The longtime spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools, among the officials excoriated by the governor and the attorney general after a student was charged in two sexual assaults at separate schools, was acquitted recently of a felony perjury charge. Wayde Byard, accused of lying to a special grand jury investigating the botched handling of the 2021 crimes and their aftermath, was found not guilty.

The circuit court jury deliberated less than two hours. You won’t see many juries debate felony cases in less time.

“I was relieved,” Byard told me by email regarding the ruling. “I really can’t say I was happy after six months of emotional limbo.”

No kidding.

Byard had been on administrative leave without pay. The division just gave him nearly $89,000 in back pay, a county schools official told me. Byard told me Thursday he’s back at work.

Jennifer Leffler, Byard’s attorney, said he was a scapegoat and under fire, she told me, because the sexual assaults “brought negative attention to the school system.”

The least Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares should do is apologize to Byard. They haven’t, and they probably won’t – even though they’ve lambasted Loudoun County schools officials over these horrible crimes. (The former superintendent, who the school board fired, still faces criminal charges related to the assaults.)

Youngkin’s spokesperson didn’t respond to my request for comment.

Victoria LaCivita, Miyares’ spokesperson, said after the verdict: “The Special Grand Jury indicted Mr. Byard after hearing all of the evidence, and we are proud that the Judge agreed with us time and time again that this case needed to be heard in front of a jury. … While we are disappointed with the jury’s decision, we’re proud of our team for uncovering the truth and providing answers to concerned Virginia parents.”

In other words, she doubled down on the state’s punitive actions.

Youngkin and Miyares should be ashamed. When top state officials lambaste public servants and drive efforts resulting in criminal charges, they should have the guts to admit publicly when they were wrong.

Yes, Loudoun County Public Schools officials made many mistakes. The grand jury’s 92-page report notes them, including this stinging finding: “We believe that throughout this ordeal LCPS administrators were looking out for their own interests instead of the best interests of LCPS.” The report also noted “a breakdown of communication” among several local agencies in handling the cases against the teen attacker.

Whether anyone in the school division deserved to face criminal charges, though, was questionable at best. The grand jury issued indictments in December 2022.

Some background here is useful:

Youngkin and Miyares, running in 2021 for their current positions, had castigated school officials repeatedly while saying parents deserved a stronger voice in education. They ginned up a parents’ rights platform all the way to the election, which both won narrowly over their Democratic Party opponents.

The incidents in Loudoun County caused national attention because the male attacker during the first incident in May 2021 was wearing a skirt, though there’s no proof he is transgender. The attack occurred in a girls’ bathroom at Stone Bridge High School. The teen and the girl had had consensual sex in the school bathroom previously, the grand jury noted.

The politics of the case was obvious, if misdirected. The division was trying to start a policy of allowing transgender students to use the bathroom matching their gender identity. Opponents seized on the first attack after it became public.

The assailant, later allowed to attend Broad Run High School while awaiting trial, then groped and strangled a female student in a classroom there in October 2021. He later was convicted in Loudoun County juvenile court in both sexual assaults.

The special grand jury stated the second attack should’ve been prevented. “A remarkable lack of curiosity and adherence to operating in silos is ultimately to blame for the October 6 incident,” the report said.

Youngkin, on his first day in office in January 2022, issued several education-related executive orders. Among them: He requested the attorney general to conduct a full investigation into Loudoun County Public Schools.

“The Loudoun County School Board and school administrators withheld key details and knowingly lied to parents about the assaults,” the executive order continued.

The two elected state officials have repeatedly used the power of their offices way out of proportion to perceived shortcomings in education.

Youngkin’s first executive order ended “critical race theory” in public education, even though K-12 schools don’t teach it in Virginia. The move was a sop to conservatives.

He instituted a short-lived “snitch line” against teachers. It was started “for parents to send us any instances where they feel that their fundamental rights are being violated, where their children are not being respected, where there are inherently divisive practices in their schools,” Youngkin said. Administration officials didn’t confirm the shutdown of the email address until news media outlets asked about it, suggesting the line was a dud.

Orwellian snitch line shuts down. Will guv end assault on teachers?

Miyares launched a probe in January on the delayed recognition of National Merit Scholarships in Fairfax County. The school division itself sought an independent probe by a law firm, and that investigation found no evidence “to support the claims published in late 2022 suggesting that some FCPS high schools intentionally refrained from notifying Commended Students of their National Merit recognitions, and no evidence that the process or timing for student notifications were impacted in any way by racial considerations or any effort to minimize or fail to celebrate students’ achievements.”

Back to Loudoun County. It’s not unusual for sexual assaults to occur in schools, unfortunately.

A study released late last year found more than 12,000 incidents on Virginia’s K-12 campuses over a five-year period, the Investigative Reporting Workshop found. The allegations included everything from sexual harassment to first-degree rape.

Will the current state administration tackle the widespread problem? Or will it raise its voice only for political purposes in a handful of incidents?

So far, it’s been only the latter.