Sarah Ortego is a candidate for James City County School Board – Jamestown. Her name will appear on the November 4, 2025 General Election ballot. Ortego, the incumbent, is running against S. T. “Ty” Hodges.
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10 On Your Side reached out to all of the candidates running in this race, with a request for a bio and a list of questions to answer. The bio is unedited; this is what the candidate submitted. If you do not see the candidate listed with a profile, we did not receive one.
Name: Sarah Ortego
Age: 44
Website: https://sarahortego4schoolboard.com/
Party: N/A
Biography
Sarah Ortego has been the School Board member for the Jamestown District since she was elected in 2021. She is currently serving her second consecutive term as board chair.
Throughout her first term Sarah has served on the Career and Technical Education Committee and the Student Advisory Committee, and she is currently serving on the Policy Committee and on the School Liaison Committee, working closely with members of the James City County Board of Supervisors and the Williamsburg City Council.
As chair, she has led the School Board and the division with a steady hand through a great deal of change, including the near-complete turn-over of the School Board and the hiring of a new superintendent. She has also been participating in negotiations between James City County and the City of Williamsburg regarding the future of the school division.
Through her leadership, Sarah has ensured that diverse opinions are heard and respected while demonstrating a commitment to productive collaboration, consensus building, and keeping students’ best interests at the forefront of every decision.
Sarah is the mother of three and has the experience of being a parent of an elementary, middle, and high school student in WJCC schools. Throughout the years, she has been a member of PTAs and has volunteered in her children’s classrooms.
An avid supporter of the arts, Sarah sits on the board of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. She also volunteers her time to serve as a CASA, or Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children, and she is active in her church.
Prior to moving to Williamsburg, Sarah lived and worked in Washington, D.C. for many years, having held positions on Capitol Hill, at the White House, and at the Department of State, and subsequently as a strategic communications consultant at a large consulting firm in Northern Virginia. Sarah holds a B.A. in Government from Smith College and a master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.
Sarah is a proven leader, skilled in good governance with budgetary and policy experience, and a laser-focus on academic achievement and student-centered decision making.
Why are you running for office?
I am running for re-election to the Williamsburg-James City County school board because I want to build on the work we’ve done over the past four years and help ensure that WJCC schools is a premier school division. We have made a lot of progress over the course of my first term, especially given the necessary recovery from pandemic-induced learning loss, but there is still much to do. I want to make sure every student receives the highest quality education possible while making fiscally sound and long-term strategic decisions that contribute the future success of our schools and our community as a whole.
If you are elected, what will be your top priority in office?
My top priority will continue to be raising standards for academic achievement and career readiness and enhancing the learning experience for all students. This encompasses a number of factors such as raising teacher and staff compensation to recruit and then retain the very best; adding support staff who can help with classroom management and provide aid to teachers and students in a variety of ways; using data to identify, understand, and mitigate achievement gaps wherever prevalent; expanding CTE and vocational options for students in our area; expanding partnerships with local businesses and community organizations; and continuing to ensure transparency and accountably at all levels of our school system.
Do you believe partisan politics have a place in schools?
Schools and school boards are not the same thing. School boards are designed to be a forum for discussion and debate during the decision-making process. Occasional disagreement is a fact of life in a free society and is not inherently bad. Each school board member comes to the table with any number of individual ideas, values, and beliefs based on their own life experience and philosophy on education. What is most important is how a school board manages to conduct healthy, respectful (even if rigorous) debate, listen to differing opinions, and still come together to make decisions that are in the best interests of students and staff. If a school board does its work properly and effectively, there is no need for partisan politics to reach into schools. At the end of the day, maintaining a focus on keeping children safe, ensuring high quality education that prepares our children for a successful future, paying teachers and staff competitive salaries, and providing resources to meet the individual needs of students should bring us together, not divide us.
What say should parents have in the curriculum taught to their child?
The best scenario for student success is when the student, the parent(s)/guardian(s), and the teacher(s) work together as a team with transparency and trust. Parents/guardians should be able to trust that they know what their child is learning, and they should be able to trust that the curriculum content will be factual, contribute to the child’s knowledge base and over all well-being, and properly equip their child for the next stage of education and/or life. Parents should be kept informed of upcoming curriculum content and it should be easily accessible for them to review. Parents should be able to opt their child out of curriculum content that they feel is not appropriate for their child’s developmental maturity level or goes against their family’s beliefs.
How do you work with others you don’t agree with?
As a school board member for the last four years, and as Chair of school board for the last (nearly) two years, I have a proven track record of not only working well with all my board colleagues, but also successfully leading a very diverse board with, at times, very different opinions. I have done so by taking the time to establish real relationships with fellow board members, by finding common ground whenever and wherever possible, by being committed to listening to and seriously considering different perspectives, by demonstrating genuine respect for each individual board member whether I agree with them or not, by communicating fairly and frequently with fellow board members, and by always being completely honest and transparent about where I stand. As a team, we have cultivated a culture of respect on our board that has allowed us to work well together despite our differences.