At 25 years old, Andrew Hoyler, the newly-appointed Loudoun County School Board member representing the Broad Run District, is the youngest serving member on the board. He was appointed to the seat on Oct. 12, less than two months after the death of his predecessor and one-time rival for the position, Leslee King.
Although he initially expressed shock at his appointment, Hoyler has long aspired to serve on the school board. He unsuccessfully campaigned for the seat in 2019, losing to King by about 3,000 votes in his district.
But with three younger siblings attending LCPS schools at the time of his first campaign, and two family members who are teachers, Hoyler said “the concerns and the issues that they were facing during COVID were still very real to me,” and motivated him to seek an appointment to the seat in September.
In an interview with the Times-Mirror on Wednesday, Hoyler laid out some of his background and experiences, his motivations for pursuing a seat on the school board and some of the initiatives he hopes to bring to fruition as a board member.
Loudoun origins
Hoyler attended LCPS schools for nearly his entire K-12 education, except for one year when he recalls his family moving to Clarke County. He and his family settled in Ashburn after that, where Hoyler attended Mill Run Elementary School, Eagle Ridge Middle School and Briar Woods High School.
He graduated from Briar Woods in 2014, and enrolled at Purdue University, where he pursued a professional flight major.
“My dream was always to be a commercial airline pilot,” Hoyler said. He stayed at Purdue teaching courses for a year after graduating in 2017, accruing enough instruction hours to be hired by a commercial airline. Hoyler is currently employed as a pilot, but he said the Federal Aviation Administration limits pilots to flying 100 hours per month.
“I recognize that my schedule and having all that time off, allow me the opportunity to give back my time to the community,” he said. “When I ran for school board, I recognized that my schedule would give me the opportunity to be very engaged in our schools and continue to be engaged in the community.” Hoyler added that serving on the school board seemed like a perfect next step.
Running for school board
As the eldest of five children, Hoyler said that upon moving back to Virginia after completing his aviation studies, “I recognized a lot of the same concerns and issues that I saw as a student are so prevalent in our schools today. And so, I felt that I had … almost a calling to use my firsthand experiences to try to better the lives of not only my siblings, but all of our students in LCPS.”
He recalled struggling with his mental health while growing up in the Loudoun school system. At times, Hoyler recalled having “written my goodbye letters to my family,” and being “ready to end my life.”
Schools need to perform better when it comes to helping students deal with negative stressors in their lives, according to Hoyler. He said school counselors at the middle and high school levels are often too busy preparing students for success in college rather than tending to their mental health. Hoyler added that “not all [administrative] policies are followed at the school level” when it comes to dealing with bullying and harassment issues.
In 2019, Hoyler recalls running for school board and being “in a bit over my head. I was running a campaign by myself as a 23-year-old — I didn’t have any party support.” He said that while he had mentors in the community, “I really ran that campaign start to finish … on my own.”
While not having volunteers help campaign was difficult, Hoyler said doing the legwork himself allowed him to “meet so many amazing individuals throughout our community who were able to share with me their own raw stories and experiences, both as a parent and as a student. And I felt that I was able to really connect with parents more that way.”
Even after his loss in that 2019 race, Hoyler said he and King maintained an amicable relationship.
“She was always nothing but kind to me,” he said of King. “She wanted me to be an active part of her term as a school board member, because she knew how deeply I cared about many of these issues — specifically around mental health.”
Tenure as a board member
Although he’s served on the Loudoun school board for only two weeks, Hoyler said it’s been an intense experience.
He said he — along with other school board members and their families — have received violent threats from angry constituents over the board’s handling of issues including mask and vaccine mandates, critical race theory, and, especially, reports of two sexual assaults involving the same student suspect at different LCPS high schools in Ashburn.
“I’m being lumped in with a lot of the frustration that has been brewing for a very long time,” Hoyler said. “I’m getting the exact same threats that a lot of the board members who have been on the board for the full almost two years now have been getting.”
Shortly before Hoyler’s appointment, LCPS superintendent Scott Ziegler instituted a vaccine mandate for student athletes.
“I understand the parents’ concern about athletes being singled out — especially with a brand-new vaccine,” Hoyler said. “So, I can’t say that I support that mandate.” But he recognized masks as an essential component in keeping children in schools while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
On critical race theory, Hoyler said he has not done sufficient research into parents’ concerns on the subject, but that he “can understand many of these concerns. At the end of the day, I believe that it is not the school’s responsibility to teach morality to students. I believe that is the role of parents and guardians at home.”
The alleged sexual assaults at Stone Bridge and Broad Run high schools have dominated the early stages of Hoyler’s term, and he said he supports an independent investigation into whether LCPS followed proper policies and procedures in its handling of the incidents.
“I hear all the calls to remove Dr. Ziegler,” he said. “And I’d say right now I’m not at that point. Because I truly don’t have all the details that I need to have to make a data driven decision ... I need to ensure that I’m voting based on data and the truth and not just emotion.”
While his first-ever vote on the school board was against a proclamation recognizing October as LGBTQ History month, Hoyler said he in fact identifies as a member of the LGBT community, having come out publicly during his senior year of high school.
“It’s not something that I broadcast openly because I don’t want people making assumptions on where I stand on certain issues solely on that,” he said. “We really need to focus on our actionable items to make a difference for the groups that are focused in the proclamations and so I will not be supporting any proclamation, regardless of the topic for the foreseeable future.”
Hoyler faces reelection for the school board seat next year in a special election.
(1) comment
Nothing alleged, Found guilty, time to get off the fence put on your big boy pants democrats are the enemy of children!
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