Investigators at Monticello hope that by studying colonoware they will get a more complete picture of how early, Indigenous, and enslaved Americans lived. Supplied photo.
For 24 years, Monticello’s Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery has been studying and cataloging artifacts left behind by early and enslaved Americans, creating an online archive that enables intersite, comparative archaeological research on slavery. Now, thanks to $354,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation and The Conservation Fund, the DAACS and its collaborative researchers will launch the largest study ever conducted on a particular kind of artifact known as “colonoware,” a type of handmade, low-fired pottery crafted by mostly Indigenous and enslaved Americans.
Through studying colonoware, co-principal investigators Beth Bollwerk and Lindsay Bloch are attempting to paint a more complete picture of how early, Indigenous, and enslaved Americans lived their lives.
“One of the main questions we hope to answer with this project is, ‘Why were people making and using colonoware?’” Bloch says. “We know that it isn’t as simple as them not being able to afford other pottery. There are likely cultural reasons why people may have wanted to cook in these rather than iron pots.”
Seventeenth- and 18th-century Americans had access to imported and commercially made pottery and cookware. Thus, when archaeologists discover colonoware, they are able to glean certain facts from both its existence and the context in which it is discovered. Where was it found? What is it made of? How was it made? The answers to these questions are how researchers are able to learn more comprehensively how the first Americans—people who did not make it into the history books—lived their lives.
The first study examining the phenomenon of colonoware was conducted in 1962 by British archaeologist Ivor Noël Hume in Colonial Williamsburg. Initially thought unique to Virginia, further study revealed similar examples of colonoware in other parts of the Mid-Atlantic.
The DAACS colonoware study has brought in a “rock star team” of archaeologists and historians that includes Mary Beth Fitts from UNC-Chapel Hill, Karen Y. Smith from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and Brandi MacDonald from the University of Missouri’s Archaeometry Laboratory. The study will include approximately 180,000 artifacts and fragments, and more than 600 samples from 40 sites in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
“One of the key techniques we’ll be using is laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry,” Bloch says. “You can think about it sort of like an equivalent DNA analysis for pottery, because it’s based on the unique makeup of the sample. But instead of DNA, this technique tells us the different proportion of elements that make up the pottery. By testing the pottery in this way, we will be able to compare samples and identify which pots were made with the same clay sources, because they have the same fingerprint, and we can tie that to where that clay came from.”
Researchers will also seek the input of Indigenous tribes and descendants of enslaved people in the region for their insight on how these artifacts were created and used. The Catawba Nation of South Carolina, as well as descendant communities from Monticello and Mount Vernon, are being consulted to help inform the study’s research and analysis.
“We are forging new relationships with descendant communities who are known through ethnohistory and oral tradition to have been involved in colonoware production,” Bollwerk says. “In particular, the Rappahannock Indian tribe and Pamunkey Indian tribe … have a well-documented tradition of pottery production. The Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia and the Cheroenhaka [Nottoway] tribe do, as well. We have reached out and consulted with these tribal communities as the project moves forward.”
The End Games tests the waters of game development with its first drop, Springsign. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Game stores can be intimidating. For the layman, walking into The End Games and hearing someone discuss their level 18 Halfling Rogue in Dungeons & Dragons or their Warhammer 40k Space Marine Army is like listening to an advanced trigonometry lesson given entirely in Urdu. That’s why, while building his crowdfunded board game Springsign, Andreas “Andy” Mangham wanted to avoid making just another entry into the crowded field of math-heavy table-top role playing games, or collectible-focused trading card games like Magic the Gathering. “I wanted to make something that families could play,” he says. “In fact, it’s designed to be kind of an accessible gateway game that can introduce some cooler game concepts/mechanics to less experienced, ‘entry-level’ gamers.”
Yet to describe Springsign as a simple board game like Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders is inaccurate. The game, at its core, is a popularity contest, where several fantasy archetypes—like the strong, silent Soldier, or the wily Smuggler—complete tasks to win the affection of the townspeople for the highly coveted office of Mayor of Springsign, while an invisible third player—anarchy—competes against them all. Therefore, popularity becomes your scoreboard.
When you sit down to play, you’re given a reversible player card, and both sides contain your character’s picture, spaces for your inventory, and directions on what choices you can make during the action phase of the game. While one side is for beginners (with a more basic and streamlined experience), the other side of the card has more complex and deeper mechanics for the experienced gamer. The game is designed so that both the beginner and adept sides are balanced and can be played at the same time. This asymmetric gameplay style offers a lot more accessibility for families who want to have a game that’s fun for their kids, while also giving adults and experienced players a product that is engaging and strategic.
However, Mangham goes out of his way to make sure people understand one thing about his game: “This is not a cooperative game,” he says.
The project is part of The End Games initiative to branch out from its strictly retail focus and embrace Mangham’s skills as a game creator. The store’s co-owner Sam Fogelgren says that, once they discovered Mangham’s imagination and creativity, they decided to capitalize on his talents and let him chase his dream of game design.
“Andy started off as a front-of-house employee behind the counter,” Fogelgren says. “Once we all talked about his passion for making games, we moved him into that role to attempt to create a game. Retail is great and we love hosting events, but [we wanted to create] something new with The End Games that could be enjoyed by people around the world and we could leave our mark that way.”
Mangham is a local who grew up in the Shadwell area and graduated from UVA’s literary prose program in 2020.
“It’s a fancy way of saying creative writing,” Mangham says. “Not a very marketable skill set, some would say, but I’m pleased to say I’ve been using my education a lot. Right out of college, I wanted to work for The End Games. I knew I wanted to design games for a living.”
It took a couple years for Mangham to “pay his dues” and for the store, which Fogelgren describes as “a community where players and staff come together and share their passion in a welcoming environment … and create unforgettable experiences,” to be in the right position to back him and take the plunge on a project. But when the time was right, the tight-knit crew decided it was time for their adventure to begin.
Springsign creator Andy Mangham “wanted to make something that families could play,” he says. Photo by Tristan Williams.
“About a year into working there, my bosses approached me. They told me they knew I was into game design and wanted to experiment with starting an in-house game dev department, and was wondering if I could make that happen,” Mangham says. “So now, I’ve switched to only doing game development stuff. Springsign was proving to be like three or four jobs rolled into one, and I just wasn’t able to make meaningful progress on it with my time and attention divided. When you self-publish games, what most people don’t talk about is that making the actual game is only a third of the job; the rest is marketing, logistics, community-building, manufacturing, and budgeting.”
Fogelgren says they “had talked about if this went well and Andy was successful, we would love to continue spreading the word of Springsign and would look into supporting Andy and maybe other designers in creating more successful Kickstarter campaigns and new games.”
Endangered species?
Thanks to the boom in popularity from TV shows like “Stranger Things” and popular online shows like “Critical Role,” gaming has started to become more mainstream. What once was considered a niche market with eroding margins has seen a boom in recent years, and Charlottesville’s gaming scene has been no exception.
“Tabletop gaming is a growing market [in Charlottesville],” Mangham said. “The End Games used to be the only game shop in Charlottesville, and now two others have opened around C’ville in the past two years.”
As the world emerged from the pandemic, the desire for more social interaction led to increased popularity in the gaming scene, communities were reforged at local gaming stores around board games, table-top role playing games, and trading card games like Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh. Early gamers congregated at the game store as a shelter from the insults and jabs of their peers, and an escape from pearl-clutching parents caught up in the “satanic panic” of the ’70s and ’80s. This was back when the word “nerd” was a pejorative, and religious conservatives were convinced that playing Dungeons & Dragons would have their kids summoning Cthulhu in the basement.
Times have changed, however, and as the teenagers from those early days have kids of their own, there are tabletop gaming groups that are into their second generation.
The game centers on the fictional town of Springsign, where players complete tasks to win the affection of the townspeople for the highly coveted office of Mayor. Photo by Tristan Williams.
The End Games’ current owners—Fogelgren, Shane Borrelli, and Brian Roberts—bought the business 14 years ago and have since grown it into a viable mecca for fellow local nerds who now wear that title with pride. Though the popularity of game stores may no longer be waning, it still feels unique to find the same discussions about magic decks with like-minded individuals who find nothing strange about a five-hour argument over whether their lawful neutral paladin could beat your chaotic good elven mage in a karaoke contest.
“Because of amazing community support, we’ve been able to grow and provide so many people with a second home,” Fogelgren says. “That’s what we love about The End Games; it’s an inclusive fun atmosphere [where] you can come in and play for hours and not spend a dime. We do sell games and accessories for the games people play, but joining your friends to play or many of our events are free. We also have bigger tournaments with prizes for our more competitive players. We call it a second home because you can always come in, there’s a good chance our staff know your name, and we all try to make sure it’s a safe and fun environment for everybody.”
All or nothing
Springsign’s October launch party at the store quickly became a crowded affair, with eager players gathered around two boards while Mangham explained the mechanics of the game for what must have been the 100th time that night.
“I also had about three hours of sleep last night,” he said over the crowd. The game had occupied his brain for so long, and not knowing whether it would be popular had cost him many nights’ sleep. Not to mention that, as of the launch party, the all-or-nothing crowdfunding campaign (if the project did not meet its goal, all of the hard work would have been for the friends they met along the way) was still flying short of its $18,000 ask.
A reversible player card contains your character’s picture, spaces for your inventory, and directions on what choices you can make during the action phase of the game. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Mangham needn’t have worried. A week later, with 23 days left on the clock, Springsign had reached its goal.
“We hit our funding goal of $18k last night, so we are definitely making the game,” Mangham said via email. “Any further funding will go to our ‘stretch goals,’ which lets us unlock upgrades, better stuff for our backers, and improve the game in other ways.”
With the success of the crowdfunding campaign, the likelihood of The End Games branching out into developing other games increases tenfold, according to Mangham.
“My hope is that Springsign will not only pay for itself, but raise the capital we need to further invest into our game dev department,” he says. “Springsign is an experiment for us, on every level. Once our campaign ends and we can look at how much we raised, my bosses and I will be able to unpack everything we’ve learned from this project and figure out what comes next for us.”
The 2026-27 school year will see a pre-K center in what is now Walker Upper Elementary School, and fifth graders returning to elementary schools. Staff photo.
For the first time in more than 50 years, Charlottesville City Schools is undergoing comprehensive redistricting, hoping to address issues regarding disparities in capacity and to anticipate ones that may arise in the coming years.
The redistricting process is part of CCS’s 2023-2028 Strategic Plan, an initiative to improve the city’s education system with upgrades to infrastructure, technology, transportation, nutrition, and community engagement. The redistricting elements of CCS’s five-year plan aim to fix current enrollment imbalances, as well as those that may arise from future housing developments, such as additional affordable housing units to be built on South First Street, and the University of Virginia’s policy change requiring that second-year students live on Grounds. The redistricting also coincides with Albemarle County Public School’s own redistricting efforts, which have rezoned students in Crozet and the 29 North corridor.
The timing of the city’s proposed redistricting plans would coincide with changes already slated for the 2026-27 school year, when pre-kindergarten classes will be moved to a pre-K center in what is now Walker Upper Elementary School, and all fifth-grade classes will return to elementary schools.
Woolpert, a consulting firm hired by CCS, is examining the current data regarding K-5 school capacity and enrollment, as well as population growth and housing development, and will provide a recommendation on whether redistricting is needed and where.
“Over time, populations have shifted within the community, causing imbalanced enrollments throughout the division,” says the firm on its website dedicated to the CCS redistricting. “In addition, there are residential developments throughout the city that have the potential to produce a significant number of students, most of which fall within the current Summit Elementary and Jackson-Via Elementary school boundaries. Neither Summit Elementary nor Jackson-Via Elementary are able to support modular classrooms on their site, and there is capacity to take in more students at other schools.”
According to an October 22 press release, CCS has also sought the guidance of staff and the community in the redistricting process.
“The schools have formed two advisory groups,” CCS Community Relations Supervisor Beth Cheuk said in the release. “The Staff Work Group for Rezoning includes staff executive leadership and department representatives including pupil transportation and family and community engagement. The Superintendent’s Advisory Committee for Rezoning includes Charlottesville Education Association representatives, Board members, elementary [school] PTO parents, and executive leadership.”
Woolpert’s consultants and the two advisory groups will collaborate on redistricting options that are being presented to the public. The four draft recommendations would then be revised according to input from the public, and finalized for a presentation to the school board before going to a vote, which is expected in January or February 2025. Implementation for changes would likely begin in August 2026, coinciding with the return of fifth graders to elementary schools.
According to CCS’s website, the new proposals “will try to respect the city’s current ‘neighborhood’ boundaries,” and will take issues like diversity into account.
The city identifies its other priorities as maximizing walkability, maximizing bus route efficiency, adhering to recognized neighborhood boundaries (whenever possible), maintaining or improving diversity and demographic balance across schools, and maximizing zone sustainability.
Woolpert’s current presentation, posted in a YouTube video, presented data that shows Summit Elementary, formerly Clark, is the school most at risk for overcrowding, according to the firm’s analysis of its current enrollment and capacity, as well as the predicted fluctuations in the next five years.
Depending on the redistricting option chosen, between 14 and 28 percent of the 2,772 students enrolled in CCS schools would be affected by the redistricting plan. One downside to the proposed changes would be a drop in the number of students who can walk to school. Walkability is currently 47 percent across the city, according to Woolpert’s presentation, none of the redistricting proposals would increase the number of students with walkable school access, and some of them would reduce that figure, largely due to having to move students out of Summit’s primarily walkable district because of overcrowding.
In-person community input meetings were held October 28, 29, and 30 at Greenbrier, Jackson-Via, and Summit elementary schools, respectively. The final meetings will be a doubleheader, held via Zoom on November 6, from noon-1:30pm and 6-7:30pm. For more information, go to charlottesvilleschools.org.
An anonymous benefactor endowed Field School with a $1.5 million matching grant, making the boys’ school one step closer to obtaining its Barracks Road campus goal. Supplied photo.
Field School of Charlottesville, a private, all-boys middle school currently located in Crozet, announced that its goal of a new Barracks Road campus is one step closer to reality thanks to a matching grant of $1.5 million from an anonymous benefactor.
The school described the grant as “transformative” in a September 24 press release. “[It] underscores a shared commitment to promoting excellence in education and nurturing the development of well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment.”
Field School of Charlottesville was founded by Dr. Todd Barnett in 2007, at the suggestion of parents whose children attended his popular Charlottesville-area summer camp for middle-school boys. With the help of area educators, the camp’s programming was expanded into an all-boys middle school, with 27 students the first year, when classes were held in the activities building at Claudius Crozet Park. Two years later, Field School moved to its current location in the historic Old Crozet School.
Vito “Bo” Perriello, head of school since 2023, says the school’s focus is on making the most of the vital years between elementary and high school for its students.
“The school’s vision has centered around a mission to ‘develop well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment’ in a model structured on rigorous traditional academics mixed with outdoor education,” he says. “Current enrollment is 88 students. The new campus project would allow us to expand our enrollment by at least 20 percent.”
Perriello says that while the current campus has its advantages, such as “historic charm” and access to playing fields, the school is renting the facilities from Albemarle County and sharing the space with Crozet Arts.
“It is for these reasons, as well as access to a larger outdoor space, and to a larger catchment of Charlottesville-area citizens, that the school is now working to move to their purpose-built Aerie Campus off of Barracks Road,” Perriello says. “The campus will include both indoor and outdoor learning spaces, playing fields, a state-of-the-art mountain biking course, hiking trails, a ropes course and paddling/water sports.”
A matching grant is one that doubles either currently raised funds or funds that will be raised by the recipient in the future. Perriello says the school’s fundraising is ongoing.
“We have seen a strong outpouring of support from current families, alumni families, and the larger Charlottesville community that supports the social, emotional, and academic growth of our local boys,” he says. “Thanks to this generous grant, any gifts received up to $1.5 million dollars will have double the impact on our project and overall community.”
The donor, whose identity has not been released by the school, shared a statement in the September 24 press release.
“We are excited to partner with the Field School on this relocation project, which we believe will provide greater access to an outstanding all-boys middle school educational experience in Charlottesville,” the statement read.
When asked why the donor did not want to be identified publicly, Perriello says they wanted the focus to remain on the school.
“I cannot speak for the donor,” he says, “but [I] feel they recognized both the need for an all-boys middle school in Charlottesville and the desire to help deliver more positive outcomes for local area boys at a time young boys are struggling. In remaining anonymous they feel the focus remains on the school, the project, and the mission of developing well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment.”
According to its website, Field School has planned for a campus of its own from the beginning. In fact, the new site was actually purchased five years ago, with plans to move estimated at two or three years from now.
“The 25-acre property includes a five-acre pond that will afford both recreational and educational opportunities for the boys,” Perriello says. “The property was originally slated to be part of the bypass project, and we were incredibly fortunate to purchase the land when those plans fell through.”
The groundbreaking ceremony is slated for summer of 2025, according to Perriello.
Flu season is imminent and just in time to coincide with the Virginia Department of Health’s latest MAPP2Health Community Health Assessment. Throughout the rest of the year, Blue Ridge Health District, Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, and UVA Health System are all collaborating to conduct in-person and online focus groups and to survey residents from the City of Charlottesville, as well as Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson counties.
The MAPP2Health survey is an anonymous questionnaire that takes fewer than five minutes to complete and requests basic health information about residents and their households. The focus groups, which will be conducted online as well as in-person, will be more in-depth, focusing on a comprehensive look into the health care needs of residents in our area. VDH will use the data when assessing the community’s needs, distributing resources, and looking for lapses in their assistance programs.
Blue Ridge Health District’s Communications Manager Jason Elliott says that the data from this program is essential for local and state health care officials for determining the needs of the people in the area.
“It’s really important for us to have an accurate picture of our community and what those needs are,” he says. “We can use this data to see what areas might need better access to public transportation or broadband.”
Elliott also stresses the need for continued vigilance when it comes to infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 and Influenza.
“According to the CDC, [COVID-19] infections in Virginia as a whole are likely declining,” he says. “However, it’s important to remember that with in-home testing options available, we may not have an accurate count of just how prevalent infections are.”
Elliott says people should remain vigilant and take precautions against COVID-19 by staying up to date with their vaccinations and practicing good hygiene. Those who suspect that they may have contracted or been exposed to COVID-19, he says, should use precautions to prevent spread, including staying home and away from others, including members of your household who may not have contracted the virus yet.
Another virus that Americans should be cautious of this year is Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. After an international outbreak was traced to a rave in Madrid in May 2022, the JYNNEOS vaccine was developed and released that August. Since the initial outbreak, Virginia has seen 601 total reported cases of Mpox, 25 hospitalizations, and two deaths, the majority of which were recorded in 2022. Over the last 12 months, Virginia’s only had 26 reported cases of Mpox, with only four of them leading to hospitalization. None were fatal.
“People with Mpox often get a rash that may be located on hands, feet, chest, face, or mouth, or near the genitals,” Elliott says. Other symptoms may include fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches, and respiratory symptoms.
The Mpox vaccine is available for anyone who believes they may be at risk, including those who come in contact with wild animals, those who have intimate or sexual contact with someone who does, or those who have been in contact with potentially contaminated materials. People with multiple sexual partners of any gender are at higher risk, as well.
“Getting the Mpox vaccine is as easy as making an appointment at the BRHD … [or] at local health departments throughout Virginia,” Elliott says.
Those interested in a COVID-19, Mpox, or flu vaccine or who are seeking additional information can contact their local health department or visit cdc.gov.
On September 28, 2021, former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe said something during the second gubernatorial debate that would spark a movement of conservatives in the state: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
The Hill would later describe McAuliffe’s statement as “deserving of a top listing in the Hall of Fame of Political Blunders.” His opponent, current Gov. Glenn Youngkin, would seize upon the gaffe, running the statement ad nauseam in attack ads and quoting it in speeches for the remainder of his campaign. He would coin the term that became a catch-all for everything from divisive content policies, transgender bathroom laws, and discussions about America’s history of slavery and racism: “parents’ rights.”
Since then, a wave of hard-right conservatives and Christian nationalists have come out of the woodwork to run in local elections for school boards, launching crusades against everything from library books to nicknames. In a matter of months, local offices were swarmed with new candidates who had big ideas, bold stances, and hot takes on how to make their little corners of America “great” again.
In the months following Youngkin’s victory, there was no shortage of firebrands on hand in those areas to carry the MAGA torch at the local level. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, the battle lines for America’s cultural civil war run once again through central Virginia. And in Orange County, a parent and her son are preparing for battle.
A parent’s rights
Laws are hypothetical. Fundamentally, a law is an enforced mandate that, if one commits x action, then y will be the resulting consequence. As a result, political discourse and debate is often based in theoretical discussions involving statistics, principles, and potential outcomes. Over time, talking about statistics and hypotheticals instead of actual people begins to obscure the core truth about the administration of government: The law does not affect hypothetical Americans, but real people, with rights, families, and values.
Emily Potts is not hypothetical.
Potts, a transgender woman who lives in Orange County with her non-binary child Jace, a 10th grader at Orange County High School, is among the few LGBTQ+ people living openly in one of the most conservative counties in the greater Charlottesville region. “There’s a lot more allies than you might expect,” Potts says. “But there’s not a lot of trans people anywhere in our area, much less in Orange County.”
Potts might have begun living openly as transgender in 2021, but she began her journey as a trans woman long before that.
“I’ve kind of known since I was 5 that there was … something going on,” she says. “But when I hit puberty was when I knew [for sure].”
Parents are often credited with having a kind of intuition when it comes to their children’s identity and sexuality. Potts says she had a somewhat different experience.
“My dad had no idea,” she says. “We had to work through some stuff, but we’re good now. My mom has since passed away, but she knew. I had told her a long time ago.” Potts trails off. Her mother, she recalls, sent her to a psychologist (“And not the good kind,” she says. “Think conversion therapy”) followed by military school in Georgia.
Shortly after Potts and Jace arrived in Orange County from Culpeper in 2021, Jace began living openly as non-binary. Around five months later, Emily came out as transgender and began her journey, too.
“I came out after I got sober,” Potts says. “I was self-medicating, trying to suppress it. Once I got into recovery, I realized that I couldn’t keep living like that. I think seeing Jace’s courage in coming out really helped me get the courage to do the same.”
Around the time Potts and her son were beginning their journey as transgender, the parents’ rights movement was taking hold in Virginia. They knew that because they were among the few people living openly as transgender in Orange County, the issue was too important to remain silent.
“This is going to get children hurt,” Potts recalls thinking.
Freedom*
Chelsea Quintern, a former correctional and probation officer, was among those riding the wave of parents’ rights sweeping across the state.
Quintern began her public life in 2022, after being elected to the Orange County School Board. She came out swinging, introducing two resolutions that made national headlines and put her on the radar of just about every conservative in the state. The less controversial of her proposed resolutions was the one aimed at critical race theory. It abandoned the formal, referential language of Youngkin’s executive order, and states that “Critical Race Theory endorses discrimination of individuals based on race.” But it was her LGBTQ+ policies and beliefs that brought national news coverage.
“When I heard about her transgender policy, my first thought was that it would get someone killed,” Potts says. “A lot of times, teachers are like the last line of defense for kids who don’t have a great situation at home. If you take that from them, and give them nowhere they can be themselves with people they can trust, you’re going to see kids getting hurt. Dying.”
Quintern introduced her Divisive Content Resolution at the same time as her Sexually Explicit Materials resolution, and it made headlines that day thanks to its last provision: that teachers inform parents if a student is LGBTQ+.
“The Orange County School Board declares that students shall not be subjected, but not limited, to curriculum, materials, and discussions relating to sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other sexually explicit subject without explicit consent from their parent(s),” the draft read. “Further … the [OCPS] Board requires schools to notify parents of healthcare services and involvement in critical decisions affecting students’ physical, mental, and emotional well-being; including, but not limited to self-identification.”
Quintern’s policy was as brazen as it was vague. To put it simply, she proposed that school teachers and administrators be forced to inform a parent if their child was a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
If there were people who reacted positively to this proposal, they were drowned out by the apoplectic response from the dissenters. The Washington Post ran a story about it, and Change.org petitions, blog posts, and social media posts popped up everywhere. Quintern, to her credit, didn’t flinch, showing local conservatives she was the real deal. A true MAGA acolyte.
On the day of the school board vote, students carried signs expressing outrage, while parents, current and former teachers, administrators, PTA and education department officials, and even Emily Potts took to the podium to eviscerate Quintern’s proposal as a poorly veiled attempt at notoriety.
“Your ‘therefore’ clause is so broad it would require parental notification if a teacher mentions her husband,” said former PTA president Jennifer Heinz. “If you really meant to say, ‘Don’t say gay,’ please don’t insult us by using this ruse of ‘parental notification.’”
While the CRT resolution was passed 3-2, the Sexually Explicit Materials resolution would ultimately fail with the same margin. Quintern, who did not respond to requests for comment on this article, would go on to suggest that this was her attempt to “focus on classroom learning.”
“As a board member who was elected during the wave of parental rights, it was very disheartening to know that as a collective, the Orange County School Board decided not to definitively stand up for them,” she told the Orange County Review in 2022. “The law is clear: A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child. I vow to continue to fight for these rights during my tenure.”
Potts attended one of the school board meetings and it was her first time coming out (literally) as a transgender woman. She said the amount of support she received from people was tremendous, but it was not the only response.
“One of the local Republican organizations started passing around my business card at their meetings,” Potts says. “They’ve essentially blacklisted my business in Orange. I haven’t had a single client from Orange County ever since.”
Fifteen-year-old Jace Potts is glad the resolution failed, even if it wouldn’t have affected them.
“There’s not a huge LGBT community in the school, but I’m not the only one,” they say. “I have a friend who has only come out to their sister because their parents said if they were LGBT, they would kick them out.”
Jace says the unnamed friend lives in near-constant fear of someone outing them to their parents. If Quintern’s policy had gone into effect, any teacher intuitive enough to discern what was going on, or who overheard a conversation, would be forced to blow the whistle.
“I know it could be a lot worse,” Jace says. “The politics stuff hasn’t had as much of an effect on school life as we were worried it might.”
When the Sexually Explicit Material resolution was voted down, both Potts and her child say they were relieved, but felt like it would not end there. And it didn’t.
Emily Potts says her child, Jace, gave her the courage to come out as trans. Now, the two Orange County residents are navigating an increasingly hostile public school environment. Photo by Eze Amos.
Other people’s children
On May 20, 2024, Quintern, together with District 1’s Melissa Anderson, again made headlines when they made a sudden reversal on Orange County School Board’s membership in the Charlottesville-based Virginia School Board Association, and abruptly called a vote on pulling Orange County School Board out of the VSBA entirely. All but three county school boards in the state (Warren, Orange, and Rockingham) are members of the bipartisan organization. Planning sessions do not schedule time for public comment.
Political bias, criticism of Youngkin, and a lack of utility in its services were all cited as reasons for the board’s withdrawal.
Among other useful perks, like a $2,000 discount on BoardDocs, a school board meeting software, the VSBA assists school systems with legal aid and policy review for school systems—at much lower costs than what an independent attorney would charge. Warren County School Board, the first to decide to leave the VSBA, saw costs skyrocket afterwards, and many expect the same thing to happen in Orange.
VSBA has not commented on the school systems that have exercised their choice to withdraw from the organizations. However, a Q&A published by the VSBA addressed many of these allegations of political bias.
“VSBA operates as a nonpartisan association, emphasizing a commitment to issues rather than political affiliations,” the undated document reads. “Its unwavering stance centers around opposing any measures that compromise the autonomy of local school divisions, a position that has remained consistent throughout the association’s 116-year history.”
While leaving the VSBA may have been ill-advised, it was not the decision itself that drew the most criticism, but the way in which the decision was made. VSBA membership renewal was listed as a discussion item in the planning session, not an action item. As an action item, it likely would have been postponed for public input much in the way past important decisions have been, including Quintern’s two controversial resolutions two years prior.
Two weeks later, the public was finally able to comment on the matter. While those in support praised the Orange County School Board for fulfilling the conservative agenda it had promised, those in opposition said it was fulfilling this agenda at the expense of the people who depend on the public school system.
An OCPS elementary school teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the politicization of public schools has left educators and administrators feeling like the school board is playing for a different team.
“Teachers and children [feel] like they aren’t supported,” she says. “They live in constant fear of retaliation. Like they are walking on eggshells. There’s a lot of anxiety.”
Her biggest concern about the VSBA withdrawal is that it would take resources away from a school system that, from a faculty perspective, should be focusing on more pressing priorities.
“People are consistently sick as there is no funding for building improvements,” she says. “Teachers are being pushed to their breaking points, but are not being listened to.”
When the parents’ rights movement swept across Virginia, it was supported by concerned parents who felt like control over their children’s educational experience was being eliminated by those in power. In Orange over the past two years, Quintern, Anderson, and those like them have continuously faced criticism from parents over concerns that their policies were motivated by their own political ambition, and that their children would ultimately pay the price.
This criticism came from OCPS parents, whose rights got Quintern and so many others like her elected. But when it came time to protect them, many are left feeling like it was never about parents deciding what their kids learn in school, but Christian conservatives deciding what their children learn in school. Or what other people’s children learn in public school—Quintern’s children don’t attend OCPS.
Deep in the Louisa backwoods, Twin Oaks sits on a dirt road that runs behind the ancient Yanceyville Mill on a 450-acre property unlike any in the area. Dotted by rustic two- and three-story dormitories with names like “Tupelo,” named for a type of tree, “Degania,” after a socialist Zionist kibbutz, and “Zhankoye,” an old Jewish laborers’ song that residents abbreviate to “ZK,” it is a community that is ostensibly different in every way from the rest of deep-red Louisa County, which is exactly what most residents came there seeking.
The perceived dichotomy between the close-knit (and mostly conservative) residents of Louisa County and the progressive and inclusivity-focused Twin Oaks has grown into a metaphorical brick wall over the decades, as obvious and tangible to the commune’s residents as it was to Louisa County’s—that is, until March 20, 2024. On that day, when approaching flames threatened to destroy the very place that had touched the hearts and minds of countless people for more than half a century, this paradise to so many, the brick wall separating the two communities was demolished.
***
An intentional egalitarian community, or commune, Twin Oaks was founded in 1967 by eight people seeking a more sustainable and communal lifestyle, fleeing the escalating materialism of modern life. The most famous of its founders, Kat Kinkade, would go on to write two books about the community and would become instrumental in founding two others: East Wind in Missouri and Acorn, the younger and smaller offspring of Twin Oaks, just down the road in Louisa County. Inspired by B.F. Skinner’s novel Walden Two about a fictional utopian collective, the commune’s initial founding was roughly sketched according to the book. Soon, however, Twin Oaks found itself diverging from the behaviorist principles of Skinner’s novel, becoming its own entity focused on egalitarianism, equality, and inclusivity, specifically regarding access to resources and power. Today, Twin Oaks and its residents share their money, cars, clothes, food, and just about everything else. Residents share their responsibilities and raise their children together, and while many have several jobs around the community’s businesses—weaving hammocks, making tofu, and selling heirloom seeds—some current and former members have outside jobs.
One of eight original founders of Twin Oaks, Kat Kinkade hoped to create a community separate from the materialism of modern life. CC/Wikipedia.
These egalitarian principles are only part of what separates Twin Oaks from the rest of Louisa. It’s not uncommon in rural America to find informal arrangements made between unrelated neighbors—ones that involve the sharing of resources as well as collaborative and multi-family living, particularly in places like Appalachia and the rural South, where low-income families often collaborate with each other out of necessity. Sustainability practices, recycling, and waste reduction are things that poor families have been doing in the South for years as a means of survival.
What makes Twin Oaks different is its welcoming of alternative lifestyles, its inclusivity and devotion to equal rights, and its embrace of free spirits and free thinkers. Against the conservative backdrop of Louisa County, the natural assumption is that such a place would be unwelcome by the greater community—and the commune’s members have certainly faced their share of strange looks and prejudicial treatment.
“I’ve gotten a lot of accusations of being in a cult,” says Keenan Dakota, laughing. “It’s really not that weird. We want a place like Mayberry, where everyone knows each other’s name and the sheriff doesn’t need to carry a gun. We want what most people want.”
Like many others, Dakota, who has lived at Twin Oaks for more than 40 years, says he had a lot of his own assumptions before coming to Twin Oaks in 1983 while he was a college student at George Mason University.
“I was a young republican,” he says. “President of the student government. It was a long time ago … I went on my first Saturday tour [of Twin Oaks] through a school program, and it was … different. It was not what I was expecting.”
After his first few trips to Twin Oaks, where he was exposed to alternative lifestyles and revolutionary ideas, the context of the information he was learning in school began to shift.
“I remember going back to school after that, and I was in a macroeconomics class, and they were talking about infinite growth,” he says. “I remember thinking, wait a minute … y’know what has infinite growth? Cancer. And what does that do to the body it grows in? I was two classes away from graduation, and I moved to Twin Oaks.”
***
Wednesday, March 20, 2024, was warm for a winter day, with temperatures hitting the lower 50s by afternoon. Paxus Calta was gathered with a group performing a ritual, a calling of the elements, to celebrate the equinox.
“Shortly after the equinox ritual called the element of air, wind blew hard enough to send plastic chairs flying around us,” Calta, a Twin Oaks resident since the late ’90s, writes on his blog, where he chronicles his life and travels. “When we called water, clouds blocked the sun and it felt for a moment like we might actually get rain. And less than 15 minutes after we called the element of fire into the circle, brown clouds from the neighbors’ land started billowing overhead in the courtyard.”
A few hundred yards away, Dakota was in his bed, napping.
“There was a knock on my door,” he says. “Someone said, ‘There’s a fire, we gotta evacuate.’ I was skeptical, because we’d had a fire back in September and it really wasn’t anything like this. So I figured we’d go out there and make sure everything was fine and then I’d come back to bed.”
The two greatest losses in the fire were Emerald City, Twin Oaks’ processing and storage facility, and the conference site, where residents host several conferences throughout the spring and summer.
Photo courtesy of Paxus Calta.
Unbeknownst to any of the residents, an unattended brush fire was left still-smoldering about a half-mile away. According to a report from the Virginia Department of Forestry, the gust of wind described by Calta was enough to reignite the smoldering brush, and the wind blew the fire into a young pine forest, where it spread rapidly.
“I saw plenty of smoke, but I couldn’t see any flames,” Dakota says. “I really didn’t think it was a big deal until half the sheriff’s department showed up.”
The fire was threatening to tear a path of utter and absolute devastation through southern and central Louisa and likely would have done so if not for the quick intervention of Louisa County’s first responder community. According to VDOF’s accounting, 46 first responders and VDOF personnel (many of them volunteer firefighters) answered the call to combat the fire, as well as multiple Louisa County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Louisa County public school buses. Their response saved more than $6 million in property alone. Most area residents evacuated to two places: sister commune Acorn or a shelter set up by Louisa County Emergency Services at the local middle school. Dakota was one of the residents who went to the latter.
“It was really touching to see them go to such lengths to help us,” he says. “I’ve lived here for over 40 years, and I never really thought of myself as part of Louisa County. I thought of myself as part of Twin Oaks. … We’ve had people and churches show up with everything from food to money donations. It’s really touching.”
While no people were hurt in the fire, the same could not be said for many commercial and industrial buildings, both on and off Twin Oaks’ property. The two most disastrous losses for the commune were Emerald City, the processing and storage facility for the hammock business that is one of the community’s main sources of economic income, and the conference site, including the pavilion and kitchen, which is where residents host several conferences throughout the spring and summer, including one of the few queer-focused celebrations in the area.
VDOF estimated that total damages are less than $200,000. But Twin Oaks resident Raen Thornberry, one of four elected “planners” who make important decisions for the community, says that the loss of potential future income and the costs of rebuilding puts the true figure much higher—closer to at least $1 million.
Dakota, whose role in the community varies from shop teacher to maintenance worker, is part of the crew responsible for fire remediation. He says that the community is still in the early phases of cleaning up and assessing their damages and that the rebuilding process will be later this year.
“At the moment, Twin Oaks has not decided the best way to move forward to replace the lost business,” he says. “We will be doing a communal design process over the coming months and volunteers will be needed this winter once we start genuinely rebuilding.”
In the meantime, Dakota says, the fire taught the community a lesson.
“I don’t speak for everyone,” he says, “but for me … I was very touched by the response from volunteers and churches throughout Louisa. I didn’t expect this kind of response. It showed me a lot about the people around us.”
Sarah Rose, a New York transplant living next to the commune’s southern border, lives adjacent to the empty lot where the fire began. She said that while her relationship with the people of Twin Oaks prior to the fire had been polite but distant, the fire brought her closer to the community.
“We were always comfortable having them as neighbors,” she says. “[We] have always been on the progressive side of things, politically, so I had no problem living next to people with alternative lifestyles … but since the fire, they’ve been one of our best allies.”
Following an investigation by the VDOF, Louisa County prosecutors charged James Grant League, 45, with leaving a fire unattended and careless damage by fire, both misdemeanors. His next court date is August 22 in Louisa County General District Court.
Here to help
Twin Oaks is accepting volunteers for the cleanup and rebuilding process, as well as crowdfunding donations. To volunteer, contact Zoe at zoedamlefl@gmail.com or Paxus at paxus.calta@gmail.com. To make a donation, visit tinyurl.com/twinoaksfire.—AH
Charlottesville Chief of Police Michael Kochis vows to address recent surge in gun violence.
Photo by Eze Amos.
Readers’ concerns over the recent spike in shootings in downtown Charlottesville have not gone unnoticed, but they belie a substantial overall drop in violent crime in the area, says city police.
According to data available on the City of Charlottesville’s website, there have been 112 calls for “shots fired” in the city so far this year, compared to 138 in the same amount of time in 2023, a reduction of just under 19 percent. There has been a single homicide in Charlottesville this year, compared to four by this time last year.
Charlottesville Chief of Police Michael Kochis says that while the improved numbers are good, people’s perception of safety is equally as important.
“I’m careful how I talk about numbers,” he says. “The statistics are important, but it’s also important how people feel … These shootings are happening at five o’clock in the afternoon when the kids are home from school and out on the street … It’s important how people feel and whether they feel safe.”
Kochis attributes the recent spike in gunshots heard throughout the city to an ongoing operation to stop two different groups from their cycle of continuous violence.
“We believe many of the recent calls for shots fired and gun arrests are connected to two groups who have been retaliating against each other,” he says. “We’re conducting an ongoing operation to find the people who are committing these crimes and put a stop to [them].” So far, the Charlottesville Police Department has made five arrests and removed 10 guns off the street, including two AR-style rifles, several pistols, and a modified, fully-automatic Glock.
The latter weapon Kochis refers to was part of an arrest made on June 13 at Tonsler Park. Richard Michael Sanders, Jr., of Charlottesville, was arrested on two counts of possession of a concealed weapon and three counts of possession of a firearm in a city park, both misdemeanors, as well as one felony count of possessing or using a machine gun. Sanders was also arrested a month ago for carrying a firearm on city property.
Two others were arrested in connection with the incidents: Damillion Diggs, arrested on June 12, was charged with two counts of possession of a scheduled I or II narcotic and two counts of possession of a firearm by a nonviolent felon within 10 years. Police seized two AR-style rifles, an AR-style pistol, and three handguns in the arrest.
Malik Luck, of Charlottesville, was arrested in connection with the shootings on June 17, when two separate incidents of gunfire were reported within five minutes of each other. A third outbreak of gunfire was reported later that evening, resulting in a total of 81 shell casings recovered from multiple weapons between the three incidents. Luck faces charges of malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, which is itself a felony, as well as a misdemeanor count of reckless handling of a firearm.
After three shots fired calls in a single day, CPD issued a press release vowing an increase in manpower to bring the incidents to an end.
“CPD is continuing its operation into recent gun violence within the City,” the release read. “The operation is being expanded by adding additional resources and personnel. The operation is focused on individuals who are illegally possessing firearms and committing acts of violence within our community. The CPD is working closely with the Charlottesville Commonwealth Attorney’s Office to identify, arrest, and incarcerate those who continue to prey on our community.”
Kochis said that his department was not only increasing patrols, but building trust and working with the community to help restore peace in downtown.
“It’s very much an ongoing operation, and we’re increasing patrols in the areas where the shootings have taken place at the times that they have been taking place,” he says. “We’re also trying to build trust and better relationships within the community. It’s more than just patrols—it’s about being present.”
Will Trump-endorsed John McGuire take the 5th district seat from incumbent Bob Good? Only time (and voters) will tell.
Supplied photos.
As the Republican primary in Virginia’s 5th district reaches a conclusion on June 18, a poll released by the Virginia Faith & Freedom Coalition shows Virginia Senator John McGuire (R-Goochland) with a 10 percent lead over his opponent, incumbent Rep. Bob Good (R-VA).
Despite Good’s position as the head of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and his professed loyalty to the GOP shot-caller, former President and recently convicted felon Donald Trump, his endorsement of presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in early May seems to have been what soured the Trump loyalists against his campaign. McGuire received the former president’s seal of approval on May 28, quickly capitalizing on Trump’s popularity in the deeply red 5th district as the former president’s account on his Truth Social platform accused Good of being “BAD for Virginia” and saying he had “turned his back on our incredible movement.”
A little over 48 hours after this endorsement of his opponent, Good’s problems appeared to only get worse, as Trump’s lawyers sent the Congressman a cease-and-desist letter over campaign signage featuring both Good’s and Trump’s names, accusing Good of being “a fraud.”
“It has come to our attention that your campaign is producing yard signs purporting to indicate President Trump’s endorsement of your candidacy,” the letter from attorney David Warrington read. “You know that is false. In fact, President Trump has endorsed your opponent, John McGuire.”
Many residents of the 5th district will likely know that the signs in question predate the endorsement of McGuire and are reportedly from the 2022 campaign, in which Bob Good had the endorsement of the former president; nevertheless, there are unconfirmed reports that the signs bearing both names are still being distributed at campaign events in the area.
As the primary entered its final weeks, it appeared to be smooth sailing for McGuire, who has run in successive elections in recent years at both the federal and state levels. Then, on June 6, an open letter was released from the 5th District Republican Committee to Trump bearing the signatures of prominent local Republicans, urging the former president to reconsider his endorsement.
“[McGuire] has a history of lying to the voters and only representing his own ambitions rather than the needs of his constituents. In 2023, he repeatedly told voters that he would not run against Congressman Bob Good only to file to run for Congress less than 2 weeks after he was elected to the Virginia Senate and before he was even sworn into office,” the letter read.
McGuire was elected first in 2017, running a successful campaign for the 56th district of the House of Delegates against Democrat Melissa Dart. Then, in 2019, he ran for reelection successfully against Democrat Juanita Jo Matkins and again in 2021. In 2020 and 2022, he launched unsuccessful bids for U.S. Congress in the 7th district, losing to Nick Freitas and Yesli Vega, respectively, both of whom would go on to lose the general election to Rep. Abigail Spanberger. In 2023, he ran for State Senate unopposed in District 10, and while his promises of not running against Good are unconfirmed, he did announce one week after winning his seat—and prior to taking his oath of office—that he was running for the 5th District of Virginia in the United States Congress.
McGuire, a veteran and owner of a personal training company called Seal Team Physical Training, wouldn’t be the first primary challenger to make headlines by upsetting a powerful congressional Republican. In 2014, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was upset by Republican and Randolph-Macon Professor Dave Brat. That election made national headlines and was described by the LA Times as “one of the greatest political upsets in modern times,” with Cantor out-spending Brat 40-to-1.
According to VPAP, as of March 31, Good had raised $855,792 to McGuire’s $496,447. Their expenditure data was not yet available at press time, but independent expenditures—money that third party groups had spent to run ads for or against one of the candidates—totaled to almost $8.5 million. Pro-McGuire and anti-Good ads totaled to just over $5 million, and pro-Good/anti-McGuire ads accounted for the other $3.5.
Andre Henline, a Louisa County business owner and long-time Republican, said that he was “team McGuire.” When asked if he could articulate why, he said that it was a combination of McGuire’s personal touch and Good’s incessant attack ads.
“I’ve met [McGuire] a handful of times in Mineral,” he said. “[Good’s] campaign is bugging the shit out of me. His campaign smearing [the opponent] really turns me off.”
Neither candidate is without controversy. McGuire’s presence at the January 6 riot at the capitol—though he says he never entered the capitol building—has been a frequent point of contention for his detractors. Good, however, is a proud member of what is informally called the “Sedition Caucus,” a disparaging nickname for the members of the house and senate who voted not to certify the election of Joe Biden. Former Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone recently said publicly that both Good and McGuire should be barred from holding public office because of their support of the former president’s actions in 2020.
The winner of the Republican primary will face off against one of the three Democrats—Paul Riley, Gary Terry, and Gloria Tinsley Witt—running in the Democratic primary, which also ends June 18.
Neither Republican candidate returned repeated messages seeking comment in time for publication.
The trial for Jacob Dix, an Ohio man charged with burning an object to intimidate, ended in a hung jury after 12 hours of deliberation.
Supplied photo.
After almost seven years of waiting, 14 months of preparation and legal wrangling, and three days of trial before the Albemarle County Circuit Court for Jacob Joseph Dix, Judge H. Thomas Padrick Jr. declared a mistrial Friday, June 7, after the jury spent 12 hours over two days deliberating, only to find themselves hopelessly deadlocked.
Dix, 29, of Clarksville, Ohio, was charged with burning an object to intimidate, a class 6 felony, for his participation in the infamous torch rally on UVA Grounds in 2017.
The trial was what is known as a case of “first impression,” when a law or legal interpretation is challenged in court for the first time. As Dix’s case was the first time Virginia Code “§ 18.2-423.01. Burning object on property of another or a highway or other public place with intent to intimidate” would be tried in a court of law, in dispute was the definition of “burning an object.” It was a legal quandary predicted by former Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci in a September 2019 opinion piece for C-VILLE Weekly:
“The statute refers to ‘[burning] an object.’ The question could arise—and would in criminal law—as to whether carrying a burning torch falls within the definitional scope of burning an object. That alone could prevent a prosecution. While this memorandum distinguished the May and October torch-lit rallies from the August 11, 2017, events on UVA Grounds, the ‘threshold problem’ conforming a tiki torch to the burning objects statute presents in all three rallies.”
The aforementioned statute was itself codified as a replacement to a Jim Crow-era law banning the burning of crosses, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Codified in 1950, it was intended to help prosecute Ku Klux Klan members for racial violence. In the ruling that struck the law from the books, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor took issue with the part of the Virginia statute that allowed a jury to infer the intent of the accused.
Then-candidate for Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley criticized Tracci’s interpretation of the law and subsequent refusal to charge anyone with the torch rally. On the campaign trail in 2019, CNN quoted him mentioning the untested burning to intimidate statute explicitly:
“There are so many people in our community … who were there on August 11 who were terrorized by torch-wielding terrorists,” he said at the time. “There’s a law, a burning objects law, that says they can be prosecuted, but our prosecutor’s not doing that.”
Now three years into his four-year term, Hingeley would finally obtain the indictments he promised on the campaign trail. However, if he and his office were looking for his day in court, Dix’s defense attorney, Charlottesville’s Peter Frazier, had other plans. After two judges recused themselves last November due to personal involvement in the matter, Frazier put forward a motion for the prosecutor, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney W. Lawton Tufts, to be removed from the case due to his prior work with anti-racist protesters and past comments about “fighting nazis.”
Despite being in front of the bench for much of the early work in the case, Hingeley came in to fight against Tufts’ removal, telling the Daily Progress that fighting against fascists and white nationalism is the pursuit of fair and unbiased law, and that “anti-racism is required,” Hingeley said. “It’s not a disqualifying factor; it’s a qualifying factor.” His arguments would ultimately be unsuccessful, and the court would appoint Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor as special prosecutor.
Information about a potential second trial for Dix was not immediately available, as requests for comment from Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office were not returned as of press time. Special prosecutor Taylor’s office declined to comment.
Frazier said that because the case is still pending, there’s not much they’re able to discuss publicly.
“We’re going to reserve comment at this time,” he says. “Obviously, we’d love to talk about our side of this, but we’re going to have to wait until we get some final answers before we can.”
