Francis Jacobson for School Board
Leadership for Newport News Schools
Francis Jacobson is a candidate for School Board Member At Large focused on clear communication, community trust, and student-centered leadership. Explore campaign priorities, experience, and voter information.
About
WHY I AM RUNNING
I am running for School Board because I believe every child deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed in an environment that is safe, supportive, and inspiring. This is not a campaign built on ambition. It is built on urgency — the urgency of a parent who understands what a great school can unlock in a child, and the urgency of a public servant who has seen, up close, what happens to communities when their schools fall short. I have spent my career in community development, crisis resolution, and public service. I have seen what investment in children produces, and I have seen what neglect costs.
My vision rests on three principles that are not slogans — they are commitments backed by specific action, and accountable to every family in this city. Applied to our schools with intention and honest leadership, they become a roadmap for a Newport News that every child is proud to grow up in.
A Vision for Newport News Schools
Francis Jacobson’s vision is built around three clear commitments: Protect, Promote, and Prepare — creating schools where every student feels safe, supported, inspired, and ready for life beyond graduation.
01
PROTECT
A child who does not feel safe cannot learn. Full stop.
Safety is not a prerequisite to education: it is the foundation of it. A child who walks into school afraid of the hallway, the lunchroom, or even the classroom is a child whose brain is in survival mode, not learning mode. Every policy decision, every budget line, every administrative choice must begin with the same question: does this make our students safer, more secure, and more seen? If the answer is no, we go back to the drawing board.
AS YOUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER, I WILL:
1. Strengthen School Safety Infrastructure: Advocate for evidence-based safety policies that address threats before they escalate, not in response to tragedy, but in anticipation of it. Safe schools are built proactively, not reactively.
2. Eliminate Bullying and Peer-on-peer Harm: Bullying is not a rite of passage, it is a leadership failure. I will push for comprehensive, consistently enforced anti-bullying policies with real accountability — not just zero-tolerance language that disappears in practice.
3. Protect Our Most Vulnerable Students: Students with disabilities, students from low-income households, students navigating trauma, and students from marginalized communities deserve active protection of their right to be fully included in it.
4. Guarantee Equal Access Regardless of Background: A child’s zip code, income level, or family circumstance must never determine the quality of education they receive. I will challenge every policy and practice that allows inequity to persist quietly within our system.
Students learn best when they feel safe, valued, and unconditionally respected. That is not an aspiration. It is non-negotiable.
02
PROMOTE
Good enough has never built anything great.
Great schools do not simply deliver education, they ignite it. There is a profound difference between a student who sits in a classroom and a student who is lit up by what they are learning. Our schools should be filled with the latter. That requires educators who are inspired themselves, curricula that challenge and excite, programs that connect learning to real life, and a school culture that celebrates intellectual curiosity as enthusiastically as it celebrates athletic achievement.
AS YOUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER, I WILL:
1. Champion Innovation in Teaching and Learning: The world our students will graduate into looks nothing like the one our current curriculum was designed for. I will advocate for learning models that develop critical thinking, adaptability, and creativity.
2. Invest in and Fiercely Support Our Teachers: Teacher burnout is not a personal failing, it is a systemic one. Educators who feel unsupported, underpaid, and undervalued leave, and they take irreplaceable expertise with them. I will fight for competitive compensation, manageable workloads, genuine professional development, and the respect every educator in Newport News has earned.
3. Build a Culture of Recognized Achievement: What a school celebrates, it cultivates. We must create visible, meaningful systems of recognition for academic growth, creative excellence, service leadership, and the quiet, persistent effort of students who improve every single day.
4. Deep Community and Business Partnerships: The classroom is not the only place learning happens. Strategic partnerships with Newport News businesses, universities, faith institutions, and civic organizations expand the educational ecosystem beyond the school walls, and show students that their community has a stake in their success.
A school that merely educates produces graduates. A school that inspires produces leaders. Newport News needs both.
03
PREPARE
Graduation is a beginning, not a finish line.
The question every school system must honestly ask itself is this: when our students walk across the graduation stage and the applause fades, are they ready? Not just academically. Not just technically. Are they ready for the complexity, the setbacks, the decisions, and the opportunities that life will place in front of them? Our responsibility does not end at the diploma. It ends when that young person has what they need to build a life of their own choosing.
AS YOUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER, I WILL:
1. Expand pathways for Every Student’s Future: College is one road, it is not the only one. I will advocate for robust, fully resourced pathways into career and technical education, military service, skilled trades, entrepreneurship, and direct workforce entry — each treated with equal dignity and equal investment.
2. Build Real-world Career Readiness into the Curriculum: Financial literacy. Professional communication. Problem-solving under pressure. These are not electives, they are survival skills. Our graduates should possess them regardless of which path they choose after Newport News.
3. Create Mentorship Pipelines between Students and Professionals: Every student deserves an adult outside their family who believes in their potential and can see their future when they cannot yet see it themselves. Structured mentorship with local professionals, alumni, and community leaders is one of the most powerful interventions education research consistently supports.
4. Develop Character alongside Credentials: Character determines what happens once you walk through them. I will support intentional programs that develop integrity, accountability, resilience, and civic responsibility, because the world does not just need skilled graduates from Newport News, it needs good ones.
Every student who leaves Newport News Public Schools should carry with them the knowledge, skills, character, and confidence to build a life worth living and contribute to a city worth living in.
VISION
To lead Newport News Public Schools with accountability, urgency, and care — protecting every student’s safety, demanding excellence in every classroom, investing in every teacher, and partnering with families and community so that no child’s potential is lost to circumstances beyond their control.
MISSION
To lead Newport News Public Schools with accountability, urgency, and care — protecting every student’s safety, demanding excellence in every classroom, investing in every teacher, and partnering with families and community so that no child’s potential is lost to circumstances beyond their control.
VISION FOR NEWPORT NEWS PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Every child who walks into a Newport News school carries within them an unrealized future. Our job, my commitment, is to ensure that nothing about our system stands between that child and who they are capable of becoming.
To lead Newport News Public Schools with accountability, urgency, and care — protecting every student’s safety, demanding excellence in every classroom, investing in every teacher, and partnering with families and community so that no child’s potential is lost to circumstances beyond their control.
A CONVICTION BORN FROM SERVICE
Through my work in community development, public service, and as a United Nations Certified Crisis Resolution Specialist supporting initiatives aligned with the Millennium Development Goals, I have seen a consistent truth: the strongest investment any community can make in its future is the education of its children.
Education is more than academic achievement. It is the foundation upon which character is built, values are formed, and futures are shaped. When schools successfully educate the whole child, academically, socially, and ethically, they help develop responsible citizens, strong leaders, productive workers, and engaged members of the community.
SCHOOLS THAT REFUSE TO LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND
My vision for Newport News Public Schools is to create an educational environment where every student has access to quality learning, safe schools, caring educators, and opportunities to reach their fullest potential. While many students are thriving, challenges such as bullying, classroom disruptions, unequal access to opportunities, declining student engagement, and teacher burnout continue to impact educational outcomes. These challenges require practical solutions and strong leadership.
As a School Board member, I will advocate for stronger measures that protect students from bullying and discrimination, support teachers with the resources they need to succeed, encourage greater parental involvement, and expand programs that prepare students for college, careers, entrepreneurship, and life beyond graduation. I also believe every child deserves a learning environment that promotes respect, accountability, discipline, and personal growth.
Investing in academic excellence and character development is therefore not idealism. It is the most practical, evidence-based strategy we have for building a safer, stronger, and more prosperous Newport News. We cannot police our way to safety if we are not educating our way to opportunity. The children in our schools today are the neighbors, leaders, voters, and caregivers of our tomorrow. Who they become is, in part, on us.
I am not running for School Board to hold a seat. I am running to use it purposefully, urgently, and on behalf of every child in Newport News who deserves an education system as serious about their future as they are
Connect With Francis
Have a question, want to learn more Jacobson. Francis believes strong schools are built through meaningful partnerships with families, educators, and the community.