Hunter Mill’s Hynes Elected School Board Chair

Karen Goff July 10, 2015 at 9:30am

Pat Hynes, Hunter Mill representative to the Fairfax County School Board, was elected by chair of the board on Thursday.

Hynes was elected by the board for a one-year term. Sandy Evens (Mason District) was selected vice chair.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity,” said Hynes. “I enjoy working with [FCPS Superintendent Karen] Garza and my fellow board members.”

Hynes said challenges for the upcoming year include the budget (Garza has predicted a $100 million shortfall for 2016-17 unless cuts are made), school system’s strategic plan and the rollout of later high school start times.

Hynes, of Reston, was elected to the School Board in November 2011 and served as its vice chair in 2012. She is a former attorney who became a teacher, working in FCPS schools in Vienna and Reston 2002-11. She has worked as a teacher’s assistant in Loudoun County since being elected to the FCPS Board, but will take a leave of absence to focus on her new role as chair, she said.

She formerly served on the Superintendent’s Business and Community Advisory Committee and was a founding member of the Vienna Teen Center Foundation.

Hynes also served as PTA president at Louise Archer Elementary School and as president of the Malcolm-Windover Heights Civic Association and F.B. Meekins Cooperative Preschool.

Hynes earned her juris doctor degree from Vanderbilt University and her bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.

Hynes Evans, who was elected to the School Board in March 2010, is the former chair of the School Board’s School Health Advisory Committee and served on the Board’s Transportation Task Force. She is a member of the steering committee of the Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition; founding member of the Fairfax Education Coalition; and co-founder of Start Later for Excellence in Education Proposal (SLEEP).

Evans served as the legislation committee chair of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs and as president of the Sleepy Hollow Elementary School PTA. She is a former staff writer for the Washington Post. Evans earned her bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Maryland-College Park.