Tag: Charlottesville High School

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Fresh start

Kenny Leatherwood. Supplied photo.

Students returned to Charlottesville High School on Monday, November 27, after a series of fights spurred staff absences and a string of closures prior to Thanksgiving break. Charlottesville City Schools labeled the multi-day suspension of classes a “cultural reset.” The first day back went relatively smoothly according to interim principal Kenny Leatherwood, but he noted in a message to community members that improving the environment at CHS is not a “one-day fix.”

Even the weeklong break was not without incident—on November 21, CHS was evacuated due to a potential bomb threat. CCS Community Relations Liaison Amanda Korman said the evacuation was prompted by social media posts made by a student who “did not understand that they could be interpreted as a threat, and … regrets the posts.”

As part of the school’s “cultural reset,” students began their first day back with a school-wide assembly reiterating expectations and introducing Leatherwood to the student body. Additionally, several changes were made to the school’s safety procedures, including door and hallway coverage by faculty and staff.

Leatherwood mentioned in a post reflecting on the school day that numerous students were sent home for not attending classes, and this will continue in the future to ensure a safe and productive learning environment. While sending students home for non-attendance seems counterintuitive, Superintendent Royal Gurley says it’s a necessary, if not ideal, step.

“If a student is at school, they will attend class and cooperate with the staff,” says Gurley. “Sending students home is never our first choice, and when we do so, it’s part of an ongoing conversation with the family and student so that we can all mutually reinforce the school’s expectations.”

All students who were sent home will be scheduled for a student success meeting, according to the superintendent. Gurley says his preliminary meetings with students, parents, and guardians about disciplinary action have been “overwhelmingly positive” and that “people are … realistic that there is further work to do.”

For students with persistent problems at school, CCS will recommend alternative education arrangements. Options include the new Knight School, Lugo-McGinness Academy, and the Work Achieves Lasting Knowledge program.

The immediate changes at CHS may have improved conditions at the school, but the district continues to contemplate additional safety improvements and suggestions. Current considerations include adding more door safety technology, weapon detectors, and other staff recommendations.

Community members remain concerned about student and staff safety.

In a message to C-VILLE, a parent who wished to remain anonymous wrote, “Charlottesville High School has dedicated, excellent teachers who love Charlottesville High School and love the Charlottesville community. … Teachers, staff, and students deserve to feel safe in school.”

Shamia Hopkins, the parent of a student who has been suspended for her involvement in fights, expressed her frustration with conditions at the school and a lack of communication around brawls. “My child should not go to school with a headache when she wakes up in the morning, because she’s afraid that someone’s going to … try to do something that’s gonna ruin her chances of being able to progress in high school [and] into her college career,” Hopkins says. “They need to get more to the root of the situations when they happen.”

Community members will have an opportunity to learn more about changes at the school and provide feedback during a 6pm meeting with the Charlottesville School Board and administrators on Thursday, November 30, at CHS.

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News

Cops (not) out

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates is pushing to require school resource officers in Virginia public schools. Charlottesville High ended its SRO program in 2020. Photo: Eze Amos

After protests over police brutality rocked the nation in the summer of 2020, both Charlottesville and Albemarle ended their school resource officer programs. The districts replaced the officers with care and safety assistants, unarmed adults tasked with building relationships with students, monitoring hallways, de-escalating conflicts, addressing mental health concerns, assisting with security issues, and upholding the school’s code of conduct.

Since those changes went into effect, the presence of school resource officers has become yet another flash point in Virginia politicians’ war over the state’s education system. Republicans, who swept to victory in 2021’s elections in part by campaigning on education issues, have since proposed bills that would require every public elementary and secondary school to have one school resource officer on duty. It’s among the many GOP initiatives that aim to undo changes made in the state in the last few years (p. 17).  

Governor Glenn Youngkin has voiced his support for the initiative, and promised $50 million in state funding for SROs over the next two years. A House of Delegates bill requiring resource officers in middle and high schools passed the House education committee 12-10 this week. The state Senate, which Dems control 21-19, remains in the way of Republicans passing whatever laws they want, and defeated its version of the bill in the Senate education committee. Still, community activists who advocated for the removal of resource officers warn against the consequences of continued GOP pressure on this front.  

“Since the advent of school resource officers…we’ve seen how young people get tangled up not just in one spider web of school discipline structures, but in two spiderwebs at the same time when we bring law enforcement into the equation,” says Amy Woolard, policy director for the Legal Aid Justice Center. “A lot of our clients were facing having to fight their suspensions for certain behaviors at the same time they were fighting essentially criminal charges.” 

A 2018 report from The New York Times indicated that in Charlottesville, Black children are five times as likely to be suspended from school as white children. “Students of color are more likely to go to a school with a police officer, more likely to be referred to law enforcement, and more likely to be arrested at school,” concluded a 2016 report from the ACLU. “Nationally, Black students are more than twice as likely as their white classmates to be referred to law enforcement.” 

Parent Lara Harrison of the Hate-Free Schools Coalition of Albemarle County points to the troubled history of SRO programs. Beginning in the 1960s and ’70s, several major cities began putting police into schools in response to Black and Latino student protests against racism. “The U.S. has a history of using policing to squash dissent from BIPOC people and to keep targeted groups in a constant state of fear and intimidation,” she says.

The ACLU’s research also concludes that SROs do not prevent school shootings, which has been cited as justification for their increased presence since the 1990s. Instead, SROs are more likely to inflict violence upon students of color and disabled students. Numerous videos showing police detaining, assaulting, and injuring students—as young as kindergarteners—have gone viral on social media in recent years.

“I have seen more than one video of a child being slammed to the ground,” says Christa Bennett, who has two daughters who attend city schools. “The risk of that happening in our schools outweighs the potential benefit that if police were in a situation where there is violence, they would be able to stop it—and as a whole there’s no evidence that having police in schools does that.”

In turn, SROs can create a tense learning environment for students, and make them feel unsafe. “Exposure to police surges significantly reduced test scores for African American boys, consistent with their greater exposure to policing,” says one recent study from education professors at Harvard and Columbia. 

Charlottesville School Board chair Lisa Larson-Torres says the district’s new safety program has been “going great,” and she does not want the board to be forced to end it. She believes every school division should be able to choose its own safety model.“There have been fewer fights at Charlottesville High School than during most years prior to the new model,” says Larson-Torres. 

Instead of SROs, schools should invest in hiring coaches, mentors, counselors, and other support staff, especially as students continue to recover from trauma caused by the pandemic, says Woolard. “We should be first looking to fully fund the positions we already need.” 

The state must also work to address inequities outside the classroom, which are often the root cause of student misbehavior, adds activist Ang Conn of Charlottesville Beyond Policing.

“We have not provided enough funding to vital aspects of growth and development: proper housing, proper mental health care, food resources for families,” says Conn. “They go after youth who are the products of these [inequities].” 

Bennett encourages community members to let the Charlottesville School Board know they do not want SROs to return to city schools, and to get involved in local advocacy groups, like the newly established Charlottesville United for Public Education.

“It’s important for white parents to speak out about this and use our privilege to say that this is not something that we support,” says Bennett. 

If the proposed law is passed, Bennett hopes the city school board will use its utmost discretion when creating a new contract with the Charlottesville Police Department. Meanwhile, Harrison urges the county school board to do all that it can to preserve its new safety program.

“ACPS must use all resources available to keep police out of all schools—whether it be in the courtroom or at the legislative level,” adds Harrison. 

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Arts Culture

PICK: Grand Illumination Holiday Concert

Photo from the City of Charlottesville

Justice fir all: It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Keep that in mind as you hold on to tradition from afar and watch Charlottesville’s Grand Illumination Holiday Concert remotely this December. Performers from around the region, including the Charlottesville High School choirs, Odyssey of Soul, and Rattlebag, take the Paramount stage during a TV broadcast co-hosted by NBC29’s Kasey Hott and Andrea Copeland-Whitsett. At the end of the night, officials will flip the light switch on our locally sourced tree with a crowdsourced name: Spruce Bader Ginsburg.

Friday 12/4, airing on CW29 at 6pm and NBC29 at 7pm.

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News

Still here: Public health experts urge caution as holidays approach

With cold weather and the flu season upon us, the Charlottesville community should brace itself for a serious uptick in COVID-19 cases. PC: Thomas Jefferson Health District

Nationwide, nearly 100,000 new COVID cases were reported last Friday—the most in a single day to this point. And with COVID-19 spreading across the country faster than ever, that number will almost certainly rise.

Locally, positivity rate has remained low, currently at just 2.4 percent, said Thomas Jefferson Health District medical director Denise Bonds at Monday’s City Council meeting. Bonds attributes that rate to the “very large number of tests that UVA is doing on an almost daily basis.”

Even so, the health district urges caution as the winter months and holiday season approach.

“The more people gathering—whether it’s at work sites or community events—it’s more of a risk for people to get exposed to COVID-19, and spread it to others,” says TJHD spokesperson Kathryn Goodman.

The return of students to UVA Grounds contributed to case spikes in Charlottesville and Albemarle in September and early October. Since the fall semester began in late August, students have been spotted crowding into bars on the Corner, and attending off-Grounds parties—typically standing close to each other and not wearing masks.

As of November 3, the university has reported 1,108 cases among students, faculty, staff, and contract employees since August 17. The spike receded in the later part of October, and 26 cases are currently active.

“A majority of what we’ve seen [with] UVA cases is that it’s been spread amongst UVA, and not far out into the community,” says Goodman. “It’s hard to know that always though—we can’t say for sure there hasn’t been [any] community spread from UVA cases.”

The health district continues to focus on educating area residents about proper safety precautions through social media, testing events, and other outreach measures.

“We know that everybody is tired of hearing about it…[but] COVID is still here unfortunately,” adds Goodman. “We have to continue to be extra cautious by wearing face masks, washing our hands, keeping six feet apart, [and] staying home when sick to help prevent further spread.”

The health district will offer free testing every day the week before Thanksgiving, and set up additional testing sites the week afterward.

Families should celebrate Thanksgiving—along with other upcoming holidays—with their own household, and include family and friends virtually, says Goodman.

“One of the highest-risk decisions people can make for Thanksgiving is having multiple households gather indoors together,” she adds. “It’s important people recognize that this year, we have to do things differently.”

People who do visit family or friends for the holidays should quarantine for two weeks before their trip, gather outside, and make sure each household is seated at separate tables, spaced at least six feet apart.

The health district is also worried about chilly fall weather—the beginning of cold and flu season—and its potential impact on cases.

“A lot of our concern is around people not being able to get together outdoors. The cold weather brings people inside,” says Goodman. “We [also] don’t know what the effects could be if someone gets the flu and COVID-19 together.”

To prevent the spread of the flu in the community, the TJHD is currently offering free flu shots. Its next drive-through clinic will be November 7 from 2 to 5pm at Charlottesville High School.

Correction 11/5: TJHD will be offering free COVID testing every day the week before Thanksgiving, not every day before Thanksgiving.

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News

Imperfect solution: Activists warn that existing social service systems can’t fix problems with policing

Mental health advocate Myra Anderson warns that the social service systems need reform too. PC: Eze Amos

Since the violent arrest of an unhoused man on the Downtown Mall earlier this month, Defund Cville Police—along with numerous other activists and community members—have continued to call for the creation of a local mobile crisis unit, which would respond to emergency calls that the police are not equipped to handle.

Lori Wood, director of emergency and short term stabilization services at Region Ten Community Service Board, has expressed public support for the creation of such a unit, which she says could answer some calls related to mental health or substance abuse.

But radically shifting the city’s budget alone will not bring an end to systemic racism and oppression, specifically within mental health services, warns Black mental health advocate Myra Anderson.

“It’s moving money from one system that has historically and systemically not treated Black people right, [to] another system that has the same legacy,” says Anderson about Region Ten, a public agency—funded by local, state, and federal dollars—providing mental health, intellectual disability, and substance use services to Charlottesville and surrounding counties.

“Region Ten doesn’t need to be the go-to person [for the mobile crisis unit],” says Anderson, a former client who later became a board member and peer support specialist at the agency. “I feel like it’s Black skin…police are going to be on the scene anyway, based on personal biases that people [there] have.”

Former client Quezeann Williams also attests to these biases. At 10 years old, she says she was forced to go to Region Ten without her mother’s consent after she entered foster care, and was put on medications that “never made her feel good” and caused her to gain a lot of weight, among other side effects.

“I feel like because I was Black, what I said to the white people did not matter. It was their words against anything I felt, needed, or wanted,” says Williams, who graduated from Charlottesville High School this year. “I struggle from anxiety due to this being more so trauma than anything…It was one of the worst experiences I ever went through.”

Anderson began receiving services at Region Ten as a child in the ‘90s, and was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. After graduating from college, she says she returned to the agency for adult services, but was inflicted with even more trauma.

“The system caused me to be subjected to everything from cultural incompetency, to racial unawareness…to microaggressions,” she says. “There was a gap in racial empathy. And that has been consistent throughout the time I received services.”

These problems in mental health care systems exist nationwide. Black people, indigenous people, and people of color are more likely to receive poor quality of care and have their services end prematurely, among other disparities, according to the American Counseling Association.

Per federal law, Region Ten cannot comment on individual cases. However, it’s been working for several years to expand its cultural awareness and sensitivity as part of its strategic plan, says community relations coordinator Joanna Jennings.

“[We] offered staff and management the opportunity to attend a local racial and cultural humility training in the fall of 2018 and 2019,” she says. “These two training sessions began a journey for Region Ten that has opened up the conversation of systemic racism at all levels of the agency.”

In 2016, Anderson filed a formal complaint about her treatment with the Charlottesville Human Rights Commission. The complaint made its way up to the Virginia Human Rights Committee, and the following year, it ruled that Region Ten had unlawfully prevented her from receiving services for six years as retaliation for her complaints, slamming the agency with multiple violations.

Region Ten isn’t the only social service provider in Charlottesville that has demonstrated racial bias. An independent 2019 report on the city’s foster care system showed that Black and multiracial children were referred to child welfare services at a higher rate than white children, and that “some racial groups compared to others” experienced “less favorable outcomes” once within the system.

Instead of relying on existing social service institutions, Anderson—alongside local advocacy nonprofit Partner for Mental Health—plans to create a working group of peers, professionals, and other stakeholders from diverse backgrounds “to reimagine mental health without police intervention.”

The group will seek to understand the community’s needs and listen to the stories of “our most marginalized people who have engaged with our police while in mental distress,” she says. It will also study other mobile crisis units around the country and provide recommendations to City Council. The group hopes that starting from scratch will allow the new agency to focus on its work, without having to fight against biases in established institutions.

In recent years, Region Ten has created a team to lead its equity efforts, which plans to provide implicit racial bias training, among other goals and initiatives. It’s also looking to hire and retain more diverse staff.

“Region Ten recognizes that this is a long-term and multi-faceted commitment,” adds Jennings. “We will continue to press forward.”

While Anderson is in support of expanding additional behavioral health services through defunding the police, she believes Region Ten and other existing social service systems need to fix their “implicit biases” before receiving more money. “You can’t throw a band-aid on something that’s more like a gaping wound,” she says.

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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.”

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Coronavirus News

High school seniors modify end-of-year traditions

With schools closed since March due to the ongoing pandemic, Charlottesville-area teens have had to finish their high school careers with makeshift versions of the events they had looked forward to for years. PC: Eze Amos

By Claudia Gohn

Senior year traditions—from proms and sports banquets to senior nights and graduation ceremonies—have long been a way to commemorate the end of high school, giving students the chance to celebrate and say goodbye to one chapter of life before beginning a new one. But with schools closed since March and social-distancing regulations still in place, Charlottesville-area teens have had to finish their high school careers with makeshift versions of the events they had looked forward to for years.

Although many seniors are disappointed, some have found these celebratory moments special. Covenant School senior Madi Alley remembers when she was in ninth grade, watching the seniors in a capella perform their traditional spring concert. Now she’s a member of the a capella group herself, but this year’s concert looked much different. It took place at a family friend’s barn, with only four people in the audience, and the singers stood six feet apart, wearing masks. Still, Alley is grateful to her teacher for organizing a concert at all. “It felt like we were being seen and still cared for,” she says.

At Saint Anne’s-Belfield, it’s a tradition for seniors to break the dress code one day in the spring and paint their school uniform skirts with the logos of the colleges they will attend in the fall. Senior Miguel Rivera Young, who’s going to Brown University, says he and some friends found a modified way to take part in the tradition (which isn’t limited to girls): They spread tarps across a street, and painted the skirts while physically distancing from each other. Then they took photos, standing six feet apart.

But there was no substitute for some once-in-a-lifetime events, like prom. For Monticello High senior Catherine Taylor, prom was one of the main things she was looking forward to, and she had begun making plans for the night. “We all already had our dresses because it was so close.”

Having these memorable events within arm’s reach, only to be snatched away, has devastated many seniors. “At first it was really, really heartbreaking,” says Albemarle High senior Cora Schiavone. “I was just
really upset because there was so much I was looking forward to.”

Swimmers Charlie Cross, a senior at AHS, and Noah Hargrove, from Western, are mourning the cancellation of their summer league, where they would have had senior night and a last chance to swim on the teams they grew up competing with. While Hargrove’s year-round swim team coach put together a virtual form of senior night, “it wasn’t even close” to the real thing, he says.

Like everything this spring, many long-anticipated events weren’t typical of senior year, but they were better than nothing. “I would rather have the big graduation with everybody,” says Ally Schoolcraft, a senior at CHS, which held a “victory lap” and photo op for graduates last week. “But for the time being, I think they did good with the resources that they had.”

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Coronavirus News

In brief: Happy (socially distanced) graduation, Memorial Day, and more

Joslyn Grimes (center) poses for a picture with her family after graduating at Albemarle High School on Saturday, May 23, 2020. Students filtered into the parking lot in five-minute intervals to experience the modified ceremony due to social distancing guidelines. PC: Zack Wajsgras

Rad grads

Charlottesville’s 2020 high school graduates imagined they’d be walking across a grand stage right about now, with “Pomp and Circumstance” blaring as an auditorium applauded. That’s gone, of course, but the virus hasn’t stopped our schools from showing love for their seniors. Districts around town have held variations on the traditional graduation ceremony, providing graduates with a chance to do more than just fling their caps toward the family’s living room ceiling.

Although school was originally scheduled to run through June 5, county schools decided to end “remote learning” on May 22, and held graduation events this week. At Albemarle High, students could make an appointment to walk across a tented, outdoor stage and receive a diploma while families and photographers looked on.

In the city, where lessons are (at least theoretically) continuing for the next two weeks, Charlottesville High put on a “victory lap” event—students donned their caps and gowns and drove around the school with their families, while teachers and staff stood by the roadside hollering congratulations and holding signs. The lap concluded at the front of the school, where graduates walked across the “stage” and received their diplomas. On the originally scheduled graduation day, the school will stream a congratulatory video, featuring footage from the victory laps.

In the past, most of the area’s public high schools have held their ceremonies at the John Paul Jones Arena. This year’s celebrations are far less grand, but they show the creativity, resilience, and sense of humor required in this moment—and they’re certainly as memorable as a valedictory address.

______________________

Quote of the Week

“I’ll tell you what—I think it’s been a spectacular success.”

—Virginia Beach Mayor Bobby Dyer on Memorial Day weekend. According to the city’s police, there were no major social distancing
violations on the area’s jam-packed beaches.

______________________ 

In brief

Pay up

The neo-Nazis who helped organize Unite the Right have, unsurprisingly, behaved poorly throughout the ensuing court case against them. On Monday, three defendants in Sines v. Kessler were ordered to pay $41,300 as a penalty for violating orders to turn over evidence related to the case, reports Integrity First for America, the organization backing the suit. Earlier this year, defendant Elliot Kline was charged with contempt of court and faced jail time as a result. The case is ongoing.

In the hole

After furloughing more than 600 employees with little notice, UVA Health System executives provided staff with more information on the institution’s deficit of $85 million per month. In a virtual meeting between School of Medicine faculty and Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Dr. Craig Kent earlier this month, Kent explained that the health system had a budget margin for this past year “of essentially zero” and had low reserves compared to other institutions, reported The Daily Progress. Naming several other money troubles, Kent admitted the institution hasn’t “run very efficiently over the years,” and promised it would make major financial changes.

Goodbye generals?

Years of debate (and violence) over the city’s infamous Confederate statues could soon come to an end. Four days after Governor Ralph Northam signed bills allowing localities to remove or alter Confederate monuments last month, Charlottesville City Manager Tarron Richardson told City Council via email that he would like to hold 2-2-1 meetings to discuss the removal of the Lee and Jackson statues, reported The Daily Progress. Richardson asked for the meetings, which would not have to be open to the public, to be held after council approves the city’s fiscal 2021 budget, which is expected to happen next month.

Hydroxy hoax

In a Sunday interview with “Full Measure,” President Trump admitted he was no longer taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug he claimed could prevent or treat coronavirus, despite mounting scientific evidence to the contrary. Just last week, he dismissed the findings of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and UVA, which concluded that the drug had a higher overall mortality rate for coronavirus patients in Veterans Administration hospitals, calling it “a Trump enemy statement.” Trump has yet to apologize for those remarks, still claiming in the interview that “hydroxy” has had “tremendous, rave reviews.”

Respectful distance

With social-distancing regulations in place, traditional ceremonies were off limits this Memorial Day, but some locals still found ways to commemorate the holiday. An enormous American flag floated over the 250 Bypass, thanks to the fire department, and residents showed up at the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial to pay their respects throughout the day, including a trumpet player who joined in a nationally coordinated playing of “Taps.”

Frozen out

Laid off workers looking for a new position amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic won’t have an easy time of it, as several of the city’s major employers—including the City of Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, and Albemarle County Public Schools— have announced hiring freezes. Among the positions on hold in city government are the heads of the departments of Parks & Recreation and Public Works (both currently being run by interim directors), along with traffic supervisor, centralized safety coordinator, and others.

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Culture

High school seniors mourn loss of milestones

by Charlie Burns

Ever since its emergence in the United States, the coronavirus has impacted people’s lives in distinct ways, and laid waste to societal norms as we know them. For high school seniors, this includes social and academic expectations for their final semester.

Senior year has always been notable for prom, graduation, lasting memories with friends, acute senioritis, and the final blossoming into adulthood that precedes leaving the nest. As a senior at Charlottesville High School, I’ve found myself mourning what would’ve been, and jealous of classes of the past and future that will get to participate in things many of us have long taken for granted. Scrolling through Instagram, my memories are bittersweet as I look at pictures of my junior prom, CHS soccer’s state championship, last year’s graduation ceremony, and more. There’s one common sentiment I keep hearing over and over from my closest friends: “It wasn’t supposed to end this way.”

For some seniors at CHS, however, there are more pressing concerns than losing a graduation ceremony or missing out on prom. Before the pandemic, Lucy Butler worked at Little Star, the Spanish-influenced restaurant located in a converted garage on West Main Street. As a food runner and host, she’d carved out a stress-relieving routine and a steady source of income, until she was recently laid off when Little Star was forced to close its doors and exclusively serve takeout. “It’s been hard not having that outlet, and stressful not being able to make money to provide for myself,” says Butler.

Compounding her financial stress, Butler’s father was laid off from his job in the restaurant industry too. And this pandemic couldn’t come at a worse time for her education. “Since I will be paying all of my college [tuition] myself, I’ve been frantic about how I’ll be able to afford my down payment for the fall semester,” she says. “I’m hoping that my previous job or other facilities will reopen in time for me to start working again and saving money.”

For spring-season athletes, these abrupt closures also carry the sting of disappointment. Earning accolades and championships for both his club and high school teams, Said Osman had every intention of leading Charlottesville High’s varsity soccer team to a second consecutive state championship after last year’s thrilling overtime win. It’s difficult to accept that those dreams have been dashed. “I still can’t wrap my head around it,” says Osman. “I’ve built multiple friendships [through] CHS soccer, and the fact that we don’t get to win games and [another] championship with each other really sucks. We don’t get to enjoy big moments like walking across the field with family on senior night and signing to play on the collegiate level in front of [our] school.” Despite this blow, Osman’s athletic career won’t be over anytime soon. He is committed to attend and play soccer at the University of Lynchburg.

For me (and many others), this crisis affects college decisions: The volatile stock market and very real possibility of a virtual first semester are considerable factors to weigh when considering where to attend school in the fall. As someone offered admission to UVA Wise with the intent to transfer to UVA, a virtual first semester could be beneficial in reducing my time away from home. If I decide to go to another university, missing that on-campus semester could be a drawback. I have friends who are considering a gap year, because they don’t want to pay full tuition for half a year’s worth of the onsite college experience. With so much uncertainty in the air, the only thing to be sure of is that this outbreak will distinctly affect the lives of high school seniors for months, and possibly years, to come.

 

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Coronavirus News

Class dismissed: School closings intensify equity issues

Jack Jouett teacher Heather Dow sits in her car outside the middle school to utilize the public WiFi. Dow lives in Greene County, and does not have a fast enough internet connection to take Zoom calls for work. PC: Zack Wajsgras

With Virginia’s K-12 schools shuttered for the remainder of the academic year, our city and county districts have moved into uncharted territory: figuring out not only how to teach thousands of students outside of the classroom, but also making distance learning accessible and equitable for all.

The districts say they are still developing formal distance learning programs, which will be rolled out after spring break, on April 13. In the meantime, some teachers in both the city and county have provided students with optional online modules and activities, reviewing previously taught material. Educators have also been using video conference services like Zoom and Google Hangouts to bring kids together.

Accessing these resources, however, is more difficult for some than others. Up to 30 percent of Albemarle County Public Schools students don’t have adequate access to the internet at home. And while Charlottesville City Schools do not have division-wide data on students’ internet access, its most recent CHS student survey indicated that 6 percent of households have no internet.

To bridge this digital divide, ACPS has boosted the WiFi signal at all of its schools, as well the Yancey School Community Center, allowing anyone to get onto the internet from parking lots. Several hundred cars have already been spotted taking advantage of this crucial resource, according to ACPS spokesman Phil Giaramita.

ACPS has also leased part of its broadband spectrum to Shentel, enabling the company to expand internet to more rural, underserved households in the area. With the lease revenue, it’s ordered about 100 Kajeet Smart Spots, which are “devices you can install in your house that will access the network of local carriers in your area,” explains Giaramita. Once they’re delivered, “we’re going to start distributing those to teachers [and students] who don’t have internet access at home,” and will order more as needed.

In the city, CCS recommends that students who have inadequate internet access connect to an AT&T or Xfinity hot spot, as both companies have recently opened up all of their U.S. hot spots to non-customers. The district is also distributing hot spots to students who are unable to use those publicly available.

Both city and county school districts are giving laptops to students in grades two and up who need them. ACPS also plans to distribute iPads to kindergarteners through second graders.

At CCS, learning guides are available online for pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade students with suggested activities that do not require access to the internet.

Despite these efforts, CHS senior Jack Dreesen-Higginbotham remains concerned about the city’s transition to distance learning. “I know they’ve been working on trying to set up hot spots for students, but I don’t know if it will be accessible to everybody. And [still], not everyone has a school-provided laptop,” he says. “My brother, who is in sixth grade, wasn’t provided one, so he’s had to use mine to do his work.”

However, Dreesen-Higginbotham’s CHS teachers, who currently use Zoom, are doing a “very good job at instructing their classes and organizing lessons, so that they can be inclusive to everybody,” he says.

After spring break, both CCS and ACPS will provide more formal online—and offline—academic instruction and enrichment for each grade level.

“We’re looking at finding specific solutions for individual families, whether online, offline, or a combination,” says CCS spokeswoman Beth Cheuk.

“Offline could simply mean working with kids by telephone, by regular mail. We’ve asked teachers to be creative, so that there isn’t any student who is disadvantaged by their access to technology,” adds Giaramita.

While students will learn new material through distance learning, there will be no grading (or SOLs). Instead, teachers will provide feedback on a regular basis.

To former CHS teacher Margaret Thornton, now a Ph.D. candidate in educational leadership at UVA, this is an opportunity for local schools to explore different types of evaluation systems.

“I hope that we can make lemonade out of these lemons, and re-evaluate a lot of our policies—grading is certainly one of them,” she says.

“We’ve [also] known for a long time that our standardized testing system has created a lot of inequality,” Thornton adds. “We can be rethinking assessments at this time, and how we can make it more formative and more useful in instruction.”

Both school divisions want to ensure that as many students as possible graduate or are promoted to the next grade level. Per guidance from the Virginia Department of Education, students who were on track to pass before schools closed will do so. But on April 6, ACPS announced that if distance learning is not “the best fit” for a student, they will have the option to complete the school year by attending classes in July, or (excluding seniors) during the next school year.

While ACPS’ lesson plans will not go into effect until April 13, Giaramita says one of its distance-learning initiatives has already been implemented: Check and Connect. Students will now be contacted at least once a week by a teacher, counselor, administrator, or principal to talk about their distance learning experience, what assistance they need, and what their internet access is like. So that no student is left out, this contact can take place by phone, email, video call, or even snail mail.

CCS has also asked teachers to connect with each of their students to identify which ones need additional support, regarding WiFi or other issues.

Such practices may be particularly beneficial to those who do not have parents at home to help and support them throughout the day.

“So many service workers are being considered essential, and are doing essential work. But that means often that their kids are going to be home alone without adult interaction,” Thornton says. “The relationships between teachers and students are [going to be] key.”

Other teachers, parents, and community members have expressed similar concerns for students with limited access to adult instruction and interaction, such as those from refugee or ESOL families. And with a significant amount of students without adequate internet access, some fear students won’t be prepared for the next school year.

“It is really hard to live in the county and not have reliable [internet] access. We don’t even have cellular service so we can’t utilize a hot spot,” says Jessiah Mansfield, who has a senior at Western Albemarle High School. “If we need something important, we have to go to Charlottesville to download it. I’m sure we aren’t the only ones with this issue, but it will impact our children.”

However, others remain hopeful that teachers will be able to help their students make it through the rest of the semester.

“As the crisis continues and escalates, so does anxiety for all. Learning should be suggested. Remember we are at home trying to work not working from home. Connecting with my students is just as important for them as it is for me,” says Libby Nicholson, a fourth-grade teacher at Broadus Wood Elementary School. “We are in this together! We got this!”