An anonymous benefactor endowed Field School with a $1.5 million matching grant, making the boys’ school one step closer to obtaining its Barracks Road campus goal. Supplied photo.
Field School of Charlottesville, a private, all-boys middle school currently located in Crozet, announced that its goal of a new Barracks Road campus is one step closer to reality thanks to a matching grant of $1.5 million from an anonymous benefactor.
The school described the grant as “transformative” in a September 24 press release. “[It] underscores a shared commitment to promoting excellence in education and nurturing the development of well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment.”
Field School of Charlottesville was founded by Dr. Todd Barnett in 2007, at the suggestion of parents whose children attended his popular Charlottesville-area summer camp for middle-school boys. With the help of area educators, the camp’s programming was expanded into an all-boys middle school, with 27 students the first year, when classes were held in the activities building at Claudius Crozet Park. Two years later, Field School moved to its current location in the historic Old Crozet School.
Vito “Bo” Perriello, head of school since 2023, says the school’s focus is on making the most of the vital years between elementary and high school for its students.
“The school’s vision has centered around a mission to ‘develop well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment’ in a model structured on rigorous traditional academics mixed with outdoor education,” he says. “Current enrollment is 88 students. The new campus project would allow us to expand our enrollment by at least 20 percent.”
Perriello says that while the current campus has its advantages, such as “historic charm” and access to playing fields, the school is renting the facilities from Albemarle County and sharing the space with Crozet Arts.
“It is for these reasons, as well as access to a larger outdoor space, and to a larger catchment of Charlottesville-area citizens, that the school is now working to move to their purpose-built Aerie Campus off of Barracks Road,” Perriello says. “The campus will include both indoor and outdoor learning spaces, playing fields, a state-of-the-art mountain biking course, hiking trails, a ropes course and paddling/water sports.”
A matching grant is one that doubles either currently raised funds or funds that will be raised by the recipient in the future. Perriello says the school’s fundraising is ongoing.
“We have seen a strong outpouring of support from current families, alumni families, and the larger Charlottesville community that supports the social, emotional, and academic growth of our local boys,” he says. “Thanks to this generous grant, any gifts received up to $1.5 million dollars will have double the impact on our project and overall community.”
The donor, whose identity has not been released by the school, shared a statement in the September 24 press release.
“We are excited to partner with the Field School on this relocation project, which we believe will provide greater access to an outstanding all-boys middle school educational experience in Charlottesville,” the statement read.
When asked why the donor did not want to be identified publicly, Perriello says they wanted the focus to remain on the school.
“I cannot speak for the donor,” he says, “but [I] feel they recognized both the need for an all-boys middle school in Charlottesville and the desire to help deliver more positive outcomes for local area boys at a time young boys are struggling. In remaining anonymous they feel the focus remains on the school, the project, and the mission of developing well-rounded boys of character and accomplishment.”
According to its website, Field School has planned for a campus of its own from the beginning. In fact, the new site was actually purchased five years ago, with plans to move estimated at two or three years from now.
“The 25-acre property includes a five-acre pond that will afford both recreational and educational opportunities for the boys,” Perriello says. “The property was originally slated to be part of the bypass project, and we were incredibly fortunate to purchase the land when those plans fell through.”
The groundbreaking ceremony is slated for summer of 2025, according to Perriello.
Heather Rose teaches English and journalism at Lugo-McGinness Academy. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Nestled at the edge of the 10th and Page neighborhood, Lugo-McGinness Academy looks like a miniature version of a typical American high school. The alternative school is sandwiched between houses, standing out with its parking lot, two-building campus, solar panel-covered tin roof, and cyan columns that frame the main entrance.
Compared to Charlottesville High School, LMA is tiny—which is what makes it so special.
“It’s unique because it allows us to build a foundation for student relationships, being able to connect with our parents on an intimate level to address the academic, behavior, and social needs,” says Program Director and Principal Lamont Trotter. “Students have the opportunity to have a smaller academic environment where they can see success and feel success.”
Principal Lamont Trotter started with CCS in July 2023. Photo by Tristan Williams.
In addition to the Lugo-McGinness day program, the campus also hosts Charlottesville City Schools’ newest alternative program, Knight School, in the evenings.
Alternative education came into the local spotlight last fall, when student fights at Charlottesville High School prompted unexpected closures and the launch of Knight School. The new program is the first nighttime offering from Charlottesville City Schools, and joins LMA and Charlottesville-Albemarle Technical Education Center as major alternative programs available through the district. CCS also offers a program for patients at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital.
Each alternative education program has different offerings and enrollment methods, including referral and self-selection.
Along with sharing a building, Knight School and LMA have other commonalities aimed at helping students improve their relationship with school, academics, and attendance. Trotter and other faculty members pick up students in both programs to make sure transportation isn’t an obstacle.
“We’re dashing through the streets of Charlottesville picking up our young people for school,” says Trotter. “We want to make sure students are attending school. We want to minimize any barriers that may be provided. And so that’s something that we share at our orientation about transportation: if it’s needed, we can help provide that.”
Walking into LMA’s main building, students pass a reception desk and conference room before heading into a single hallway filled with classrooms. Situated on the back right is English and journalism teacher Heather Rose, who has been an instructor at LMA since February 2023.
Before starting at LMA, Heather Rose had never worked in alternative education. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Prior to coming to Charlottesville, Rose experienced burnout and contemplated quitting teaching. The tight-knit community at LMA convinced her she was in the right place and the right field.
“When you think of alternative education, you think of it as a punitive thing, and I think that sometimes alt-ed is used for that,” she says. “[But] the school culture here is really powerful in a positive way.”
Beyond her role as an educator, Rose says she and the rest of the LMA faculty “kind of all wear all the hats at times.” The small nature of the alternative school and its community—less than 40 students are enrolled in the day program—allows for not only individualized instruction, but closer relationships between students, their families, and faculty members.
Students are often already hanging out in Rose’s room when she walks in, working in comfy chairs and catching up with their classmates. One student, Tay, is sitting by the wall working on his Chromebook. After attending CHS for three years, the senior switched to LMA, and is now working toward graduation.
“Teachers [here] care about the students. They really care about you and they want you to learn. … Everybody just wants you to be great,” he says. “Before we get to work, [they] make sure you’re good.”
Rose’s class is informal, with students congregating around the room, chatting and mostly working at their own pace. Despite the laid-back atmosphere, coming to LMA has been a complete game changer for many students’ academic futures.
“I’m passing all of my classes, which is very surprising, because when I was at CHS, I was at risk of not passing all of my classes, I was at risk of failing,” says Jaylyn. “People here, they’re kind of friendly. They’re open about almost anything and they’re willing to sit down and help you.”
The small community at LMA has also helped students socially by removing some of the pressures and challenges of a bigger school.
In Heather Rose’s classroom, the cozy yellow chair next to her desk is a highly sought after seat. Photo by Tristan Williams.
As students mill around the cozy classroom, they talk to not only each other, but Rose and her student teacher, Laura Boyle. Classes average around eight to 10 students, with attendance ranging from two to six students, according to Rose. For many of the teens at LMA, the relationships with their peers and teachers are what keep them coming to class.
“I have people I can talk to … And places I can go when I’m not feeling comfortable here,” says Tam-Rah. “We don’t have to worry about walking around here, starting problems with anyone, cause no one here is rude and everyone here has good communication.”
While some of the students at LMA are at the program due to self-selection, others have been referred because of academic, disciplinary, or behavioral problems. Regardless of why the kids are at the school, every faculty member at LMA emphasizes how much all students benefit from the intimate environment.
“I think because of that we’re able to give so much more grace here,” says Boyle, who is in her final semester of a masters in education and wrapping up her time at LMA. (I know Boyle from a four-person seminar at UVA, but I didn’t know she was a student teacher at LMA prior to visiting.) “That focused attention and just a smaller environment, I think, has been so special and cool to watch.”
“Kids might be sent here because of a poor choice they made or poor behavior, or pattern of behavior. But when they walk through these doors, they’re not bad kids to us and we don’t treat them like that,” says Rose. “We don’t see that side of them for the most part, which is so encouraging.”
When students feel truly comfortable in a space or with a teacher, they occasionally lash out. It can be heavy for educators to process, but at the same time, Rose says she understands that it’s ultimately a sign of trust.
“We’re alternative, we’re [a] different dynamic for students that need it and they’re just able to be their best selves I think, and even when they’re their worst selves, there’s so much grace here,” says Rose. “There’s so much recognition of, ‘we see you where you are, but we are still gonna have expectations for you. And we still want to encourage you to grow. But we’re going to help you and support you to get there.’”
As the school counselor for LMA and Knight School, Aloise Phelps spends a lot of time working one-on-one with students. Part of her job is managing schedules, but an overwhelming majority of her time is spent on direct counseling.
“There’s a tendency to label kids as the ‘bad kids’ … but we have done such a good job at LMA of fundamentally believing that every single child is a good kid, and that they are having a hard time so their behaviors may exemplify that in some way,” says Phelps.
Working through trauma and its effects with students has been a large focus of Phelps’ first year at LMA—something she says is also common in her work with Knight School students.
Visiting Knight School, which launched in November, it’s clear students haven’t yet built the same bonds as their peers in the LMA day program, but the counselor and other faculty members are working to create a welcoming environment.
Three students were in Melvin Grady’s math class when I visited Knight School. Unlike the day program, the students mostly kept to themselves, but they participated when prompted.
“At bigger schools, students can roam around, not go to school, be in class unnoticed,” says Grady. In the intimate setting of LMA and Knight School, the math teacher has more ability to provide individualized instruction and help students when they get stuck.
Across the hall, the kids are more talkative. It’s not immediately clear what subject is being taught or what work each student is doing, but the relationships that have made LMA’s day program so successful are being built.
Students routinely gather outside LMA for lunch and class activities. Photo by Tristan Williams.
“The last thing I do is teach math, first thing is to reach common ground. Still structured though, don’t get it twisted, I do expect certain things,” says Grady, who takes this approach with both his day and night students. “You’re not gonna disrupt the learning environment, then you have to go. But other than that, they recognize the caring and the realness.”
While the program was launched in the wake of the unexpected closure of CHS last fall, Knight School is something Superintendent Royal Gurley was already aiming to bring to CCS. Gurley has a background in alternative education, and was involved in the launch of a night program in his former district. Part of the draw of Knight School is the timing, but similar to LMA, the superintendent and program leaders are working to build community through one-on-one instruction and a smaller environment.
Whether it be LMA, Knight School, or CATEC, Gurley emphasizes the importance of having options for kids other than a traditional learning experience.
“People think that alternative education is where you dump kids, where you leave kids, where you give up on kids, where you just move everything you don’t want to deal with, you just move it to alternative education,” says Gurley. “What we have done as a school system … to say that we are where kids get their hope from, that they can be anything that they want to be, that we will work with any type of student and we will accentuate the best in any student.”
“We do not work from the deficit mindset, when we’re talking about students. We’re only seeking the best, there is good in everyone,” says Gurley. “Students can be successful when they have a space to be successful. And sometimes it’s just that the high school, which is a great high school, is just not the space because it’s too big. It doesn’t work for every child.”
Jillian Balow, the state’s superintendent of public education, was charged with correcting errors, omissions, and inaccuracies, and incorporating public feedback in Virginia’s history and social science standards of learning. Photo: Virginia Department of Education.
On January 6, the Virginia Department of Education released a revised proposal of the state’s history and social science standards of learning, after previously proposed standards sparked severe public backlash in November. Critics—including educators, activist groups, parents, and Democratic lawmakers—accused Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration of whitewashing history, perpetuating political bias, and teaching historical inaccuracies.
In response, the state Board of Education delayed its review of the standards, and directed Jillian Balow, Virginia’s superintendent of public education, to correct errors, omissions, and inaccuracies; incorporate public feedback; and prepare a “crosswalk” document comparing the controversial draft to the standards proposed in August, which were based on two years of input from historians, educators, organizations, and representatives of marginalized groups, as well as thousands of public comments. In August and October, Balow asked the board to delay reviewing the 402-page original proposal to allow time to fix mistakes, gain more expert input, and address other concerns with the August proposal.
The newly released proposal includes both “content from earlier drafts” and “new content on events and historical figures previously overlooked in the commonwealth’s history standards,” according to a January 6 VDOE press release.
However, some educators claim the new 68-page standards are simply a “continuation” of the 53-page November proposal, according to Ma’asehyahu Isra-Ul, president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium.
The new standards continue the erasure of Indigenous peoples, claims Isra-Ul. For example, in the elementary standards, Columbus Day and Yorktown Victory Day are listed as holidays students will study, but not Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Other holidays celebrated by minority groups—including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah—are also missing from the list. (The standards say that students will not be limited to learning about the listed holidays.)
Since January 6, Isra-Ul, chief lecturer of the Leading By History Collective and an education specialist, says he has received dozens of emails from Virginia educators sharing additional concerns about the new proposal. Some teachers are worried about the substantial amount of information K-3 students are expected to learn within a limited amount of time, while others argue content might be too advanced for certain grade levels.
In November, the VDOE corrected multiple errors within the Youngkin administration’s original proposal, including a reference to Indigenous peoples as “America’s first immigrants,” and the exclusion of Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day from elementary standards. The new standards include several other historical events and terms concerning marginalized groups that were missing from the November proposal, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, Hitler’s “Final Solution,” and the gay rights movement. While the previous proposal said there were several causes for the Civil War, the new one says that “slavery and its expansion was the primary cause of the [issues] that divided the nation and was the catalyst for secession of southern states.”
But some criticisms of the November proposal remain in the new one. Sixth graders are expected to study U.S. immigration policies and the challenges immigrants have faced, while 11th graders must analyze “the effects of changes in immigration” across the country. However, the standards do not explicitly mention the history of the Latino or Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the country. (In response to criticism about excluded content, Balow has said that some subjects will be included in the curriculum framework, which is expected to be publicly released this summer.)
Additionally, Isra-Ul questions who was involved in the drafting of the newly released standards. Critics lambasted the Youngkin administration for working with conservative outsiders on the November proposal, including the Fordham Institute, Hillsdale College, and Reagan education secretary William Bennett.
Following November’s public backlash, the VSSLC, Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the American Historical Association released their own alternative standards in December. Isra-Ul says the groups reached out to the VDOE, but were not included in the November proposal development process. While working on their alternative proposal—which was completed in a little over a month, to meet the state education board’s timeline—the groups aimed to follow the board’s instructions to Balow, since they “didn’t know what [Balow] was going to do.”
Isra-Ul describes the alternative proposal as a combination of the August and November drafts, with corrected errors and omissions. It specifically includes edits proposed by the state’s African American History Education Commission, which he says were “completely disregarded” in the November proposal. “We used the [August] draft as the center and we found what could be salvaged from the November draft,” he explains.
The three groups urge the state education board to approve their proposal instead of the new standards, pointing to the endorsements they have received from the National Council for Social Studies, Virginia Council for the Social Studies, and Virginia Commission on Civic Education. The Charlottesville School Board has also expressed support for the standards. Virginia Humanities has called on the board to approve the August proposal, but hopes the board will discuss the alternative standards proposed by the three educational groups, too. The groups have not received a response from the board or Balow.
According to the VDOE, public hearings will be scheduled on the newly proposed standards “following acceptance of the draft” by the education board. The board’s next meeting is February 1.
Correction 1/11: Ma’asehyahu Isra-Ul is an education specialist and the chief lecturer of the Leading By History Collective. He is no longer an instructional specialist for Richmond Public Schools.
Mountaintop Montessori teacher Corey Borgman educates parents and kids on how to use new online learning platforms. Photo courtesy subject
By Virginia Daugherty
“We teachers stay in touch and try to keep up our morale.”
“Children aren’t meant to sit in front of computers all day.”
“I’m upping my skills daily.”
“I didn’t sign up for this.”
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, and this year our local educators deserve a special shout-out as they try their best to teach under quarantine.
On Friday, March 13, local teachers learned there would be no school starting Monday, March 16. With some on-the-ball leadership, they pivoted, and thus started a peculiar kind of education.
Zoom, Google Classroom, Seesaw, MeVideo—teachers had to pick up computer programs immediately so online classes could function. Most had never done “distance teaching.” Yes, they had used technology. But not to the extent now required.
“First, I assigned all the students to make a video of themselves singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ with their families,” Charlottesville High School music teacher Will Cooke says. “They laughed, but some of them really got into it, using beatboxes and tambourines.” French teacher Dorothy Carney taught Buford Middle School students how to take an online tour of the Louvre and write about a painting. At Jack Jouett Middle School, English teachers mailed a novel to 200 seventh-graders, then posted the reading assignments online, according to instructional coach Erin James. Across our school systems, and I presume the whole U.S., there’s an explosion of creativity.
CHS music teacher Will Cooke teaching from home. Photo courtesy subject.
Not that it’s easy. “It takes a lot more preparation and planning,” says CHS art teacher Marcelle Van Yahres. “It’s a steep learning curve,” according to Mountaintop Montessori art teacher Ginnie Daugherty. “The lighting may be bad. The background may be bad.” Reading specialist Kris Wray has to post comments for Greer Elementary School kids in 11 different classes.
The internet provides a lot of content, but much must be created from scratch. A teacher may record herself reading Abuelo and the Three Bears, post a math problem, or create a bread-making video. Making these may take 15 minutes or four hours.
At Stoney Point Elementary, Shelby White gives her preschool through first graders only an hour of work a day, half math and half literacy. “It’s overwhelming for some,” she says. Kelly Farr gives her Clark Elementary kids a weekly schedule and makes it as user-friendly as possible. Nathanael Greene Primary teacher Jennifer Murphy simply films herself for small lessons, joking “I’m 61. The younger teachers are more savvy.” Cooke can’t conduct his four real choruses, so he gives one-on-one singing lessons to 140 chorus members, grades nine-12.
Not everybody has Wi-Fi access and it’s not conducive to some activities . “Everything is different. Everyone is struggling. We had to refigure how to do everything.” Wray says. Some parents know computers, some don’t. Some parents find teaching natural, others don’t know how.”
“I was talking to a student yesterday, and he said ‘Can I call you back? I’m babysitting my little brother,’” says Cooke. “Many students are working, so they have double responsibilities. I see my students in every grocery store in town.” And many parents are in survival mode, maybe working at home, depressed over job loss, or short on food money.
Corey Borgman, English and math teacher at Mountaintop, explains that some parents cannot get onto a school-type schedule. Their children are all different ages. “They are just trying to think of fun activities, like camping in the backyard.” White says she tries to model teaching for the parents. “My Choice Boards have ideas for parents of things to do, using gross motor skills and fine motor skills, for example. Preschoolers learn through play, not just sitting at a desk.”
“I’m a huge hugger,” says Kelly Farr at Clark. “Now every Wednesday my fourth grade has Google Meet. They can see each other. We don’t work. It’s a chance to see what everybody is doing. We have dance parties!”
Jennifer Murphy videos an early literacy lesson. Photo courtesy subject.
For all the innovation and creativity, though, there’s no getting around the loss of in-person connection. “Normally we see kids and parents and there is a lot of nonverbal communication,” Borgman says. “I cannot tell how thoroughly they are understanding now because I’m not getting that feedback.” Jennifer Murphy, at Greene, agrees. “Seesaw has feedback but it’s inconsistent. In class you’re witnessing every moment,” she says. “Also, I have ESL students, and this is not meeting their needs.”
The abrupt change to the end of the school year has been hard emotionally, too. “We didn’t get to say goodbye,” says one teacher. “I still get upset,” says another. “After our class meetings I just start to cry. We miss seeing the kids. We worry about the ones we don’t hear from.”
What is the silver lining for education in a quarantine? The Standards of Learning (Virginia’s statewide standardized tests) were postponed. “We are grateful for this return to creative teaching,” says Cooke. And Beth Gehle, a CHS social studies instructor, echoes that. “This may be an opportunity to rethink how we assess. High-stakes testing is not equitable. What is the best way to find out what students know?”
“I hope it’s an opportunity to realize what’s important,” says Wray. “We should slow down.” And James confides, “This has forced some teachers to catch up on technology.” But she adds, “I hope that kids get sick of computers.”
Virginia Daugherty is a former mayor of Charlottesville. Her daughter, Ginnie Daugherty, teaches at Mountaintop Montessori.
New CATEC director Stephanie Carter aims to help the larger community understand the value of technical learning and trade skills in the job market. / Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
Each time Stephanie Carter searches for a skilled tradesperson to repair or rebuild something in her home, she’s reminded of why CATEC is important. “We know there’s a nationwide trend that shows trade skills on the decline,” she says, “even as there’s so much work that needs those skills.” In her new role as director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center, Carter aims to make technical learning barrier-free.
Jointly run by the city and county, CATEC offers a hands-on learning experience where high school students can take either morning or afternoon classes in technical tracks such as auto body repair, building trades, culinary arts, firefighting, and more, each pathway ending with a job-ready industry certification. “CATEC fills a niche for large, lab-based classes, so where it might be difficult for a high school to offer a lab where they repair cars, we’re able to offer that kind of space,” says Carter. Evening classes allow adult learners to retool or add skills as well.
After spending seven years coordinating career and technical education classes at Charlottesville High School and Buford Elementary, Carter has long understood the value of CATEC education, but knows that not everyone does. “We are constantly assessing the marketing and promotion of our programs, thinking about how we get folks to understand what it is that we do,” says Carter, who officially joined CATEC in July.
To that end, the school may offer ways for potential students to dip a toe in. “We’re working on an exploratory program so students can come and try things out, taking six weeks of engineering or agriculture, for example,” says Carter.
To further lower enrollment barriers, she plans to extend CATEC’s satellite program, established by her predecessor, which offers classes at local high schools so students can attend CATEC while not having to leave their regular school.
Eyeing today’s maker economy, which draws on both technical and traditional building skills, Carter sees a great opportunity to empower students to be able to start their own businesses.
“We could tap successful entrepreneurs in the community to come in and share their knowledge, to teach students how to leverage their trade skills into a really great career,” she says. “We may start informally this year in a club format, and I’d like to see us offer an entrepreneurship pathway, pulling in programs we already have running here.”
The combination of career education and high-schoolers is the sweet spot for Carter, who says the students are the best part of her job. “We emphasize the soft skills, like being professional, and the kids are really engaged when they’re here,” she says. “I know we can spark a fire in them and show them all of the possibilities in their career.”
The YMCA’s Early Learning Center at the Jefferson School is dedicated to providing high-quality child care to the Charlottesville/Albemarle community. Photo: Eze Amos
Jessica Maslaney remembers trying to navigate the complex maze of child care options before her first child was born. “It’s a confusing process where everything matters, from cost to educational environment to teacher qualifications, and you’re just scrambling to figure it all out.” After toting her baby son to work with her at the Piedmont Family YMCA for his first seven months, Maslaney tried two different in-home care options and a commercial child care center in search of consistent, reliable care.
“The foundational issue is that you feel that nobody can watch your kids as well as you can,” she says, “so you start off kind of resenting the process from the beginning because you want more than anything to be that person. It’s an emotional journey.”
Now CEO of the Piedmont Family Y, Maslaney is part of a team dedicated to providing high-quality child care to the Charlottesville/Albemarle community through facilities like the YMCA’s Early Learning Center at the Jefferson School. While steep demand for affordable care should logically lead to increased supply, the twisted economics of child care can tie providers in knots.
Start with the cost of full-time care. “The average cost of child care for an infant in this area is $13,500 per year, and $11,000 for a toddler or preschooler,” says Barbara Hutchinson, vice president of community impact at the local United Way. At the top end, a handful of smaller centers in town charge upwards of $15,000 per year.
The biggest expense for providers is paying their staff. Because state law requires teacher/student ratios of 1:4 for infants and 1:8 for toddlers, and because child care is largely unfunded by the government, providers can’t afford to pay their staff anywhere close to what public school teachers make. “People who work in child care do not do it for the money,” says Maslaney. “We struggle with teacher retention because our teachers could go to Walmart and make $13 per hour while our pay range is $10 to $12.” That also has an effect on quality—teachers who earn a college degree in early childhood development often choose to teach in public schools, where they can receive higher pay and benefits.
Jennifer Slack, owner of Our Neighborhood Child Development Center, a private daycare near UVA, agrees that finding and retaining good teachers is a serious problem. “Child care is hard work, poorly paid, and poorly supported,” she says. “In a lot of ways, society undervalues it.”
Labor costs also limit providers’ ability to offer partial-day or off-hours care for part-time or shift workers. “Places like UVA Hospital and Sentara operate on 24-hour schedules, and Charlottesville has no child care centers that offer evenings, overnights, or weekends, so there’s nowhere for those parents to go,” says Hutchinson.
Beyond teacher compensation, child care centers have materials, insurance, and regulatory expenses. Facilities must be licensed and inspected to pass standards as specific as the depth of the mulch in the playground, and per-child square footage requirements for both indoor and outdoor space dictate how many children may be enrolled.
Simply finding an appropriate location can be daunting, and Slack calls local building and zoning codes “intense.” “We have been looking for property to expand into for years now but can’t find anything because of the combination of the high cost of commercial property in Charlottesville, the need for outdoor space for children to play, and the near-impossibility of transferring a property from residential to commercial zoning,” she says.
Even upper-income families are affected by the shortage of care. Slack’s center serves 48 children, from newborns to age 3, and charges over $1,600 a month per child (annually, that’s more than a year’s tuition at UVA), yet runs a lengthy waitlist. “There are many families who will never be able to get in, so I’d say it can be hard to find quality care at any cost,” she says.
The severe financial burden of child care expenses on a young family puts an effective lid on how much providers can charge, which makes it difficult for centers to stay afloat. “The crux of the problem is that people can’t work without child care, and child care needs to be high quality, and quality is driven by cost,” says Hutchinson. “It’s a vicious cycle not particular to Charlottesville, but one that exists all across the state and country.”
Addressing this problem is the focus of groups and agencies all across the region, and every step forward is hard-won. The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation advances initiatives such as Virginia Quality and Smart Beginnings to enhance the experience of young children in daycare centers and preschools. “High quality” providers prioritize teacher education, curriculum, and the facility’s environment and level of child interaction.
“If a baby is in child care 40 hours a week, what happens to that baby during those hours has everything to do with his or her developmental trajectory, so those hours need to be high quality,” says Gail Esterman, director of early learning at ReadyKids, a local nonprofit dedicated to supporting children and families and to working with providers to improve quality.
Maintaining options such as the YMCA’s Early Learning Center, where 92 percent of families receive financial subsidies, depends on tapping steady sources of funding. “Child care in my opinion is not financially sustainable on its own,” says Maslaney, “so you have to have diverse funding streams.” The ELC draws resources from the Virginia Department of Social Services, the United Way, and a host of public and private grants.
Hutchinson points to a generous Charlottesville community, noting that this area of the state is in “better shape than average” in terms of funding. “Both private foundations and wealthy individuals have been phenomenally invested in early childhood care, and we are blessed to be a community that has that level of support,” she says.
Families who don’t qualify for subsidized care but still struggle with high costs often look to family-based care, where kids stay in a private home with an in-home caregiver. “One of the most sustainable models for affordable, high-quality care is home child care, but there are a lot of unlicensed programs because the licensure process is so difficult and expensive,” says Slack. Virginia law requires a license to provide home care for five or more children (not including those of the caregiver); below that limit, licensing is voluntary and there are no required background checks, regulations, or inspections.
In the end, Esterman believes child care is a human rights issue, and solutions will have to be addressed as a society. “As long as people are trying to just handle it individually, as opposed to looking at it as a community, the system will continue to be a jumble,” she says. “All children deserve a high-quality start to life.”
Photo: Eze Amos
When school’s canceled—but it’s still business as usual for parents
By Susan Sorensen
Who doesn’t love a snow day? Well, for starters, working parents.
“I’ve spent years dreading that 5:30am call/text message from ACPS,” says Elaine Attridge, a mother of three and medical librarian. “My husband’s job isn’t flexible, so it’s up to me to cobble together half-baked plans that are the best of my poor options” when school is unexpectedly canceled.
Like many moms and dads who have to show up for work on days when the flakes are falling and schools are closed, Attridge has been known to load her children up with electronics and bring them to her office. She’s lucky, she says, because “I’ve had some very tolerant bosses, but multiple days of [my kids at work with me] is hard on everyone.” You can ask friends for help, but, as
Attridge points out, “How often can
I do that and keep the friendship?”
She says she’s rescheduled work meetings and taken vacation days to stay home with her children, adding that she’s still reeling from 2013. There were so many snow days that year (some courtesy of a March blizzard that dropped 16.5 inches on the area), Attridge refers to it as the “winter of my discontent.”
Some big local employers, like UVA and S&P Global, have recognized the problem and offer employees access to back-up child care. But if yours doesn’t, here are a few suggestions for when school is shuttered.
Plan ahead! You usually have some warning before a snowstorm (or a teacher work day), which means you can line up child care in advance. If you don’t have a regular sitter (or a relative who’s willing to step in), consider Hoositting (hoositting.com), a network of UVA students who will provide babysitting on short notice.
ACAC to the rescue. On scheduled school days off, as well as some of the unscheduled ones, ACAC’s Adventure Central (978-7529) offers a summer camp-like experience (arts and crafts, sports, and other structured activities) called Kids Day Off. Cost is $55 per child for members, and $65 for nonmembers, and hours are 8am-5:30pm.
Network with your neighbors. Create a snow-day babysitting co-op where every family takes the others’ children in turn. If you have, say, four families, you’ll only have to cover one in every four days off of school. Bonus: The kids will take some of the burden off you by entertaining each other.
Charlene Green, a multicultural educator who directed the city’s first Dialogue on Race, says she tries to “connect the dots” between Charlottesville’s black history and the issues the city faces today.
Photo: Eze Amos
In 2010, Charlene Green, now head of Charlottesville’s Office of Human Rights, was directing the city’s first Dialogue on Race, an initiative to engage residents in an ongoing discussion of race, racism, and diversity.
“As I was having discussions with people around the community on these issues, I began to wonder: ‘Who knows all this stuff?’” Green recalls. “Not just school desegregation and the Martin Luther King era, but the anecdotes—the individuals’ stories.”
In response, Green created a PowerPoint on Charlottesville’s African American history, which she currently presents about twice a month (she even has a bus tour version). It highlights people like John West, who was born a slave but became a successful real estate entrepreneur and one of the city’s “first 400,” as the wealthiest African Americans in town were known in the late 19th century. And it adds context to stories that are only half-known.
For instance, “A lot of folks don’t know what all was involved in destroying Vinegar Hill,” she says, referring to the African American neighborhood that was infamously razed in the 1960s. “Like the fact that the Voting Rights Act wasn’t in place when the referendum occurred to keep Vinegar Hill or have the city take it.” Many residents couldn’t vote on the fate of their neighborhood because of a poll tax.
Talking about the city’s African American past, Green says, “got me into talking about history as a part of race and ethnicity.” Why did events that African Americans remembered very well disappear from the city’s narrative? How are the racist attitudes and laws of 100 years ago still affecting residents today?
“When I tell the story of Charlottesville’s history, I try to connect those dots,” she says. “You may think that what happened only affects someone else, but it affects you. If you don’t understand that, you don’t learn the lesson.”
The white supremacist rallies of 2017 cast a sudden and glaring spotlight on Charlottesville’s troubled racial history. From the national media perspective, #Charlottesville was a statue debate and one horrific weekend. But these events were part of a much larger story. Beginning well before the Lee statue became a lightning rod for controversy, a wide range of people have been working to recover Charlottesville’s African American history, and to help the city tell the full story of its past.
In this 19th-century engraving, an enslaved woman holds the child of a white professor on one of UVA’s pavilion balconies. Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library
Honoring African American culture
The hub of efforts to support and celebrate Charlottesville’s black history is the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. The school itself was built in 1926, as the first high school for African American students in Jim Crow-era Charlottesville. (Before that, the only school black students were allowed to attend ended at eighth grade. Families who wanted their children to earn a high school diploma had to send them away from home, at their own expense.) The building’s 2006 listing on the National Register of Historic Places helped spur the city to redevelop it as a community center, anchored by Carver Recreation Center and the African American Heritage Center. The building reopened as the Jefferson School City Center in 2013.
During the Heritage Center’s development, says Executive Director Andrea Douglas, market research showed Charlottesville’s white population was satisfied with the city’s cultural offerings—but the black population wasn’t. African Americans were willing to travel as far as North Carolina to see their experience reflected on stage or in visual arts. That insight helped shape the center’s mission as both a cultural institution and community rallying place.
The center’s programming focuses on black history and culture from 1965 on. It holds four annual events; Douglas calls them “touchstones for the black community”—Juneteenth (which commemorates the end of slavery), Kwanzaa, Veteran’s Day, and the Greens Cook-off—as well as exhibitions and live performances. And it also houses a local history center that includes access to more than 60 oral histories from students who attended the Jefferson School.
The Heritage Center acts as convener and leader for initiatives ranging from last year’s pilgrimage to include Charlottesville lynching victim John Henry James in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, to helping revive the historically black Charlottesville Players Guild and stage all the plays of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson.
“Our mission says we celebrate the cultural history of African Americans, and that’s not just for black people,” says Douglas.
“There’s a broad range of social and cultural disparity here, and a lot of history that people who live here or come here don’t see,” she adds. The Center’s ongoing programs are a significant step toward filling that void.
What story do we tell?
One of the biggest ways the city tells the story of its history is through its public memorials and monuments. For decades, these were defined by the now-infamous Confederate statues along Market Street, as well as the statues of white explorers Lewis and Clark and George Rodgers Clark, all of which (except for the Johnny Reb statue outside the courthouse) were commissioned by Paul Goodloe McIntire.
But in recent years, new ideas about who we should memorialize have emerged.
After the initial calls to consider moving the city’s Confederate statues, City Council formed the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces to address the issue. In its December 2016 report, the commission recommended either “transforming” the Lee and Jackson statues by providing new context, or relocating them to McIntire Park. (City Council voted 3-2 to move the Lee statue, and was promptly sued.) But the report also called for city support to preserve and interpret African American historical sites.
The recommendations included creating a more appropriate and visible marker for the former slave auction block in Court Square, as well as a memorial at or near the site. It asked the city to support the rehabilitation and preservation of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, established in 1873 and the resting place of some of the most prominent members of Charlottesville’s African American community. And it recommended that council provide funds to complete the proposed Vinegar Hill Park, a commemorative area in the walkway between the Omni hotel and the ice rink at the west end of the Downtown Mall, next to the site of the original neighborhood.
By early 2017, the city’s Historic Resources Committee had finalized plans to revise all the markers in Court Square. But after the rallies that summer, according to Jeff Werner, the city’s historic preservation and design planner, the committee decided to revisit the plan, and it’s still under discussion. Vinegar Hill Park is also stalled while the ice rink is being converted into Jaffray Woodriff’s Center of Developing Entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, the Jefferson School is leading an effort to erect a monument to Vinegar Hill on its grounds, with a statue by noted black sculptor Melvin Edwards. The city contributed money to the design phase, but the project is waiting on more private investment.
Despite these delays, the city’s second Dialogue on Race, held in fall 2017, revealed a renewed sense of urgency. “The concerns from the first Dialogue process had been education, employment, social needs,” Green recalls. “This time, the number one action item was for the city to support the telling of all its history.”
Anne Evans, coordinator of world studies for Charlottesville City Schools, says the state’s revision of its social studies standards offered educators an opportunity to include more perspectives on local history. Photo: Eze Amos
Educating the next generation
Schools teach the “official” version of history, and in Virginia, as in most of the South, that version was one that embraced the Lost Cause myth, which presented the Civil War as a battle over states’ rights rather than slavery, and glorified Confederate war heroes while minimizing the contributions of African Americans, Native Americans, and women.
That narrative began to change in the 1990s, when Virginia implemented statewide Standards of Learning (SOLs). In the most recent review of social studies SOLs, in 2015, state educators made a conscious effort to expand the curriculum’s Eurocentric focus to include other groups’ histories, says Anne Evans, coordinator of world studies for Charlottesville City Schools. As a veteran classroom teacher used to incorporating local history, Evans says she saw this as “an opportunity to change our local curriculum.”
Evans convened a group of her colleagues to restructure the curriculum, starting in kindergarten, to include a broader range of perspectives. The group pulled in expertise from throughout the community, includingUVA, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, and local historical sites.
“Our students’ parents who grew up in the city and county schools had a very different curriculum,” she says. Now, not only have state textbooks become more inclusive, but teachers can use the textbooks as just one of many resources. Evans’ group is creating a collection of digital resources—oral histories, photos, maps, and original documents like letters and newspaper stories—that teachers can use to tell a fuller story.
They’ve also helped facilitate community connections. That includes bringing in “witnesses to history” like Charles Alexander, one of the Charlottesville 12 who integrated the city’s schools almost 50 years ago. He speaks with students about the experience of being one of the first black children in all-white Venable Elementary school.
In December, CCS partnered with the Jefferson School for a program with Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, a bestselling YA novel about a black girl from a poor family who attends a wealthy, mostly white prep school. “We’re pulling these strands through in other areas, from English classes to the libraries’ speakers’ program,” says Evans.
CCS is also one of six school systems statewide involved in Changing the Narrative, a Virginia Humanities initiative funded by a Kellogg Foundation grant. This two-year effort tackles racism from a range of angles, from bringing resources that explore black history and culture into schoolrooms to encouraging young people of color to explore and highlight their heritage. It also taps Virginia Humanities’ digital resources (like its history podcasts “Backstory” and “With Good Reason,” and web-based Encyclopedia Virginia) to enable students to research events and sites around the state and produce their own history stories.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers broke ground in December, helped in part by $2.5 million in matching funds from UVA. Rendering: Howeler + Yoon Architecture
The world of the university
UVA has been a huge part of Charlottesville’s identity since the school’s founding in 1819. So what has the University been doing to acknowledge its own history?
In 2007, taking a lead from the Virginia General Assembly’s resolution expressing “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery, UVA adopted its own resolution and installed its version of a slavery memorial—a floor marker in the Rotunda’s underground passage honoring the workers who “realized Thomas Jefferson’s design.” UVA students, faculty, alumni, and staff made it clear that the plaque was inadequate at best, and in 2010 a student-led group began lobbying for a real memorial. Soon, other student groups were creating a brochure and campus map about slave history, conducting black history campus tours, and recovering an African American burial site on campus.
The groundswell of activity —student projects, the UVA IDEA Fund (an alumni group supporting diversity and inclusion), and the University and Community Action for Racial Equality—led to the 2013 formation of the President’s Commission on Slavery at the University. The Commission was co-chaired by Dr. Marcus L. Martin, University vice president and head of the Office of Diversity and Equity, and Kirt von Daacke, assistant dean and professor of history. Martin describes the commission’s work as restorative justice. “We haveto tell the full story of the past, so we can move ahead and become more inclusive,” he says.
The commission released its final recommendations in July 2018; in the meantime, however, the push for UVA to reckon with its past has accelerated. Von Daacke says the Slavery and its Legacies course he co-teaches is full every semester. The Cornerstone Summer Institute, launched in 2016, enables students interested in history, archeology, and community engagement to examine UVA’s past and the modern legacies of slavery. And the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers broke ground in December, helped in part by $2.5 million in matching funds from UVA.
Last spring, the President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation was formed to examine UVA’s role during racial segregation in the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s headed by von Daacke and the Heritage Center’s Douglas, and some wonder if dealing with Jim Crow, white supremacy, and segregation’s legacy will be harder than looking at slavery. “What we know about healing is that we have to acknowledge and atone…to achieve repair,” says von Daacke. “We’ve examined our past; what comes after that is the hard part.”
UVA associate professor Jalane Schmidt, who leads walking tours of downtown monuments, sees her public history work as “amplifying the footnotes”—sharing stories that the majority white city narrative has left out. Photo: Eze Amos
So where are we?
In these ongoing efforts, some concerns came up repeatedly: How do we make sure all this history stays visible and accessible to the entire community? How do we make sure this history is not just acknowledged, but incorporated into a new narrative?And how do we as a community face and work through the legacy of years of deliberate forgetting?
Jalane Schmidt, an activist and UVA professor of religious studies, sees her avocation as a public historian to be “amplifying the footnotes”—the people and incidents the majority white city narrative has omitted. One way she does that is through the downtown walking tours she began conducting last year, often co-led with Douglas, which give context to the Confederate monuments in the Court Square area. She points out, for instance, that the Jackson statue was erected in the same year the local KKK was founded, on the site of a largely black neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the statue and a whites-only park.
Schmidt has also called attention to inaccuracies in the way the city presents its Civil War history. On March 3, 1865, Union soldiers “occupied” Charlottesville in the final weeks of the Civil War in Virginia. But at that time, the majority (52 percent) of the residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County were African Americans, almost all of them enslaved. To the majority, then, the Union troops weren’t invaders riding roughshod over the Lost Cause—they were allies bringing freedom and self-determination.
Schmidt says, “People say history is written by the winner, but in this case it wasn’t: The only monument [to this liberation] is the little plaque downtown.” She and other activists wore 52 Percent T-shirts to the Blue Ribbon Commission meetings, to force that historical fact into the deliberations about who and what the city should memorialize. As a result, the Commission recommended that City Council begin marking Liberation and Freedom Day on March 3, citing the persuasive case made by Schmidt and historical researcher and Commission member Jane Smith (who was instrumental in finding the likely site of John Henry James’ 1898 lynching). The city’s first Liberation Day event was held in 2017 at the UVA Chapel—on the site where Union soldiers first met with city leaders 152 years earlier.
Schmidt and others involved in recovering these stories agreed that the 2017 summer of hate has sparked greater interest in Charlottesville’s African American history, more discussion, and more community self-examination. She says the commemoration held at James’ lynching site, and the subsequent pilgrimage to Montgomery, drew more people than could be accommodated. Attendance on her black history walking tours is rising steadily—68 people participated in the last one. Discrimination-related issues like zoning, affordable housing, policing tactics, and incarceration are more visible.
And more organizations want to be part of the city’s third celebration of Liberation and Freedom Day. This year’s events will roll out over three days, which is how long the Union troops were actually here. Participants have expanded from City Council, the Heritage Center, and UVA’s Office of Diversity and Equity to include Virginia Humanities, Monticello, Charlottesville City Schools, and the Jefferson Theater.
Schmidt (and others) hope this momentum will continue, and will mean support not only for uncovering the past, but also for facing its legacy. As Charlene Green says: “Making invisible history visible is just a start. If there is sincerity about creating an equitable society, our policies and the way we do business has to change—or we’re just putting lipstick on a pig.”
Charlene Green, a multicultural educator who directed the city’s first Dialogue on Race, says she tries to “connect the dots” between Charlottesville’s black history and the issues the city faces today.
Recovering black history
Efforts to uncover and promote our African American history have picked up steam in recent years. Here are some of the steps the city, schools, and university have taken since 2007.
2007
Virginia General Assembly passes a resolution expressing regret for slavery.
UVA passes a similar resolution.
Montpelier’s descendants community challenges the site to recover and interpret the Madisons’ South Yard slave quarters.
2009
City launches first Dialogue on Race.
2010
UVA students begin effort to fund and build a Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
on Grounds.
2012
At a Virginia Festival of the Book event, Councilor Kristin Szakos raises the question of whether the city’s Confederate monuments should be removed, causing an uproar.
First Dialogue on Race releases report.
2013
Jefferson School City Center opens.
UVA launches President’s Commission on Slavery and the University.
2016
CCS rolls out revised K-3 social studies curriculum.
Press conference calling for removal of statues.
City convenes Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces, which releases its report in December asking City Council to either recontextualize or relocate the Lee and Jackson statues.
Highland begins formation of a Monroe slave descendant community.
2017
City Council votes to relocate Lee statue and redesign Lee and Jackson parks.
City’s Historic Resources Committee drafts plan to revise signage in Court Square.
White supremacists (led by UVA alum Richard Spencer) hold torch-lit rally at Lee Park.
Montpelier opens “The Mere Distinction of Colour” exhibit on slavery.
City Council renames Lee and Jackson Parks.
UVA Board of Visitors approves Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
KKK holds rally in then-Jackson Park.
White supremacists march through UVA and hold Unite the Right rally.
City holds second Dialogue on Race and releases report.
2018
CCS unveils new Virginia Studies curriculum.
UVA forms President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation.
Monticello opens exhibit on Sally Hemings.
UVA Commission on Slavery releases final report.
UVA breaks ground on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
Dwindling enrollment at Molly Michie, the city’s oldest co-operative preschool and the first to integrate, casts a pall on its future.
Courtesy Molly Michie
Faced with a recent decline in enrollment, the city’s first co-operative preschool, which has operated for more than 50 years, is struggling to stay on its feet.
Molly Michie Cooperative Preschool was founded in 1967 as the city’s first integrated preschool, with an emphasis on learning through play. Being a co-op means parents are deeply involved in running the school, serving as classroom assistants to two professional teachers and taking on other tasks. Supporters say this builds community as well as allowing the school to offer more affordable tuition.
Teachers and parents say it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what led to the drop in enrollment.
“There were a lot of changes that came at once,” says Casandra Wendell, who teaches the four- and five-year-old “butterflies.”
She says a former teacher who wasn’t as committed to the co-op model negatively affected parent involvement. And right around the time that teacher left, the school was forced to move from its home of 45 years, the Unitarian Universalist church on Rugby Road.
The school has now lived at the Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church for about five years, but co-op supporters fear it isn’t as recognizable as it once was.
And “the economy has something to do with it,” says Krista McMullen, who teaches a group of “caterpillars,” as the two and three year olds are dubbed. She says there are more working families now, who don’t have the availability to pitch in at school.
“There’s nobody but teachers and parents who keep the school afloat,” says Wendell.
While the school can accept approximately 30 families, and used to have a waitlist at its old location, she says only 15 families are currently enrolled. And though she calls it a “low point” in the preschool’s history, she’s confident they’ll bounce back.
“We’re not at that place anymore,” she adds, referring to the school’s earlier troubles. “Now we have an amazing support system.”
On a cold December day, the playground at Molly Michie is nothing short of chaos for those not used to being surrounded by a dozen small children. A girl in purple leggings whizzes by, making shrill monkey noises that echo throughout the neighborhood. She chases a boy in and out of a miniature wooden cabin as two of her friends attempt to defy gravity by climbing up a bright green slide. Another girl flings herself into fast rotations on a tire swing.
McMullen watches the kids play while chatting with their parents. She recently transferred from the “very traditional” Daylily Preschool in Crozet, and says the difference has been astounding.
“I feel really supported,” she says, adding that parents are able to observe what she’s teaching their kids and take those practices home with them. And since parents take on jobs like cleaning and preparing lunch, she’s able to focus on her lesson plans and time with the kids.
In an effort to grow and increase enrollment, the school hopes to be able to accept six year olds next year who are taking a “kindergarten gap year,” says Wendell. And they also plan to start a summer program in June.
The school, McMullen adds, has a very rich history. “We don’t want to lose that.”—Samantha Baars
The CHS cafeteria was packed October 23 with community members eager to talk about longstanding racial disparities that became a national news story.
Dede Smith
Charlottesville City Schools has opened up a dialogue on racial disparities in its schools, with a survey to parents and a series of community forums, the first of which was held on October 23.
Though data on the black/white gap in city schools—in everything from suspension rates to participation in gifted programs—has existed for decades, the outreach is in response to an October 16 ProPublica/New York Times story spotlighting the district as having one of the biggest racial achievement gaps in the country.
At the forum, hundreds of community members filled Charlottesville High School’s cafeteria, where Charlene Green, manager of the city’s Office of Human Rights, told the crowd: “This is not about holding hands and singing ‘We Are the World,’ because it’s not going to happen. We need to figure out how we’re going to have these difficult conversations and listen to each other.”
In breakout groups, attendees discussed issues like gifted identification and hiring and supporting teachers of color.
Valarie Walker, who grew up in city schools, was in attendance along with her daughter, Trinity Hughes, who was one of the two African American students featured in the Times article.
Walker talked about her own experience as a child at Greenbrier Elementary School, which she enjoyed. “I still talk to my fifth grade teacher to this day,” she says. “We give each other hugs.”
But she also brought up her struggle to get her older daughter enrolled in an advanced course at Charlottesville High School, where she eventually thrived. Trinity, too, is now doing well in Algebra II, the class she could not get into her junior year because she struggled in math as a freshman. “I think it’s just trying to make sure that all kids have opportunities,” Walker says of the changes that need happen. “I think a lot of the kids just get pushed to the back.”
She’s glad the city is offering the forums (a second is scheduled for November 27). “You have to have the community’s input,” she says. And like many attendees, she was encouraged by the conversations happening that night. “When everybody gets together and everybody feels the same way, it makes you feel better.”
John Santoski, a former school board member whose two daughters attended city schools (one is now a teacher at CHS), says it was “good to see so many people come out,” but he’s withholding judgment on the city’s response.
“We’re really good here in Charlottesville at getting together and talking about things,” he says, noting that he was involved in many of these same conversations 25 years ago, when he was on the school board. “Whether there’s really going to be action…the jury’s still out.”
SURVEY SAYS
Initial results from a Charlottesville City Schools survey sent to all parents in the district revealed a glaring gap between the way white parents and black parents experience city schools.
For instance, in response to the statement: “My school values cultural similarities and differences,” 82 percent of white parents, but only 47 percent of black parents, agreed that the schools were moving in the right direction. On all questions, a greater proportion of white respondents rated the schools as moving in the right direction.
At the forum, city schools spokeswoman Beth Cheuk also noted that only 14 percent of respondents identified as black (in a district that’s roughly a third black), a red flag that the schools need to do a better job of reaching out to parents of color.
Patrick Clancy (right), pictured with his brother and mother, is suing the Monticello High athletic director and a former soccer coach for allegedly not heeding guidelines that could have prevented him from suffering exertional heat illness.
Eze Amos
“The rules were in place that day, and they were not followed,” says Emily Clancy, Patrick’s mother.
The 8am practice July 21, 2017, was on a National Weather Service heat advisory day. By the time Patrick finished practice at 10am on a synthetic turf field, which can up the heat index 35 to 55 degrees, according to the Virginia High School League, he had stopped sweating, had a headache, and could barely talk.
His brother Ryan, who also was at the practice and felt ill, drove Patrick home. His mother knew immediately that Patrick was in trouble because he couldn’t stand, he was throwing up, and his fingers turned blue. When a shower and cold bath failed to cool him down, she took him to the emergency room.
Emily Clancy is convinced that if she hadn’t been home, Patrick would have died.
And the response she says she got from Pierson, who no longer coaches, was to blame Patrick for not bringing enough water.
The suit alleges negligence and gross negligence, contending the defendants had a duty to Patrick to conduct the practice safely, and “they failed to do so.”
Pierson and Pearman did not respond to phone calls from C-VILLE.
Among the guidelines the suit claims the defendants violated were having no trainer present, no cold water, no shade, no rest breaks, and not taking into account how the synthetic turf would jack up the heat index.
Earlier this year, Albemarle County schools developed heat management guidelines for outdoor activities in hot weather, which include training for coaches, players, and parents, and measuring heat and humidity on playing surfaces during hot days.
However, Emily Clancy says Virginia High School League guidelines already were in place on July 21, but weren’t heeded.
Patrick and Ryan suffered permanent physical and mental scars from that day, exacerbated by the bullying they experienced at Monticello High, says their mother. “No one from the county ever apologized or even asked [Patrick] if he was okay.”
Ryan graduated and Patrick is now at a different school.
Both teens are “100 percent” behind the lawsuit, says Clancy. “Patrick said, ‘Mom, we have to do this because if we don’t, someone is going to die.’”
Deaths from the effects of heat are uncommon but they do occur. In June, University of Maryland offensive lineman Jordan McNair, 19, died of heatstroke.
And in 2005, Albemarle High graduate Kelly Watt, a cross country runner, suffered heatstroke after running on a sweltering July day, and died shortly afterward. A race is held every year in his memory. This year’s is Saturday, November 17, at Panorama Farms.
Says attorney Lloyd Snook, “We hope, through this lawsuit, to make everyone in the central Virginia athletic community understand what our athletic departments must do to prevent these deaths.”
Correction October 30: The lawsuit is for $2 million total, not $1 million as earlier reported.
Correction November 13: Jordan McNair died June 13.
