HARRISONBURG, Va. – Members of the Harrisonburg City and Rockingham County School Boards reached an agreement Monday night to hire a law firm to independently represent Massanutten Technical Center (MTC).

MTC’s executive board consists of both school boards, as both Harrisonburg City (HCPS) and Rockingham County (RCPS) oversee MTC as a joint venture. The executive board voted unanimously to direct Harrisonburg’s Superintendent, Michael Richards, and Rockingham’s Superintendent, Larry Shifflett, to each generate a list of potential attorneys to represent the vocational school independent of either school board’s legal counsel.

The amicable vote concluded an initially contentious meeting – both at its start and in the weeks leading up to it. The county school board dismissed their legal counsel of nearly 40 years last month and hired a new attorney, who currently represents a group of HCPS teachers suing the city school district.

As MTC exists as a partnership between both school districts, therefore linking HCPS to RCPS’ legal counsel, an emergency meeting of MTC’s executive board was called Monday night to avoid a potential conflict of interest. Members of both boards seemed to agree during the meeting that finding a third-party attorney to represent MTC was the most preferable option but debated over the process of hiring the school’s legal counsel.

Harrisonburg school board member Tom Domonoske initially moved to direct MTC’s director, Kevin Hutton, to select an attorney to represent the school, which county school board members opposed.

Rockingham County pays 81% of MTC’s operating budget, so the school’s faculty and staff are considered RCPS employees. As such, the county school board did not want to saddle an RCPS employee with such a major decision and proposed an amended motion to delegate the hiring of MTC’s attorney to Superintendent Shifflett.

Rockingham County school board member Ashley Burgoyne suggested that both school boards bring a list of options for MTC’s legal counsel to the table.

“We’re all adults here, we should be able to work together and we have a common interest,” Burgoyne said. “The common goal is the betterment of our kids – city, county, everybody that goes here. What if the city brought some, and the county brought some, and then we just talked?”

Per the motion adopted by MTC’s executive board, Superintendents Shifflett and Richards have until April 23 to select a list of potential attorneys, and the board will vote to decide MTC’s legal counsel on April 30.