Tag: Albemarle County Public Schools

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In brief: Pipeline protests, tiger trouble, and more

Anti-pipeline activists in western Virginia are monitoring construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. PC: Mountain Valley Watch

Pipeline pushback

In June, environmental activists celebrated as Dominion Energy canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have carried natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina, passing through central Virginia. A little further west, however, the fight continues, as construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline inches along. Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lifted a stop-work order that had been slowing the 300-mile pipeline project.

FERC also gave the MVP two more years to finish construction of the project, which has been grinding forward for six years, slowed by resistance from landowners and litigation from environmental groups.

The watch team for the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition, an umbrella organization made up of smaller groups pushing back against the pipeline, has carefully monitored the pipeline’s construction, looking out for violations that can be reported to the Department of Environmental Quality. It continues to find new violations (the photos above were taken at various points over the last two years).

“These ground photos of the construction are significant to me,” says Roberta Bondurant, POWHR’s co-chair. “We’ve got pipe that floated 1,000 feet across a floodplain when they built the week before storm Michael. Pipe that’s dated 2016 that’s out now, on the ground, [with] coating that’s over 4 years old.”

Bondurant points out that last week’s permit is not definitive. A key permit from the Forest Service is still missing, and other important permits are currently under consideration by the federal court in Richmond.

The MVP group continues to cut corners in order to continue construction, the activists say. “It’s a real word game they play with FERC to allow themselves to go forward,” Bondurant says.

PC: Mountain Valley Watch

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Quote of the week

“This is the third fatal crash on Fifth Street investigated by CPD in less than three months…In memory of those who have died, CPD is asking motorists to be mindful of their speed. Please drive carefully.”

—Charlottesville Police Department, after two people passed away in an accident this week

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In brief

Tiger trouble

Doc Antle, the sinister zoo owner famous for his role in Netflix’s viral “Tiger King” documentary, could wind up wearing orange himself—he’s been indicted on wildlife trafficking charges by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. Antle lived in Buckingham County in the early part of his career; the indictment alleges that he has recently worked with a private zoo in Winchester to move tiger cubs and other exotic species back and forth between Virginia and Myrtle Beach.

Back to school

After a period of contentious discussion, the Albemarle County School Board voted 4-3 last week to allow up to 5,000 preschoolers through third-graders to participate in non-virtual, face-to-face classes twice a week, starting November 9. Parents must decide by October 16 if they’ll send their kids into school or continue with virtual learning, while teachers have only until the 15th to request to stay home.

Museum motion

As Charlottesville continues to grapple with its legacy of slavery and oppression, a group of nearly 100 local activists, community leaders, and residents have called for the creation of an enslavement museum in Court Square, “depicting in a more visual manner the injustices, horrors, and truths about enslavement.” They hope the city will acquire the 0 Park Street building, the site of the auction block where enslaved people were sold, to house the museum. In February, Richard Allen, a 74-year-old white man, removed and disposed of the slave auction block marker (pictured below). He is now a member of the coalition calling for the museum.

PC: City of Charlottesville

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Class in session: Teachers say in-person learning has been safe for special education

Albemarle County special education teachers say in-person learning has been a largely positive experience since school started on September 8. PC: Jack Looney

After months of debate, the Albemarle County School Board decided in July to hold the first nine weeks of classes with distance learning for most students. One exception to the mandate was made for students with special needs.

The decision immediately stirred up controversy and concern, with many community members believing face-to-face instruction was not only unsafe, but unfair to test out on vulnerable populations of students. “To have a school that could potentially be filled with vulnerable students in any capacity places the burdens of the illness upon them,” ACPS instructional coach Adrienne Oliver told C-VILLE in July.

But for at least two special education teachers in the district, in-person learning has been a largely positive experience since school began September 8.

At Broadus Wood Elementary, Kimberly Hannis currently teaches four of her kindergarten-through-fifth-grade special ed students in person.

“There are so many different routines than last year, so I’ve had to take a step back, and rethink how to create a calm, supportive environment with clear expectations,” she says. “That’s been challenging, but we’re getting better and figuring it out together.”

Each student has separate workstations, books, toys, and other learning materials, which are sanitized regularly. Because there are very few students and staff inside of the building, she’s able to use multiple rooms for teaching.

Taylor Aylor, who teaches special education for grades nine through 12, also has just four students in her classroom at Monticello High School, allowing them to safely distance from each other.

Though it has not been easy getting students acclimated to all the new rules and practices, both teachers say that masks have surprisingly not been an issue.

“I thought my kids were going to do awful with wearing their masks and sanitizing. These are kids where…there is no such thing as a bubble,” says Aylor. “[But] they have been complying, and are leaving their masks on.”

Both teachers also have students whose specific needs require remote learning. With the help of teaching assistants, they’ve been able to balance the individualized needs of the two groups, and create a structured routine that helps them “thrive,” says Aylor.

At the beginning of each school day, Aylor hosts a class Zoom meeting, allowing her 10 students learning from home to socialize with those inside the classroom. She then works with her in-person students alongside four teaching assistants, while another special ed teacher—also with support from TAs—does live classes with those who are learning virtually.

Hannis also has four TAs in her classroom, who assist students with their work whenever she is not working with them. At scheduled times, she teaches the same content during live classes with her two students learning from home, and assigns work for them to do on their own.

Throughout the school day, students participate in virtual classes with their homeroom, “depending on what’s appropriate for them,” says Hannis.

The decision to teach students in person was not easy for Hannis. But because she is “young and doesn’t have high risk people around [her]” at home, she felt more comfortable doing so.

Aylor has a 4-year-old daughter, and at first didn’t think she’d return to the classroom.

“I knew that my daughter needed to go back into a daycare setting, even if I was going to be doing virtual, just to make sure I’m giving my undivided attention to the kids,” she says. “So [eventually] I was like, I’m going to go in. I’m not just going to submit my daughter to exposure…and me stay at home.”

“And now since the first day coming back, it’s just been like ‘Whoa, that wasn’t as scary as I thought,’” she says.

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Back so soon?

Though the Charlottesville School Board voted to start the first nine weeks of classes virtually, students could be returning to the classroom sooner than expected.

City school officials have shared a reopening plan with the district’s COVID-19 Advisory Committee that would allow preschool through second-grade students to participate in face-to-face classes beginning on October 13, nearly four weeks earlier than initially planned.

Other groups would soon follow: third through fifth graders would return on October 20, and sixth grade and up would go back on October 27.

All families could still opt into virtual learning.

This change still needs to be discussed, revised, and approved by the committee.

Since the proposed plan was announced in an email to families last week, the division has faced backlash from teachers, parents, and even school board members, who feel it is unsafe and unnecessary amidst rising COVID cases in the area.

“We voted to go virtual for the first nine weeks and develop thoughtful criteria for how and when we return to in-person learning, and this change in direction by Dr. Atkins is unacceptable,” tweeted board member LaShundra Bryson-Morsberger. “We made a plan and gave our word; we voted on it! We have to stick to the plan.”

The committee will make a recommendation to the Charlottesville School Board on October 8. Albemarle’s school board will also meet that day, and is expected to hear several reopening options for the next quarter.

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Digging for truth: Albemarle students put a new spin on geography

An interactive story map of World War I’s Meuse Argonne Offensive with geo-tagged media, created by ACPS’s Chris Bunin and other teachers in collaboration with Virginia Tech. © 2017 ESRI, ARCGIS ONLINE, AND THE GIS USER COMMUNITY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

For many people, Shenandoah National Park is a great place to hike, camp, bike, and explore. But now, Albemarle’s middle and high schoolers will have a chance to see a different side of the park, and dig deeper into its creation. What happened to the people who once lived there? What are their stories? Can we feel those ghosts in the park today?

Thanks to a $50,000 grant from the National Geographic Society, Albemarle County Public Schools is launching a new social studies project, combining field experiences with geographic inquiry and geospatial technology.

Students will conduct what project leader Chris Bunin calls an “above-ground archeology dig” using high-tech radar at several local historical sites, including the Downtown Mall, Montpelier, and the University of Virginia. They’ll start by thinking of a geographic question for a particular site, focusing on the different perspectives and experiences people have had there over time, based on their race, class, gender, and other parts of their identity.

“When you take some of our cultural iconic places, and even simpler places, in our community, depending on the eye of the beholder…that space and place means something differently,” says Bunin, who teaches geography at Albemarle High. For example, “when some students come to school, they feel very safe and see a place of learning. Other times, people see a place that’s very powerful and uncomfortable.”

“More people need to be able to access those viewpoints, so we can have rational conversations about what’s going on, or what we’re trying to do to improve our community,” he adds, pointing to critical aspects of local history—like slavery and urban renewal—whose harmful effects can still be seen and felt today.

In addition to visiting sites, students will answer their questions using primary resources, including photographs, property sales, interviews, old maps, and texts.

“We want students to see themselves in their community, see their perspective in their community, and see themselves as contributors to that narrative,” says Monticello High School geography teacher John Skelton, who’ll also be working on the project. “And if those stories have not been shown, they can show them.”

With the help of geospatial technology, students will share their data and analyses in the form of an interactive story map of their historical site. Users will be able to click on different icons on the map, and discover video and oral histories, pictures from the past and present, and excerpts from historical documents. Members of the community will be able to interact with these maps first-hand at two public showcases. As the project expands and evolves, library media specialist Mae Craddock envisions students being able to create augmented reality walking tours.

“We’re thinking about cultural geography, not just as a slice in a single time, but rather a slice across time,” says Craddock, who will be leading the middle school portion of the project at Murray Community School.

Bunin and his colleagues came up with the idea for the project while discussing their field experiences with each other last year. With the help of Craddock and Skelton, as well as Murray lead teacher Julie Stavitski and Albemarle High learning technology integrator Adam Seipel, he designed and submitted a grant to National Geographic, called “Revisiting Charlottesville.”

With classes online this fall, the project is a rare opportunity to get students away from their screens. Kids will be asked to research and analyze their own homes and neighborhoods, and think about how they perceive these spaces and how they have evolved over time.

“They’ll take some 360 [degree] photos, use Google Maps to create tours, record audio, and [do] some interviews,” Craddock says. “They’ll really think about their own environment, before we head out to the city at large.”

Bunin hopes students will not only develop a new understanding and appreciation for local history, but have an opportunity to “fix” it in the present day, pointing to a past field excursion he did with some colleagues to a World War II cemetery. A teacher assigned to research a particular soldier buried there discovered that his tombstone was misspelled, and was able to get it corrected.

“The vision for us is that we’re going to have these things happen with us too,” Bunin says. “Things that are just not on the surface, that no one knows about and are hidden in the stacks somewhere—[they’re] going to be recovered or uncovered, so that our community now has [them].”

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Coronavirus News

In brief: Coronavirus clusters, CRB concerns, and more

PC: Eze Amos

Rogers that

A statue of an old racist general in Charlottesville has once again been recontextualized—UVA’s George Rogers Clark monument was splattered with an impressive arc of red paint in the middle of the night on Sunday.

Clark was a general during the United States’ violent westward expansion in the 19th century. The statue shows Native American people cowering in front of Clark’s horse and declares Clark the “conqueror of the northwest,” a designation that UVA historian Christian McMillen called “absurd” in a July UVA Today article about the statue.

The statue was erected during the same period as the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson monuments downtown and the Lewis and Clark statue on Main Street. The Lee and Jackson statues have been graffitied many times, most recently in May.

A petition for the removal of the Clark statue circulated last year, and earlier this month UVA’s Racial Equity Task Force recommended that the monument come down. On Monday morning, the school dispatched a crew to clean the statue.

ACPS bans confederate imagery

On August 13, one day after the third anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the Albemarle County School Board voted to amend the dress code to ban all Confederate imagery in its schools, as well as other hate symbols, including the swastikas. The new section of the code states that these images “cause substantial disruption to the educational environment and, therefore, are prohibited.”

At a school board meeting two years ago, six activists from the Hate-Free Schools Coalition were arrested—and one was hospitalized—while lobbying for this change. Less than a year later, the school board discussed banning Confederate imagery, but the change wasn’t made until this summer.

“DO NOT praise them for *finally* doing the right thing. We worked for this for years,” tweeted the Hate-Free Schools Coalition after the meeting.—Claudia Gohn

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Quote of the week

“[Are] these cameras going to be used to prosecute anybody,
such as the self-styled monument guards who have been documented to be armed and threatening?”

—City resident Brad Slocum, speaking to City Council on the new security cameras installed in downtown parks

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In brief

Playing the heel

Just a week into the semester, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill already has four COVID-19 clusters reported on campus—three in school-run residence halls and one in a fraternity house. (To quote the Daily Tar Heel, the university’s student paper, UNC “has a clusterfuck on its hands.”)  UVA, meanwhile, is still sticking to its plan to bring students back in person in early September.

Bad blood

The fraught relationship between Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board and City Council reached an all-time low during the CRB’s meeting last week, with multiple board members revealing they’ve contemplated resigning. “They want to have this veneer of progressiveness by having us exist, but they’ll only do what they want to do,” said member Stuart Evans.

Senator charged

Just one day before the General Assembly convened for a special session on criminal justice reform, Portsmouth Police Chief Angela Greene announced that State Senator Louise Lucas had been charged with conspiracy to commit a felony and “injury to a monument” in excess of $1,000. Two months ago, Lucas showed up to a demonstration at Portsmouth’s Confederate monument, and told police not to arrest the protesters planning to paint it. Protesters dismantled the monument hours after Lucas left the scene, which she says she did not condone.

ACRJ confirmed its first inmate cases of COVID-19 last week. PC: Skyclad Aerial

Jail outbreak

Four inmates at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail tested positive for COVID last week, according to data from the Thomas Jefferson Health District. Jails and prisons around the country have had serious COVID outbreaks in recent months, but the ACRJ had been a success story up to this point.

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Coronavirus News

Tough call: Albemarle allows in-person learning for select students, while Charlottesville opts for all-virtual reopening

Charlottesville City Schools will reopen virtually for all students, while Albemarle County will allow a limited selection of students to participate in in-person learning. PC: Eze Amos

After weeks of discussion and debate, the verdict is in: Charlottesville City Schools will reopen virtually for all students, while Albemarle County will allow a limited selection of students to participate in in-person learning. Both districts finalized their decisions at school board meetings on Thursday.

During the division’s virtual meeting, ACPS staff detailed the division’s five stages of reopening. Superintendent Matt Haas recommended the board approve the second stage for the first nine weeks of school. Most students will begin the year learning online only, but the plan makes an exception for students with inadequate internet access that cannot be improved, those with special needs who cannot fulfill their individual education plans at home, and English learners with low proficiency levels in fourth through 12th grades.

These students—an estimated 1,000 to 1,500—will be put into pods of 10 or fewer, and paired with a learning coach, who will assist them with their online coursework. Everyone will be required to wear masks and adhere to social distancing within the school buildings, which will be regularly cleaned and disinfected, among other mitigation measures. Bus service will be provided for families who request it.

All students and staff members coming into the school buildings will be doing so voluntarily, Haas emphasized throughout the meeting. 

In the coming week, Albemarle will release more details on how it’s revamping virtual learning, which will include both asynchronous and synchronous coursework, and what actions it will take if a student or staff member involved in in-person instruction contracts COVID-19.

Ahead of Charlottesville’s virtual meeting, Superintendent Rosa Atkins recommended that the board approve an all-virtual model for the first nine weeks of school, pointing toward the rising cases and positivity rate in the area and many remaining unanswered safety questions. She emphasized that virtual learning in the fall would greatly differ from the experience offered in the spring, and would include a variety of new features, from social-emotional learning to peer engagement.

Both divisions will revisit their decisions in the middle of the first quarter to evaluate whether they will move forward with reopening, or stay in the same phase for the next school quarter.

Though all classes will be online, Charlottesville plans to host individual in-person, socially-distanced meet-and-greets with teachers, which students and their families will sign up for. Additionally, it is possible that a small number of students in great need of in-person instruction will be grouped into pods, and have classes in outdoor settings, said Atkins.

About 200 families in Charlottesville have indicated they need child care, she added. The division is working with community partners—including the Boys & Girls Club, Piedmont Family YMCA, and City of Promise—to figure out how to best provide assistance. Students could participate in virtual learning while at a child care center.

Feelings about virtual reopening were mixed in the county. Board members Judy Le and Ellen Osborne emphasized the various risks of in-person learning and lack of solid data on how the virus transmits between children, and preferred to start with stage one, or all-virtual classes.

“I just don’t feel like I can put our most vulnerable students into the middle of a grand experiment, and have them take that home to their communities,” said Osborne.

However, board member Katrina Callsen expressed concern for the families she has heard from who are unable to adequately participate in distance learning, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds.

The board initially did not agree to reopen under stage two, with members David Oberg and Graham Paige siding with Le and Osborne against the plan. However, Oberg changed his mind after a 10 minute break, and voted to approve it, along with Callsen, Jonno Alcaro, and Kate Acuff.

Albemarle parents and staff were also split on reopening plans, per the division’s latest surveys. Out of nearly 7,000 responses, 71 percent of parents ranged from “somewhat” to “extremely” concerned about sending their student to school for in-person learning in the fall, but 67 percent preferred that the division adopt a hybrid reopening model.

Meanwhile, 65 percent of staff respondents did not feel comfortable returning to the classroom. 

If the pandemic worsens in the area—especially after UVA students return—Haas has the authority to revert the division all the way back to stage one without approval from the board.

While the Charlottesville School Board’s vote approving an all-virtual reopening was unanimous, results from a phone and web survey were split. A majority of staff (about 60 percent) preferred an all-virtual reopening, but families showed nearly equivalent support for face-to-face and online-only learning. 

During public comment, most speakers advocated for a hybrid model, particularly for younger students and those from marginalized backgrounds. 

“There is no clear consensus among families about the best path forward…I’m not sure why we are straying from the multipath system that was first designed,” said Richard Feero, who works for Abundant Life Ministries and lives in the Prospect community. “Choosing an all-virtual path to start the school year punishes working-class, predominantly Black and brown families in the city….Why not just give this small segment the option to have their children attend school in-person?”

During its school board meeting on August 6, Charlottesville staff will give a presentation with more details on how it will implement distance learning for students in special education, ESL, and preschool. 

Albemarle’s next meeting is scheduled for August 13.

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Left out: Albemarle teachers, parents call out inequity in reopening plans

Spanish teacher Filadelfia Soto is disappointed in the school district for not consulting with teachers on reopening sooner. PC: John Robinson

For weeks, Filadelfia Soto—along with hundreds of other teachers in Albemarle County—was left in the dark. She had received emails with “general information about school board meetings,” but nothing about how the school division planned to reopen in the fall, or when teachers could weigh in on the issue.

So when division staff rolled out three reopening scenarios—all allowing students to return to classrooms for face-to-face learning—at a July 9 school board meeting, she was as surprised as she was disappointed.

“They went from moving the opening date from August to September…and then all of a sudden they said we are reopening schools face-to-face,” says Soto, who teaches Spanish at Woodbrook Elementary School. When she heard the plans, she felt like she had no choice but to participate in risky in-person learning.

More than 600 teachers—nearly half of those in the division—share Soto’s sentiments, and signed an open letter criticizing their exclusion from the planning process, as well as a lack of consideration for their needs and concerns. Pointing to the rising coronavirus rates in the area, they believe the proposed face-to-face models are “unequivocally unsafe,” and have urged the school board to reopen schools virtually.

“Virtual is not the ideal learning environment for all students, but we must begin there. The rising rates of illness and death across Virginia and nationally do not make me feel confident entering into a building,” says Adrienne Oliver, an instructional coach for ACPS. “We need to begin there also because we’re going to end up there in some capacity.” 

Oliver and her colleagues also believe face-to-face learning puts marginalized communities, specifically those of color, in greater danger.

“It will be our most well-resourced families who opt their children out of that learning environment because they have the means. Which means you’ll then have school buildings that are filled with students who depend upon the resources that the school system can provide for them,” says Oliver, who is Black.

“Black and Latinx people…are [disproportionately] dying from this illness. To have a school that could potentially be filled with vulnerable students in any capacity places the burdens of the illness upon them,” Oliver says.

In response to community backlash, the district sent out a survey to teachers on July 10, asking them for their thoughts about reopening, and if they’d like to be part of a reopening task force. And on July 14, Superintendent Matt Haas announced he would draft an online-only option for the school board to consider at its July 30 meeting, when a final decision will be made.

But there is still a lot more equity work to be done, teachers say. Though ACPS sent out a survey to families last month, asking them if they preferred a hybrid or online reopening, the response rate was only 50 percent, says instructional coach Dr. Vicki Hobson.

“The voices of our most marginalized families…need to be central in the decisions that affect them. We need to find out what it is that they want and need, and how we can support that,” adds Hobson.

“We also need to consider how we’re asking for information. Some families don’t have access to devices or the internet in order to respond to an online survey,” she says. “We need to [have] alternative ways to get information, such as personalized phone calls with those we haven’t heard back from.”

In addition to contacting every family, the district should hear from all staff members, as well as community members and organizations, Oliver says.

Though distance learning did not go well for her eighth grader in the spring, parent Amanda Moxham believes that a virtual reopening is safest.

“We’ve been paying attention to the data locally around the number of cases and increases, and looking at the spikes across the country. And knowing that so many students will be returning to UVA this fall, there are [a lot of] dangers that exist,” says Moxham, who is a community organizer for the Hate-Free Schools Coalition of Albemarle County. “I don’t want to contribute to forcing teachers back into a physical school building who are not comfortable being there…[or] to increasing case numbers.”

Moxham is hopeful that teachers will be able to create a more effective distance learning model, such as by implementing live classes, before school starts on September 8, but is also frustrated with the district’s lack of outreach.

“What could have saved a huge amount of time was…[if] they had actually talked to the teachers first,” she says.

For the students who cannot learn from home, the district could work with community members and organizations to create alternative, yet safe learning options, suggests Moxham. For example, it could assign certain teachers a small group of students, and allow them to teach at outdoor locations.

But regardless of the school board’s decision, the district needs to figure out “how to make virtual learning equitable,” says Hobson. It should not only gather feedback from families about their experience with it in the spring, but also train teachers, set up more Wi-Fi hot spots, and distribute more laptops.

“We have a chance to do so much better than the virtual learning that we provided in the spring,” adds Oliver. “We see this as an opportunity to shift educational practice for the better.”

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In brief: Tiki terror, teacher trouble, and more

Work crews removed the statue of General Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal on Richmond’s Monument Avenue earlier this month. PC: Eze Amos

Statue disposal

Many of Richmond’s Monument Avenue Confederate statues are gone, but debate over their removal continues, and people have wondered where the toppled statues are being stored. This week, some sharp-eyed Richmonders noticed a large collection of monument-shaped tarps standing around the city’s wastewater treatment plant. It’s about as close as you can get to literally flushing the things down the toilet.

PC: Castle Hill Gaming

Prime real estate

It looks like a slot machine. It plays like a slot machine. But actually, it’s a “skill game.” Now, these games are legal in Virginia—and there are more than a dozen lined up in a glamorous former bank building downtown. The space is currently home to high-end steakhouse Prime 109, which was shuttered by the economic crash. The new scene inside the building has left some in town wondering if there’s a swanky casino in Charlottesville’s future.

Prime 109 boss Loren Mendosa insists that “right now there’s not much to talk about.” Sure, it could be a casino eventually, but Mendosa says things are happening fast, and he has “no idea what the actual thing would look like.” Still, he’s rolling the dice on the idea.

The Prime team hurriedly carted the machines into the space at the 11th hour. On July 1, all previously installed skill game machines became legal, though the law change doesn’t allow new machines to be installed. “If we don’t have the machines installed by June 30th, there’s no chance of even talking about it,” Mendosa says.

“It’s definitely not [a casino] right now. Who knows?…It might be a lot of different things,” he says about his restaurant full of quasi-gambling machines.

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Quote of the week

“When you go outside and say, ‘I can’t breathe with this mask on; I’m gonna take it off,’ try breathing with COVID.”

—area resident Stacey Washington, who contracted the virus after taking her mask off at a family Fourth of July celebration.

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In brief

Teacher troubles

On July 9, Albemarle County schools laid out plans for in-person reopening this fall. It quickly came to light, though, that the plan had been created without getting feedback from ACPS teachers, reports The Daily Progress. Teachers and staff have since circulated an open letter advocating against in-person instruction, calling the proposal “unequivocally unsafe for Albemarle County staff and families.”

Party’s over

As coronavirus cases increase every day, Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker urged local residents to wear masks, practice social distancing, and stay home as much as possible, among other safety precautions, in a press conference on Monday afternoon. Walker also denounced the large gatherings being held around town—including parties on UVA’s frat row.

Mayor Nikuyah Walker reminded residents to wear masks, practice social distancing, and stay home. PC: Eze Amos

New faces

Norfolk Delegate Jay Jones and Alexandria Delegate Hala Ayala have announced 2021 campaigns for lieutenant governor of Virginia, joining Jennifer Carroll Foy and Jennifer McClellan—both running for governor—as the third and fourth people of color under the age of 50 to announce a Democratic run at statewide office. Meanwhile, Terry McAuliffe still lurks in the wings, having pulled almost $2 million into his PAC this spring.

Tiki terror

Early Monday morning, two local activists awoke to find blazing tiki torches in their yards—an eerie reminder of the KKK rally held nearly three years ago at the University of Virginia. (Another activist found an unlit, discarded torch.) The act was “without a doubt intentional,” according to a Medium post by Showing Up for Racial Justice.

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Telling the truth: Local schools overhaul history curriculum

Adrienne Oliver, an instructional coach for Albemarle County Public Schools, believes all students will be able to see themselves in the history of the United States, once the Reframing the Narrative program is implemented. PC: John Robinson

As protests against police brutality continue around the country, school districts are tackling another form of systemic racism and oppression: whitewashed history. Since last year, Albemarle County Public Schools has been working to create an anti-racist social studies curriculum, elevating the voices and stories of marginalized people and groups, which are often misrepresented by (or entirely excluded from) textbooks. And now, the district is one step closer to implementing the curriculum—called Reframing the Narrative.

Last week, the district’s history teachers—joined by over a dozen partner organizations and more than 100 educators from Charlottesville City Schools, Virginia Beach City Public Schools, and other districts across the state—met virtually to begin constructing a more comprehensive and inclusive U.S. history curriculum as part of the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative.

Fully addressing our country’s legacy of slavery, racism, and inequity is not an easy task, and “dependency on textbooks of any kind will only preserve the status quo and dominant narratives,” says Adrienne Oliver, an ACPS instructional coach who participated in the virtual workshops. “The current state standards continue to uphold such narratives, and so a heavy reliance upon outsourced materials is, in my view, antithetical to our work.”

Rather than find new textbooks (Oliver says she has yet to see an anti-racist one), the curriculum will rely on relevant texts and resources, primary source materials, and classroom discussions and activities—all working to “resist a retelling of dominant narratives and put learning into students’ hands,” says Oliver.

After a team of editors reviews and refines the results of last week’s workshops, inquiry-based U.S. history units, containing learning plans and assessment tools, will be uploaded onto an online platform for ACPS teachers, along with those from CCS and other districts, to use starting this fall.

Under the anti-racist curriculum, all students will be able to see themselves in the history of the United States, examining it from a variety of non-traditional perspectives, says Oliver. Black and brown students, along with others from marginalized backgrounds, may feel more acknowledged and empowered, as they study untold stories of resilience and resistance.

The revamped history courses will also better prepare students, especially those who are white, to deal with uncomfortable issues in our country, points out Bethany Bazemore, who graduated from Charlottesville High School this year.

“The only way as a society we’re going to get past this is if white people learn to be uncomfortable,” says Bazemore, who is Black. “Black people have been uncomfortable for 400 years and counting.”

“You need to understand and reckon with your history to really address the problems of the present,” adds program leader John Hobson. “It’s all connected.”

Last summer, ACPS partnered with the Montpelier Foundation to jump-start the Reframing the Narrative program. With the support of a $299,500 grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, history teachers from the division participated in professional development workshops at Montpelier, along with other field experiences and learning opportunities, during the school year.

Through these initiatives, educators “are able to understand possibly their own bias, and reflect and grow from there,” says Virginia Beach social studies instructor Nick Dzendzel, a participant in the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative. “It provides a whole new atmosphere inside of a school [or] department for those educators to start pushing for what they know and want to be right for the students—and not just adhering to what’s been done before.”

The CACF grant also helps to pay teachers as they develop the new curriculum outside of school hours, and funds student field trips to Montpelier, “centering the voices and experiences of enslaved people and the descendant community” at the former plantation, says Oliver.

Next year, the process will start over again, as Albemarle teachers update the division’s world geography curriculum for freshmen and world history for sophomores. The following year, the eighth grade civics and 12th grade government curriculums will also get an anti-racist makeover.

In partnership with ACPS and other state school districts, Charlottesville City Schools also began updating its social studies curriculum last summer. Participating teachers (who receive a stipend) have taken professional development courses at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center focused on local Black history, as well as curriculum-writing workshops and field excursions around Charlottesville.

Last year, CCS Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins was among those appointed to the Commission on African American History Education, which is currently reviewing the history standards and practices for the entire state. By September 1, the commission will offer recommendations for enriched standards related to African American history, as well as cultural competency among teachers.

The white supremacist violence of August 11 and 12 was a catalyst, says Oliver, but these massive curriculum overhauls were years in the making. Grassroots organizers and activists, along with individual educators, have been advocating for and implementing anti-racist curriculums across Virginia for some time.

“If you’re doing this [alone] in your own classroom, it’s easy to get weighed down by barriers, by administrators, and by parents for working against the grain. It’s hard to do that every day,” says Virginia Initiative participant Sarah Clark, who teaches U.S. history in Virginia Beach. “But when you’re involved in projects like this, it’s like a rejuvenation…I’m not doing it alone.”

Categories
News

Cops out: City schools remove SROs, while county holds off

Ahead of Thursday night’s meeting, city school board member Lashundra Bryson Morsberger tweeted her support for kicking cops out of schools. PC: Eze Amos

In light of the ongoing protests against police brutality and systemic racism, school districts across the country have cut ties with police—including here in Charlottesville.

On June 11, Charlottesville City Schools announced it was discontinuing its memorandum of understanding with the Charlottesville Police Department, ending its current school resource officer program. Instead, the district says it will put the $300,000 allocated for its four SROs toward a new “school safety model.” Albemarle County Public Schools will also reexamine its relationship with police.

The decision was a hot topic during the city’s school board meeting, held later that evening. Many parents, teachers, and other community members hopped on the Zoom call, and all but one voiced their support of the decision to end the memorandum.

“The removal of SROs is an evidence-based decision,” said Christa Bennett, who has two children in the school district. “There is no evidence that they prevent more violence than they cause, and in some cases, [they] are contributing to a school-to-prison pipeline:” higher rates of suspensions, expulsions, and arrests for students of color (though they do not misbehave more than their white peers).

When her child attended Jackson-Via Elementary, Robin Francis claimed she witnessed this violence firsthand, when an SRO got physical with a small black child unnecessarily on two occasions. As a person of color, the incidents were “terrifying” for Francis to watch, and reinforced her belief that SROs “do not encourage a sense of community—[but] create a sense of fear.”

Putting police in schools has had a “direct effect on [the] educational progress, and mental and physical health” of black students, added Amy Woolard, an attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center. Studies show police presence causes a drop in test scores, high school graduation rates, and college attendance rates for young African Americans, among other negative consequences.

Over the summer, the school board plans to host several feedback sessions, during which it will get input from the community, and the new program will be implemented by August 19, when the new school year begins.

While it remains unclear what the program will look like, CCS school board member Lashundra Bryson Morsberger hopes it will be supportive, rather than punitive, and thinks a lot more black counselors, social workers, and other support staff should be hired.

“Police in schools only serves to expose black children to the criminal justice system at a time when they should be able to make mistakes and learn from them, instead of being put into the system,” she says. “Security and safety can be accomplished in many ways, but it has to start with people from this community who know our kids and live in the same communities and neighborhoods.”

Leading up to its decision to dump the memorandum of understanding, CCS received hundreds of emails from students, parents, teachers, activists, and other community members calling for the removal of SROs, according to CCS Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins. Its equity committee, along with individual school board members, also reached out to many people and organizations to get their thoughts, both positive and negative.

Supporters of SRO programs argue that they keep schools safe, and help build relationships between students and law enforcement, which can prevent crime and acts of violence.

“On several occasions, the school resource officers were enlisted to ensure [my daughter’s] safety,” said Laura Brown, the only person who spoke against CCS’ removal of SROs during Thursday’s meeting. As Brown and the staff at Burnley-Moran Elementary worked to develop a treatment plan for her daughter, who is mixed race and has special needs, “the SROs were nothing but positive with her and provided her with much-needed security and reassurance.”

Others see the programs as a waste of money, among other criticisms. According to the Justice Policy Institute, most situations involving SROs can be handled by school officials. Though SROs have been ushered into nearly half of the nation’s schools to prevent mass shootings, they’ve also been present at many of the schools where shootings have occurred.

Many, including the Charlottesville Black Lives Matter chapter, have called on CCS to use the extra $300,000 to hire more teachers and counselors—particularly those of color. It could also fund the recently eliminated elementary Spanish program and other positions that were cut, suggested several parents.

After receiving numerous messages from the community calling for the removal of cops from schools, the Albemarle County School Board discussed its SRO program during its meeting Thursday evening. But ACPS plans to finish revising its memorandum of understanding with the Albemarle County Police Department, and may conduct an independent review of the program before moving forward with a decision, as suggested by the district’s Superintendent Matt Haas.

While the county school board agreed to discuss the issue again during its June 18 meeting, most of its members, including Judy Le and Katrina Callsen, supported removing the district’s five SROs, and funding mental health resources.

“I hear our black brothers and sisters, some of whom have been risking their lives in the streets for weeks to protest the generations of trauma from overpolicing and brutality,” said Le, who represents the Rivanna District. “How can being faced with the embodiment of that trauma every day make for a safe and positive learning environment?”

“When I’ve asked questions about it in our division, I’ve been assured that there are infrequent arrests made in our schools, which is great,” she added. “But it leads me to ask: ‘Why do we have the SROs at all? Why are we paying $265,000 for them each year?’”

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How much do cops cost kids?

By Ben Hitchcock

Charlottesville City Schools and the Charlottesville Police Department have discontinued the school resource officer program, which means that the $300,000 the schools were paying the police department can now be put toward other ends.

The school district’s total budget is well over $80 million, so $300,000 for cops in schools might not seem like much. But vast portions of those millions are tied up in fixed costs like real estate and building maintenance. The actual, everyday experience of students is determined, in large part, by budget decisions made on the margins.

For example, earlier this year, when the coronavirus’ economic downturn forced the district to tighten its budget by $1.16 million, CCS decided to cut, among other things, the entire elementary school Spanish program. Eliminating Spanish for elementary schoolers saved city schools $500,340.

The school district’s preliminary funding request for the 2020-21 fiscal year, released in January, gives a loose sense of the district’s aspirations, and also how much those aspirations might cost. CCS and the city spent the ensuing months haggling over whether these additions would be possible. This isn’t meant to suggest that the elimination of the SRO program means these positions will be filled, but the numbers below show the scale of the SRO program in comparison to the district’s other unfulfilled needs.

$300,000

School resource officers program

$97,076

Engineering teacher for Buford

$97,076

English language learners teacher

$75,820

Specialist for annual giving to solicit donations from affluent town residents

$43,470

Part-time orchestra teacher for Walker Upper Elementary

$41,525

Support for social-emotional learning program at Clark Elementary

$16,250

Art supplies

 

Updated 6/15

Categories
Coronavirus News

Making it work: Distance learning is a big challenge for special-needs students

Since distance learning began in March, Marybeth Clarke has discovered many new things about her 14-year-old daughter, Elle, who is in seventh grade at the Virginia Institute of Autism’s James C. Hormel School. PC: Zack Wajsgras

To the relief of local teachers, parents, and students, this school year is almost at an end. The sudden transition to distance learning back in March posed a challenge to schools across the country, but it’s been especially tricky for special education and English as a Second Language students, along with their teachers and families. These students require individualized, hands-on assistance and care, something that does not lend itself easily to at-home learning.

When schools first shut down, many parents of special ed students did not know the specific strategies and practices that their children’s teachers used in the classroom, says Jessica Doucette, director of education services at Virginia Institute of Autism’s James C. Hormel School. Learning how to work with their student has been even more difficult for parents with full-time jobs, and single-parent households. Distance learning also removed those children from their much-needed classroom routines, which help them to manage behaviors and emotions, says Becca Irvine, a special education teacher at Baker-Butler Elementary.

When ESL students were taken out of the classroom, they lost a crucial learning tool: peer interactions. “English learners, in particular, learn by listening to their peers,” says Albemarle High School ESL teacher Renata Germino. That’s an especially big loss for students whose parents have limited English skills. In Albemarle County alone, there are kids from 96 different countries, speaking more than 80 different languages, according to Germino.

One of the biggest distance-learning challenges for ESL students, teachers say, is one many families have faced: internet access. Schools have provided Wi-Fi hot spots and laptops, among other resources. But some students still do not have adequate internet access. From ACPS’ Check and Connect program, which requires teachers and counselors to contact every student at least once a week, “we know there are 685 students, about 4.7 percent [of the division], who do not have home access to the internet,” says spokesman Phil Giaramita.

To accommodate them, teachers have sent learning materials through the mail, as well as delivered items in person.

And special education and ESL teachers have found a variety of other ways to meet their students’ needs.

Teachers at the James C. Hormel School have provided one-on-one training to parents of students with autism, teaching them how to work on specific skills with their children the same way they would at school, says Doucette.

These trainings and resources have helped Marybeth Clarke learn more about her 14-year-old daughter, Elle, who is in seventh grade at the James C. Hormel School.

“Obviously, I know my daughter inside and out, but I didn’t know her academically. As we approach new subjects and content every week, I have to gauge almost right away [if] there’s a skill missing that she needs in order to understand something else,” says Clarke, who is a stay-at-home mom. “Sometimes I see her do things I had no idea that she could do, and other times…[struggle with] things I had no idea she couldn’t do. It’s definitely a learning curve for me.”

While it was “very rough” for Elle when her school first moved online, she and her mother (with teachers’ support) have been able to establish their own routine at home, which helps Elle complete her work and feel at ease. Every school day, Elle writes in her journal, does online assignments, and receives one-on-one occupational and speech therapy through video chat—all at set times, and with plenty of breaks.

To best help their students, ESL teachers have been translating assignments into the students’ native languages, says Germino. They’ve also provided students with online articles designed for ESL, allowing them to change the reading level and have words read out loud.

But the biggest priority for both special ed and ESL teachers has been maintaining strong relationships and consistent communication with kids and their families, they say.

Like many teachers, Molly Feazel-Orr conducts daily virtual one-on-one meetings with each of her special education students at Burnley-Moran, during which she sets behavioral expectations and gives them a structured schedule for the day.

Teachers have also been videoconferencing regularly with parents, working with them to develop plans for every student that align with their individualized education programs, as required by federal law.

To regularly check in with students and their families, ESL teachers (who don’t already speak their language) use tools like Interpretalk, which puts an interpreter directly on the line, and TalkingPoints, which translates text messages in 100-plus languages. They’ve also used Zoom, Google Meet, and similar platforms to have one-on-one lessons, as well as bring everyone together to practice their English.

It currently remains unclear when students will return to their classrooms. According to Giaramita, the Virginia Department of Education will release a report this month “on timing and various scenarios for the reopening of schools,” which will have a “highly significant influence” on the decisions each school division makes—whether classes will be face-to-face, online only, or a hybrid of the two.

But for now, “we all need to offer grace to ourselves across the board—families, students, administrators, everybody,” says Germino. “This is all brand new for us, and we’re all working really hard to do the best we can.”