As the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. feted impactful Black women during Monday’s meeting of the Caroline County School Board, Reedy Church District representative JoWanda Rollins-Fells beamed with pride.
The sorority’s presentation, held in honor of Black History Month, gave Rollins-Fells an opportunity to reflect on the makeup of the current Caroline School Board, which includes four Black representatives — making it the only governing body in the Fredericksburg area with minorities in the majority.
“I think sometimes I’m so busy doing the work of the work that I don’t pick my head up and look around,” Rollins-Fells said. “But then to hear [historian] Cleo Coleman and [civil rights activist] Linda Thomas and people that you know have been making generational legacy impact and to hear your name in the same context, was really humbling. So that was a moment where I paused and looked to my left and my right. I had that same pride looking at our board — not just the minorities but everybody on the board.”
Rollins-Fells, the president of the Virginia School Boards Association, is the longest-serving member of the Caroline board. She was elected in 2014 and started her 10th year of service last month.
She is the only Black woman to serve as an elected official in the county in the past 10 years.
She’s surrounded on the school board by Chair Calvin Taylor (Port Royal District), Vice Chair Lydell Fortune (Mattaponi District) and Michael Hubbard (Bowling Green), giving Caroline a Black majority on the school board for the first time in the county’s history.
The board of supervisors had a Black majority from 1992-96 with Taylor, Floyd Thomas and Philip Atkins serving on a five-person board, and from 1996-2000 after Atkins was replaced by Luther Morris.
Each of the Black representatives on the school board said despite the commonality of their race, they are not monolithic and bring various perspectives to the table.
“We’ve got a wealth of experience and knowledge that sits on the board, and I’d like to think we complement each other from time to time,” Hubbard said. “It doesn’t mean we’re singing ‘Kumbaya’ all the time, but that’s what makes an organization strong.
“While we may be African Americans, we are all in the service of Caroline County whether it’s Black, white, Hispanic or Asian. We are here to represent the best interest of the Caroline County family.”
Still, it’s not lost on Hubbard that three of the representatives are Black males. There is only one other Black man serving on a school board in the region — Jarvis Bailey in Fredericksburg.
Hubbard, Fortune and Taylor said their representation is significant because it can dismantle stereotypes and give Black youth positive examples to follow.
“When I’m on the school board I want to do what’s best for children,” Taylor said. “So, in that sense [representation] may not make a difference. But in the other sense, I think it does because young people need to see people that look like them.
“And I think we need to understand, that especially with African American males, all of us are not drug dealers, all of us are not in jail, all of us are not men that do not take care of their children. They need to see that we are people of character, people of dignity and that there is an opportunity for them as well.”
Taylor, Rollins-Fells and Fortune are county natives. Taylor worked in CCPS for 33 years (18 as an administrator and 15 as a teacher). Rollins-Fells was an elementary school teacher in the county for 15 years. Fortune is a former member of the Germanna Community College Board, former president of the Caroline NAACP and worked as a human resource professional in education.
Hubbard holds a doctorate in education with a focus on learning and organizational change from Baylor University and is the executive director of the University of Mary Washington Dahlgren Center for Education and Research. The retired Marine moved to Bowling Green four years ago; in 2023, he became the first Black person to represent the district on the school board.
“After serving nearly three decades in the Marine Corps, I retired and chose to come to Caroline County,” said Hubbard, a Lynchburg native. “Why? Because of what Caroline County exudes. It’s family here.”
Fortune said the board has not experienced any hostility because of its makeup. The members are well aware of school board unrest in surrounding counties for various reasons, including in Spotsylvania, Hanover and King George, but thus far has been unaffected by similar issues.
“We rely on our governance norms, and we’ve had intentional conversations about those things,” Rollins-Fells said. “We hold each other accountable.”
Prior to Hubbard, Fortune and Allison Sears of the Western Caroline District joining the board in 2024, the Caroline board was recognized as a Master Board, Board of the Year and a Board of Distinction by the VSBA.
Rollins-Fells said the board’s diverse background and practical experience is a “superpower” because “we understand what happens in the trenches, in the classroom.”
“I’m very happy with the fact that I believe this board is well-equipped to handle the challenges of the future,” Fortune said. “The diversity is not only symbolic, I think it puts us in a great position to craft policy that not only benefits our minority students, but all our students throughout the county.”
