crossing without a crossing guard. Community members from all generations stood up to share why reinstating funding matters.

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Funding for crossing guards was reinstated hours before the testimonies. What took place before the public hearing opened my eyes to the biggest challenge facing communities. An issue larger than funding cuts and decisions that jeopardize student safety. A new form of abdicating responsibility: the hyper-focus on shared responsibility.

Shared responsibility can include when an elected official uses larger community issues to avoid taking responsibility for a decision in the moment.

In this situation, the Board of Supervisors cut funding for an instrumental safeguard in our community that parents and students rely on: High School crossing guards. The documents cited research instead of site-by-site data or traffic counts as the rationale for cutting High School Crossing guards at some of the most dangerous intersections in our community. Intersections that even police officers have voiced concerns about managing because of challenging rush-hour traffic.

Elected official after elected official veered the topic toward pedestrian safety countywide, without acknowledging the impact that the removal of crossing guards without concrete data had on their community. Several elected officials leaned into the idea of pedestrian safety countywide instead of simply acknowledging that a mistake was made.

One supervisor even went so far as to say, "We are all to blame," for the tragic incidents that have happened. Another tried to focus on those texting while driving and unsafe driving habits that create our unsafe crosswalks. While another said, " Well, that happened in Fairfax City, right? When referencing the 13-year-old boy who tragically lost his life while riding a bike. The 13-year-old was a Fairfax County Public Schools student.

The concept was pervasive: shared responsibility. A term repeated over and over again. A new form of abdicating responsibility: When those with the power to govern and set policy do not take responsibility for the outcome of their actions or inaction. Instead, they point to larger community issues or say their constituents also have a responsibility to ensure a specific outcome. Varied messages with the same underlying theme get repeated over and over: we need to drive more safely. We need to get off of our phones. We need to be educated drivers. We need to be educated pedestrians. The list goes on. While these truths do exist, we see Delegate Seibold championing these initiatives with her platform. We must take a moment to understand what the community needed inside that room on that day.

We also need to remember driver responsibility and institutional responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

Supervisor Rodney Lusk offered one of the clearest acknowledgments of the Board of Supervisors' own role.

"We need to take responsibility too for the things that we've done," he said.

That sentence matters.

He went on to say, "This is not about money," when mentioning budget cuts related to the crossing guards.

We understood loud and clear what he meant. This was about our students and their lives. Applause filled the room because the community felt seen, heard, and validated.

When you ask someone to trust your decisions, you also owe them the answers they ask for. Not only that, when you make a mistake, you have to take responsibility. Then you hold others at the table accountable. This is exactly what Supervisor Lusk did. His statements focused on both taking responsibility and holding his colleagues accountable.

That is why the actions of officials such as Lusk, Alcorn, and Meren are relevant to this discussion, not because elected officials should be divided into heroes and villains, but because residents should be able to see how their representatives responded at different stages of a consequential public decision.

The crossing guard funding was reinstated. Now comes the hard work. Make sure it's a permanent line item and hold people accountable for how we got here in the first place.

We need transparent criteria for decisions affecting student safety. We need the underlying data available before, not after, major decisions are made. We need better communication between our elected bodies. And we need officials willing to acknowledge their own institution's role when something goes wrong.

Because accountability isn't about finding someone to blame.

It's about making government better.

Changing course is important. Understanding why we had to change course is accountability. Public service requires both.

And when the decisions involve children walking to school, our standard should be especially high.

Our students shouldn't have to wait for a crisis before adults start asking the hard questions. Period.

My name is Joy Jiandani, and I am a candidate for Fairfax County School Board At-Large. My hope is to bring a new level of accountability to the School Board. If my message resonated with you, please follow me on Facebook & Instagram: Joy for Schools. Or if you'd like to support the movement, sign up to follow along at www.joy4schools.org.