Departing RPS board member will take over embattled district in Southeast Virginia; she was named in a recent investigation

Just two months before she announced her resignation from the Richmond School Board, Shonda Harris-Muhammed (6th District) was named in a recent investigation into the district where she works full-time. Last week, she was named acting superintendent of that district.

Southampton County Public Schools is located about an hour away from Richmond on the Virginia-North Carolina border. Harris-Muhammed currently works as the district’s coordinator for pupil personnel.

Southampton’s Board of Supervisors ordered a review of the division’s operations. That report, which was done without the cooperation of the district, accused Harris-Muhammed of poorly executing a grant that resulted in “lost funding and diminished educational support,” and quoted another employee who said Harris-Muhammed suggested the two take a portion of funds from another grant as compensation. 

The Board of Supervisors voted to conduct the investigation after parents raised concerns about deplorable school conditions in 2024.

“It’s been a struggle my entire tenure as an elected official with our public school system,” Supervisor Christopher Cornwell said in an interview with WAVY.

The division’s superintendent, Gwendolyn P. Shannon, was ousted from her position shortly after the investigation’s release. County residents had been calling for her resignation and the resignation of Board Chair Deborah Goodwyn. 

Now Harris-Muhammed will be filling Shannon’s position in the interim, as announced by the County School Board. Her last day on the Richmond School Board is Dec. 31. 

Despite the allegations against her in the report, she appears to have the support of county administrators. 

“She’s been selected to fill this void in the interim, and I encourage the school board to take their time in filling this position, ensuring they have someone that is a good fit for not only them, but the student and faculty and staff and citizens,” Cornwell said to WAVY.

When The Richmonder reached out to Harris-Muhammed for comment, she didn’t return a phone call. In an email, she suggested contacting the county school district.

“Any questions regarding my current employment must be directed through my school division's appropriate channels which does not include contacting me at my school board email address,” she wrote. 

Southampton County Public Schools did not respond to numerous requests for comment. 

‘Lost funding and diminished educational support’

Investigators from Troutman Pepper Locke – a law firm with offices in Richmond hired by the county’s Board of Supervisors – found “pervasive lapses in oversight, recordkeeping, and procedural compliance that contribute to an environment where fraud, waste, and inefficiency are more likely to occur” within Southampton County Public Schools.

One of the key findings from the investigation was the division’s repeated missing of grant deadlines and poor documentation resulting in “lost funding and diminished educational support.”

That includes the Teachers for Tomorrow grant the division received from Virginia Commonwealth University that Harris-Muhammed helped administer with the then-career technical education coordinator for the division in 2022. 

The one-time, $50,000 award was intended to encourage Southampton High School students to return to the division to teach after graduation, as a part of the program also included a career and technical education course for high schoolers to learn about the teaching profession. 

The amount was based on two teaching residents – $25,000 each – for the 2022-2023 school year, according to the agreement the division had with VCU obtained by The Richmonder. 

The coordinator told investigators that Harris-Muhammed offered a position to a substitute teacher without notifying the division’s human resources department. The division had already extended an offer to another candidate, according to the report, and decided to rescind its original offer. 

Southampton County Public Schools later discovered that Harris-Muhammed’s hire was not qualified for the position, prompting another search for a more suitable candidate. 

“VCU informed Counsel that, to its knowledge, the program is no longer active due to a lack of a qualified instructor,” the report said. 

While a new teacher was eventually hired, the duration of the tenure was unclear, investigators wrote, adding that it is unclear whether the full $50,000 was spent or how the funds were used. Documentation the division provided to investigators through the Freedom of Information Act showed “a little over $2,000 in expenditures” from the grant. VCU was also unable to confirm the status of the funds. 

Investigators also briefly noted another grant from Jobs for Virginia Graduates that the division received in 2022, also overseen by the coordinator and Harris-Muhammed. 

The coordinator said that Harris-Muhammed suggested the coordinator and herself each take a portion from the grant funds – “approximately $12,000 and $10,000 respectively – as compensation for administering the program.” The coordinator declined, saying that “he does not accept grant-based compensation unless it involves work beyond his regular duties,” investigators wrote.

It is unclear if Harris-Muhammed took funding from the Jobs for Virginia Grant.

Lawyers said that the school division refused to cooperate with the investigation, leaving over 200 unanswered questions that they listed in the report. That included multiple questions regarding the grants Harris-Muhammed helped oversee, like how the division spent the VCU grant funds, how it ensured that the Teachers for Tomorrow program was staffed with a qualified instructor, and what policies govern compensation from grants. 

Investigators ultimately suggested that the division consider a leadership change “to restore public confidence and ensure responsible stewardship of public funds.”

Southampton County School Board member Brandon Rodgers made a motion at the board’s Oct. 13 and Nov. 10 meetings to create a report addressing the many concerns of the investigation, including conducting a review of the Teachers for Tomorrow Program that explains how the funding was used.

“If no documentation exists, interviews of current and former staff should be conducted to justify expenditures and of the funds,” he wrote in his motion.

Both attempts failed to pass, as the majority of the board voted against it. Board Chair Goodwyn, who was part of the opposing votes, said at the Nov. 10 meeting that the issue has now turned into a legal matter because the Board of Supervisors “indicated that they’re still trying to seek criminal charges” and the division’s lawyers now need to step in to make a response. 

Contact Reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin at vifatusin@richmonder.org