Julie Doyle's time at helm of Lynchburg School Board has had highs and lows

During her last meeting as Lynchburg School Board chairwoman, Julie Doyle dubbed herself the unlikely candidate.

The Oregon native, who grew up attending Catholic schools, applied for the board as a way to become more involved in a school division she felt passionately about — not fully knowing what she was getting into.

Now, nine years later, her peers and colleagues know her as a graceful leader, who in recent months led the board through the most turbulent budget season in recent memory. Her poise during that trying time is what officials have come to expect after almost a decade of service.

“I would definitely say it was very difficult,” Doyle said of the last year, when the division faced troubling finances. “If I had a choice I wouldn’t want my last six months on the board to be taken up with those controversies because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

In December, officials had looked toward the impending budget cycle with unease as the state projected a massive shortfall.

Then the division became embroiled in its own budget woes as a city audit revealed a $440,000 deficit that school officials were unaware of until six months after the fiscal year ended. Doyle kept her cool in school board meetings and City Council sessions while city leadership peppered her with questions.

Doyle, who has been the board chair since 2004, has led the division through many budget cycles, although few could be characterized as the dire straits the system was in this year. She has also been at the division’s helm through a

superintendent search, the implementation of uniforms at some schools and a major school renovation.

She is hesitant to name specific accomplishments under her leadership, saying the division has made steady progress but still has a way to go with its achievement gap.

Still, as Doyle prepares to depart, the division recently announced all 16 of its schools will be fully accredited for the first time in years, some of the system’s alternative education programs will finally have a new home and the budget is on track as officials look to close out the fiscal year.

Doyle, by all accounts, has left an indelible mark on the city schools. She has served the maximum of three terms and officially steps down at the end of the month.

Sitting down recently to recount her board tenure, Doyle recalled that her time on the board started with controversy. At her second meeting, a discussion about censoring a biology textbook erupted.

The censorship debate, which eventually landed two school board members on “The Today Show,” involved whether to remove or black out a page of the textbook with an illustration of female genitalia. The board initially approved the book with the removal of the picture and later reversed its decision after a public outcry.

Doyle, who first voted to approve the textbook, saw that motion die. Faced with the compromise of approving the book with the illustration omitted, she OK’d it because the course was ready to start and there was no book.

“It was a real learning experience. I should have voted my conscience on it,” she said, noting the board later overturned the decision to censor the book. “There are times when you need to say, ‘you know, we made a mistake and we need to correct it and forge ahead.’”

As Doyle grew into her role, she was charged with what she identified as one of the board’s most important responsibilities — choosing a superintendent. Former Superintendent James McCormick resigned in December 2004, and two months later the board named former Deputy Superintendent Paul McKendrick to the post.

Doyle is the only school board chair McKendrick has worked with as superintendent. He said her knowledge and expertise will be missed.

“I would say if all my experiences are going to be like this it’s going to be wonderful,” he said. “She was very good. She was always up on the reading and knew the issues.”

Doyle’s preparation and devotion to detail are things board Vice Chair Tom Webb, who presented Doyle with a single red rose at her last meeting, will miss as the board moves forward without her next month. Webb has been Doyle’s vice chair for four of the past five years.

“She showed just magnificent leadership keeping us on task, soliciting information, making sure we were paying attention to all our information from teachers and parents,” Webb said.

As a parent herself, Doyle was able to bring an important perspective to the board. All three of her children moved through the school system while she was on the board.

“My daughter Maggie, who is 11, has never spent a day in the schools where I wasn’t vice chair or chair of the school board,” Doyle said.

Maggie will attend Linkhorne Middle School next year, just like her older sister Sarah did years before. Like Sarah, Maggie will wear a uniform, a policy instituted in 2004 under Doyle’s supervision.

At the time, Sarah was going into seventh grade and had already attended a year of middle school without uniforms.

“She was not happy about that,” Doyle said of her daughter, who is now a rising senior at E.C. Glass High School.

Doyle, who moved here with her family in 1993 from Northern Virginia, had two children attending city schools when she applied for the board. She had recently decided to stay at home with them after working for 10 years at Honeywell as an education account executive.

She later went back to work at the Education and Research Foundation. Doyle has a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from George Washington University.

When she and her husband Peter, a Lynchburg native, made the move to the Hill City, a family friend had insisted they check out the public schools. Doyle, never having attended a public school, got involved by serving on boards and PTAs.

Former school board member Paul Fitzgerald, a family friend, was vocal about the strength of Lynchburg City Schools. For him, Doyle was always a contender for the board.

“I think when she came here, it was obvious meeting her,” Fitzgerald said. “She had all the attributes of someone you’d like to see involved in the school board.”

As he’s watched from the sidelines, Fitzgerald said he has been proud of Doyle’s action on the board, and impressed.

For Doyle, who admitted maybe she wasn’t such an unlikely candidate after all, her time on the board has been marked by ups and downs. In the end, though, she’s thankful for the opportunity.

“It is such an honor to be allowed to serve in this role,” she said. “People say to me, ‘it’s a thankless job,’ and I don’t believe it’s a thankless job. I do believe people appreciate people who serve in this role.”