Music Spotlight: Mark Taylor

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Rising Nashville artist and Maryland native Mark Taylor has had a guitar in his hand since he was two years old and has never looked back.

“My dad was/is a huge influence on my music career. He paid his way through college playing cover gigs in bars. By the time I was two years old, I was playing nonsense chords on a little guitar. By the time I was six and seven, I was playing in his band with a bunch of his friends,” he said. 

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Parents, School Board Member Ask Courts to Review Decisions Around Hiring of Spotsylvania Superintendent

Two legal efforts are challenging the Spotsylvania School Board’s decision to hire former Greene County Administrator Mark Taylor as superintendent. Two district parents are asking the Spotsylvania Circuit Court to review that decision, seeking an injunction block Taylor’s appointment, and school board member Nicole Cole is appealing the Virginia Board of Education’s (VBOE) decision to license Taylor as a superintendent, according to WJLA.

“We intend to show under that code that the actions of the Spotsylvania County School Board were both capricious and an abuse of discretion in direct violation of  Va. Code Section 22.1-87,” plaintiffs Jeffrey Glazer and Christina Ramos said in their petition against the school board.

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Virginia Board of Education Certifies Spotsylvania Superintendent Candidate

The Virginia Board of Education (BOE) voted six to two to certify Mark Taylor, allowing him to be appointed by the Spotsylvania School Board as superintendent.

Taylor’s opponents criticized his close ties to new board Chair Kirk Twigg, racial Facebook posts allegedly made by Taylor, and his application for licensure which didn’t include relevant experience as an educator, instead seeking to qualify under an option for candidates with a master’s degree, three years of experience in a senior leadership position, and a recommendation from a school board.

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Battle over Spotsylvania Superintendent Spills into Virginia Board of Education Meeting

RICHMOND, Virginia – The Virginia Board of Education postponed certifying Greene County Administrator Mark Taylor for Spotsylvania County supervisor in its August 17 meeting after parents and school board members offered public comments criticizing Taylor’s qualifications and his ties to school board chair Kirk Twigg. School board member and former chair Dawn Shelley said Taylor hadn’t received a recommendation from the school board, which hadn’t voted in public meeting to select Taylor out of the two finalists.

“Whatever the Department of Education received from the chairman of the Spotsylvania school board was fraudulent. The application was incomplete,” Shelley told the BOE.

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