RPS RECAP: Aug 21, Sept 11, Sept 18

Happy September, everyone! And a warm welcome to all our new Board Watchers. I’m happy you’re here, and excited to have an expanded audience going into the new school year. Allow me to introduce myself:

I’m Becca - a mom to 2 kids in RPS, and your guide through the wild wild world of School Board Governance. 

I write this blog series with three primary goals:

  1. Provide Meeting Summaries. I want you to understand the ideas and concerns shaping this school district… without having to find childcare, drive across town and watch a 4-6 hour long Board meeting twice a month. That's why I pack these posts full of direct quotes and vote splits, as well as links to relevant news articles, administration presentations, national research, and video clips I’ve recorded from each meeting. 

  2. (Local) Civics 101. How is the system designed to work? Who is your elected representative? What are their roles and responsibilities? Who is Robert, and why do we care about his “rules of order”? I take the time to define important terms, explain governance rules, and help you to understand when and how those rules are broken. 

  3. Meet Your Representatives. I introduce you to each of the 9 members of Richmond’s School Board, and represent them in proportion to their participation and impact on discussion… for better or worse. I think you’ll find that this part is a lot like watching blobs in a lava lamp. Sometimes a representative is “up” - attentive, prepared, and constructively contributing to division leadership. Sometimes they’re “down” - disengaged, off topic, dominating discussions, delaying decision-making, rushing decision-making (same-night motions) or playing irresponsible games of Budget Jenga. Oftentimes they’re both all in the same night!   

Blog posts are broken down into 5 essays, each of which usually represent a separate item of the evening’s agenda. 

Today’s essays, though, provide a general overview of each topic over the last 3 Board meetings. (I got a bit behind while working on the deepest-of-dives into the history of Virginia’s decaying school buildings.)  

Let’s get into it!

  • Academic Update

  • Facilities

  • Specialty Schools

  • Odds & Ends

  • Whose Job is it Anyway?

Academic Update

It’s “School Accreditation” season - which is fancy for School Ratings. 

All summer long, the Virginia Department of Education has processed last year’s student attendance data, SOL test scores, and graduation statistics. Now they are (VERY) slowly releasing that data to school divisions across the state. 

This information has 2 purposes: 

  1. Inform Lawmakers. In theory, the VDOE is supposed to find regional and statewide education trends, then recommend and advocate for the resources schools need to correct them. Fun Fact: the State Superintendent of Public Instruction used to be an elected position, and the primary advocate for all things student learning. (Pg 47,51,/143) Then lawmakers changed that 100 years ago because it was annoying that they were being hit up for more and more money every year. (Pg 277) Now the VDOE just looks at school data and offer super helpful resources like these nifty website graphics that are going to solve all of our school attendance problems. 

  2. Inform School Districts. Ditto, but on a local scale. Which schools are outliers? What resources do they need? Which trends are division-wide, and what can the Board do to support broader solutions?

They’re used for “accountability” purposes - but it’s a bottom-up accountability measure. Are lawmakers providing the “high quality education” the State Constitution requires? Are School Boards distributing resources appropriately? Where are weaknesses, and what can leaders do to fix them. 

Instead - everyone uses them as a blunt weapon to attack the scapegoat du-jour. Especially now, because the academic data stinks:

  • 40% of Black children in Virginia cannot pass reading tests. (58% in RPS)

  • 41% of Economically Disadvantaged children in Virginia cannot pass reading tests. (59% in RPS)

  • 68% of English Learners (ELs) in Virginia cannot pass reading tests. (70% in RPS)

  • 41% of Hispanic children in Virginia cannot pass reading tests. (61% in RPS)

  • 56% of Students with Disabilities in Virginia cannot pass reading tests. (74% in RPS)

  • 19% of White children in Virginia cannot pass reading tests. (14% in RPS)

Worse yet is the fact that the State showed NO GROWTH over last year’s reading or writing, and test scores dropped in history. 

RPS, on the other hand, is closing ground on most subjects, with double digit growth at many schools, especially in math.  

Liz Doerr (1st) puts these numbers into context for us:

“One of the things the data scientists who helped us set our [strategic plan] goals cautioned that anything over a 3-4 point gain year over year is really extraordinary. So, job well done to our staff, especially where we’re seeing 5, 6, 7 percentage point gains. 

Chairwoman Rizzi (5th) isn’t celebrating, though: 

“I’m concerned with the racial disparities I see. We’re talking 30% point differences.” 

Vice Chair Burke (7th) notes these racial disparities are a trend across Virginia. “There’s something wrong” at the state level when “students of color and students from disadvantaged backgrounds” are testing four and five times worse than Virginia’s White students. Something is “not in our best interest.” (Watch)

She’s absolutely right, of course. It’s almost like our current education system was designed by people who were real invested in maintaining a “caste system from a racial point of view as well as a class point view.” (pg 12/86) 

The Governor isn’t acknowledging any of this, though. Instead, he’s blaming all of this 2022 data on Democrats, who have only controlled State politics for 3 of the last 14 years. 

Rizzi considers regional impacts, too:

“I also believe that the city needs to focus on the conditions our families are living in. Because honestly, if a child is struggling at home with the stress of just basic survival, it’s going to be hard for the child to learn. Things like housing, food access, transportation. We’re going to need the city’s help with this - we can’t address it all.” 

Superintendent Kamras takes a control what you can control approach. He presents a plan to address the division’s lack of reading progress - since this is the “most critical skill that we teach academically.” He is concerned that we’ve asked literacy coaches to “boil the ocean.” They are spread too thin, and tasked with using too many intervention strategies. He thinks the division would be better served by focusing coaches’ energies on only the most effective intervention strategies. 

One area that Kamras wants to focus on is the Science of Reading (SOR), a researched-based method of teaching reading that emphasizes foundational skills like phonics and sight words. It is his goal to get more teachers LETRS trained (that’s SOR), and to increase student’s background knowledge (general stuff they know) in all subject areas to improve their reading comprehension. (It’s one thing to be able to sound out the word “wicket” - it’s another thing entirely to know that “wicket” is a part of the game cricket.)

The Science of Reading has been the division’s focus since 2021, when they used the “lion’s share” of our Covid relief funding ($68M of $122M) on a sweeping literacy initiative. (Watch) 

The Board also received their last literacy “deep dive” back in April - which makes their response now (August, 21) super strange:

  • Dr Harris-Muhammed (6th) asks: “Do we have funds allocated to help our teachers implement your literacy plan?…Teachers have not been directed to teach that way, or encouraged to teach in that manner, so what do we have to support them for success?” (Watch)

  • Chairwoman Rizzi - a SOR-supporter - says: “These things could have been funded years ago. I am feeling a bit of stress about the fact that we’ve spent so much money and received very little in return for it, and now we’re saying we’re going to pay attention to the Science of Reading?” (Watch)

At least they’re on-topic. 

  • On Aug 21, Jonathan Young (4th) dominated the academic discussion to talk about how short students’ lunch periods are. (This was an error the Superintendent was already correcting.) 

  • Kenya Gibson (3rd) was more interested in chromebooks - which she thought the division had failed to deliver to the Richmond Virtual Academy in time for the first day of school. (This was an error the Superintendent was already correcting; apparently RVA’s principal got every chromebook she asked for, she had just asked for too few.) 

  • Dr HM strayed off-topic to lecture about the division’s attendance practices and said the word “E-1” a lot. 

  • On Sept 11, within 90 seconds of the Superintendent finishing the literacy presentation, Gibson launched into an inquiry about mold. (You guessed it! This was something the Superintendent was already correcting, too. More on that below) 

  • On Sept 18, Dr HM accused the Superintendent’s entire presentation - an update about the Board of Education’s changes to the school accreditation (rating) formula - of being a deflection from the stuff she’d rather talk about. (Still attendance stuff, for some reason.) 

It took me watching these 3 meetings back-to-back to realize that the Board has a pattern of steering the evening’s first discussions towards whatever happens to be the scandal-of-the-week.

On the 11th, this distraction meant that Burke spent all 5 minutes of her discussion time on mold instead of “the nuts and bolts of why little Johnny can’t read or write.” 

And a confused Mariah White (2nd) asked:

“I have a comment about the [mold]… but we’re in the reading part? Do I make my comment about the [mold] motion?”

There are a couple of ways Board members can introduce new, urgent issues. They could ask to amend the agenda at the beginning of the meeting (add a new Board Discussion item), or bring up their concerns during New Business; but then they’d need to jump through annoying hoops like showing up to meetings on time, and getting the approval of a majority of their Board colleagues. Besides, New Business and Board Discussions all happen much later in the night - long after the public and media cameras have left.

No, if a lone-wolf chaos-agent wants to put on a show that the world will see, they need to hijack the first discussion item on the agenda; which is a shame, because this “prime time” spot is often dedicated to the school division’s most important function: Academics.

Facilities

It’s been a rough month for the RPS Facilities team. Let’s review their latest “scandals”…

First: there was a lot of concern about the division reopening schools in August with 190 fire violations. Many of the violations had been resolved, and many of them were minor (ex: missing ceiling tiles, improper use of extension cords), others were more serious and required repairs (electrical).

The Fire Chief released a statement saying that none of these violations kept schools from reopening safely, and that they were in continued contact with RPS to schedule reinspections. But that’s done little to ease community fears, especially after students at Thomas Jefferson High School were evacuated for what turned out to be “a minor incident of smoke in a room due to a bad motor in the AC system.” 

Turns out, HVAC units are causing all kinds of grief in RPS. They create condensation when they run cold air, which increases humidity levels in our schools. Humid (“wet”) schools become moldy schools, and we’ve got a whole bunch of those after running cool air throughout the dog-days of the hottest summer on world record. 

This is worse in schools with older units, and worse at schools with poor ventilation. (If you read last week’s blog post, you already know that’s basically all of our schools.)

Teachers and parents shared their concerns during public comment, reporting seeing mold form - as if by magic - right before their eyes. 

All this has real health effects. Especially for kids with asthma - which happens to be a leading cause of chronic absenteeism. (This handout is another super helpful resource the VDOE has offered to fix chronic absenteeism!) Obviously - and understandably - this mold has everyone alarmed. 

On Sept 11, Gibson jumps to action, making a same-night mold-motion to use $50M-60M of unspent Covid funds to address these “critical building issues,” complete mold tests in “all remaining buildings” across the district, and conduct mold remediation at Boushall and Fox-at-Clark Springs. 

An unfazed superintendent informs the Board that mold tests have already been ordered for all known problem-areas, and of course those reports will be available to the public once complete:

“I don’t think that motion is necessary, that is already what we are planning to do, but I defer to the Board.”

Chairwoman Rizzi resists Gibson’s rush-job motion:

“Maybe you can put that in writing and share it with our Board colleagues, and give us some time to read and consider this instead of holding a vote tonight.” 

Dawn Page (8th) - who represents Boushall and has been closely monitoring the mold situation there - joins Rizzi’s chorus: 

“Having a motion the night of the meeting, without intentional planning and receiving any data, information - I just feel like we’re not making a very sound decision.”

Burke wants that data, too: 

“I don’t know the amount of money… that’s left in the budget, as to how far we can address… the schools that were mentioned, but it’s [mold] beyond those two or three schools as well… I would like to have more information.” (Each ellipses is a tangent, but she always brings it back to her original thought in the end!) 

Gibson throws a (pretty manipulative) hail-Mary pass:

“A vote for this motion is a vote for doing something. There’s no reason not to vote for something if you believe something needs to be done… We’re sitting on some money, and we need to do something with it, now.”

Dr. Shonda “No-Trust” Harris-Mohamed, has a surprising objection:

“I am going to abstain this evening. Abstaining does not mean I don’t support the teachers or the parents. It does mean I’m going to step aside and govern accordingly and let the superintendent do what he just publicly said he would do.”

I’ll spare you all the other details - this goes on for a while - all you need to know is that this motion fails, and we’re lucky it does, because:

  • RPS is not just sitting on unused Covid funds. Those unspent funds are being slowly depleted each pay period because that money is supporting a significant portion of RPS staff. (Including all of Gibson’s Virtual Academy!)

  • Turns out, mold testing is between $80-$100 sq/ft. We have 4,571,967sq/ft in the district. To mold test all of that, as the motion requested, would have cost $366M-$457M. Our whole Covid allowance was less than $123M. (They were allowed to use $12M of on facilities - which they dedicated almost entirely to repairing HVAC units.)

  • Remediating schools is expensive, too. Last year, it cost $20K to remediate Clark Springs, a relatively small building… x 46 schools in the division = $9.2M. 

  • Replacing HVAC units - you guessed it! - also expensive. For example, it would cost $3-4M to replace the HVAC units at John Marshall. That would wipe out all of this year’s $2.5M CIP budget and half of next year’s. (Watch)

Instead, the Board does what they can with what little funds they have available. They take $263K out of their supply budget, and use it to address various mold expenses instead.

Chief Operating Officer, Dana Fox, seizes this moment to request the Board reconsider their prior rejection of a Facilities Condition Assessment. (Watch) This is a touchy subject that caused a lot of fussing last year, but Fox is asking now because that report would give her the information she needs to develop a long-term, strategic plan about facility maintenance. This plan will come in handy when (if) the State and federal government start paying their fair share in school maintenance and construction costs. 

For more deja vu, I present to you the Board’s discussion of renovating, consolidating, or replacing Woodville Elementary School:

The Superintendent asks: Hey, what do you guys want me to do with this crumbling school that’s under-enrolled and across the street from another crumbling-and-under-enrolled school?

Jonathan Young (4th) says: Consolidate it! We have 8,600 vacant seats in our division and it’s inefficient to keep running small, expensive, half-full schools. 

“We have 300 vacant seats in a new school 4 minutes away!” 

He asks if parents and staff have been offered the opportunity to fill the vacant seats in the division’s mold-free schools, like the newly constructed Henry Marsh Elementary. They have not.

The rest of the Board says: We don’t know what we want, and we’re not prepared to make any decisions on Woodville tonight. Except that we really, really hate Jonathan’s ideas.

The only difference between last year’s go-nowhere discussion and this one is: We could actually get the money we need to tackle Woodville. 

The State is awarding $247M in school construction loans to equally-desperate divisions across Virginia. COO Fox can apply for one of these loans to rebuild Woodville, but the application (and the Board) need to “be more specific than ‘we want to maybe rebuild the school.’”

Superintendent Kamras asks Woodville’s Board representative, Vice Chair Burke if there’s anything else she’d like him to ask the Woodville community to consider when he meets with them in the coming weeks.

“I do, but I’d much rather get together with the families at the school first, and hear directly from them first.” Burke

She plans to do this in October.

The deadline for grant applications is November 16. 

Sounds like Burke wasted her 546 day head start. If she doesn’t move fast to engage her community now, the school could miss out on this opportunity altogether.

Luckily, our current construction projects at Fox and RHSA (Wythe) are on-time and *checks notes* under budget!? ‘Tis true! 

  • Richmond High School for the Arts will undergo 6 months of “site work” - which Includes installing an enormous storm drain for/with the city. Then, a bid for a general contractor will go out “early January.”

  • An RFP (Request for Proposal) for Fox construction work will go out the first week of October. 

Specialty Schools

“In 2020, the Richmond City School Board authorized the creation of an Enrollment Equity Commission to research and provide recommendations to increase equity in our open enrollment, specialty school, and Governor’s School application and selection processes.” (Source)

This commission found that White students were over-represented in open enrollment (OE) and specialty schools - and WAY, way over-represented in Governor’s schools. They make up 10% of RPS, and 71% of the students we send to Governor’s schools. 

The opposite is true for our Black and Hispanic students. Black students make up 66% of RPS, and just 8% of students we send to Governor’s schools. (Hispanic students are 22%, 11% respectively.)

The Commission made several recommendations, including this one: 

“Modifying the selection process, criteria, and seat allocations for application schools (RPS and Governor’s) to advantage underrepresented students”

The administration got to work correcting a lot of the internal processes the commission flagged - increasing student and family engagement, streamlining the application process, monitoring the volume of applications across the division and targeting resources in under-represented school communities, etc.

The School Board, though, waited. And waited and waited. They basically lost a year’s worth of responsible governance in the era of Chairwoman Harris-Muhammed’s 6PM-1AM School Board meetings, full of repeat-discussions and deferred decision-making. (“2022”)

When the Board finally picked up this discussion again in March, 2023, the administration’s efforts alone had done very little to improve diversity in specialty school admissions. 

  • Black students still only made up 10.7% of RPS’s seats in Governor’s Schools 

  • Hispanic students, 6.5%

  • White students, 72%

They considered a bunch of new Policies the Board could do to better distribute these seats:

  • What if we set a minimum GPA requirement, and awarded seats by lottery? (Kamras)

  • What if we cut out the GPA requirement altogether? (White)

  • What if we prioritize RPS students over private school applicants? (Gibson)

  • What if we increase the number of seats we offer to each middle school? (Page) 

  • What if we just keep increasing the number of specialty school seats we offer? (Young)

But, ultimately, they landed on the same question: Why don’t we ask the public what they want? They tasked the administration with engaging the community, posing these questions to community members, and incorporating their feedback into a final proposal. Engagement included:

  • Conversations with current specialty school students.

  • Conversations with specialty school principals.

  • Surveying 897 families who participated in the specialty school application process last year. (Only 77 of them responded.)

  • 3 Northside townhalls; 3 Southside townhalls

All of this feedback was incorporated into 3 final proposals the Superintendent presented at the Sept 11th Board meeting.

Note: the Supreme Court ruled against race-conscious college admissions over the summer, so racial data was replaced with economic data.

For Board consideration on the 11th, and “Board Action” (voting) on the 18th, were:

  • Option 1: Offer 3 seats to each of RPS’ 8 middle schools, 3 seats to private/home school applicants, and award remaining seats by merit. In 2023, this would have increased the number of Economically Disadvantaged students from 10% to 15%. 

  • Option 2: Offer a maximum of 5 seats to private/home school applicants. Split the remaining seats 50% merit-only, 50% for Economically Disadvantaged students. In 2023, this would have increased the number of Economically Disadvantaged students from 10% to 50%.

  • Option 3: Offer 3 seats to each of RPS’ 8 middle schools, 3 seats to private/home school applicants. Remaining seats are split 50% merit-only, 50% Economically Disadvantaged, with a 5-seat cap on private/home school applicants. In 2023, this would have increased the number of Economically Disadvantaged students from 10% to 50%.

  • (Young adds) Option 4: 40 more seats for Governor’s Schools, 44 more seats for RPS Specialty Schools.

Here are a few FAQs:

  1. “Economic Disadvantage” refers to all “students who are eligible for free/reduced meals, eligible for Medicaid, or receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).” And…

  2. “All students” - even ED applicants! - “would need to meet the school’s application requirements.” (Including academic standards.)

  3. None of this will apply to Appomattox - they have a unique portfolio-based application process that is not compatible with any of these options.

  4. These caps and guaranteed seats are PER school. Not total. RPS offers hundreds of seats to specialty schools. See the image above.

The Board processes these options amidst a flurry of frustrated feedback from current-or-future private school parents:

The Board’s whole discussion circles around Option 3, which is endorsed by the Superintendent. (Watch)

Mariah White (2nd) says she cannot support Option 3 because all kids in RPS receive free/reduced lunch. (That’s true, but not because all kids in RPS are ED...) She sits on the Board at Maggie Walker and describes Black students at the school experiencing culture shock and feeling alienated in a mostly-white environment.

Dr. HM grandstands about the lack of diversity on the committee. She cannot support proposals until they’ve been blessed by the “grandmama in Gilpin Court” and parents in other high-poverty neighborhoods. (There was no committee. Just those 6, city-wide town halls.)

Liz Doerr is frustrated. (Or just speed-reading her statements. I can’t always tell.) She chides the public commenters who suggested increasing Economic Disadvantage students would decrease the rigor of specialty schools. 

“Either you believe that only rich people are smart, or you believe that there are structural inequities that are leading to the imbalance of population at these specialty schools.” 

She adds: 

“Equity means that different people get different supports and resources depending on their needs. As opposed to inequity - in which people get support and resources depending on their privilege and status in a historically racist and classist system… and while inequity favors one group, the adjustment to a more equitable system can feel to those like they are losing out. 

At some point if we say we’re valuing equity, we have to take action and make it real. Option 3 is controversial because it shifts resources to those historically less able to leverage resources for themselves… we are simply addressing systems that have historically allowed parents to give their children an unfair advantage and restrict the opportunities of others.”

Gibson sympathizes with private school parents who left the division during the pandemic. She’s worried about the 2500 students who opted out of the school system since 2019, and the division’s broader trend of middle class families opting out of our middle schools - none of which are accredited. She says all this opting-out has cost the division $20M. (I’m not sure where that number comes from, so I can’t fact check.)

“What we want is to maintain a school system that has everyone in it. We have to address the inequities that are here, but we can’t do that by righteously making decisions and ignoring the realities that are there… 

At the end of the day, the system is not fair and it stinks… but, you know, when we have students that attended the district all the way through, and they are competing against so many students who had such a different educational experience to get into these specialty school programs - we can’t say that it’s an even playing field.”

She hopes passing Option 3 will encourage families to stay in RPS for middle school.

Then she makes a sweeping, budget-less, same-night motion to overhaul our elementary school gifted and talented program. Her colleagues generally agree with the “spirit” of this idea, but - again - oppose same-night motions that don’t give them the “time to research it and understand it” (Rizzi). 

Just in case Gibson isn’t getting the hint - the Chairwoman adds: 

“Leadership has been in contact with our Board attorneys - who have talked to us at some length about our night-of motions, and whether they actually represent a protocol we should follow.” (IE, the attorneys keep telling us to knock it off!) 

Gibson’s motion doesn’t get a second, so it’s never brought up for a vote. 

Young’s motion does, though. He motions to amend Option 3 to include new seats at specialty schools. He still fully opposes this “discriminatory” plan - repeating many of the private school parents’ concerns - but he knows the Board is about to adopt it anyway. At least by adding a bunch of new seats in these schools, he can dilute Option 3’s equity-impact (diminishing the impact of 3 seats per school) while increasing the number of seats available to RPS’ non-ED students. (His motion would not have changed anything for private school kids, would still be subjected the 5-person cap.)

Young’s amendment fails. 

Page says Option 3 will “level the playing field after “generations of discrimination.” It will give students “a fair opportunity to meet their fullest potential.” She motions to approve Option 3. 

Jones offers a quick second.

Yea: Doerr, White, Gibson, Rizzi, Burke, Page, Jones

Nea: Young

Abstain: Harris-Muhammed

Odds & Ends

There’s always lots of little updates that don’t always fit super well into each essay, and aren’t substantial enough for their own essay. I figured it’s cleaner just to share them this way:

  • New Calendar - A 2024-24 School Calendar has been drafted! The Board will vote to approve or amend it in October. Kamras wants to reach out to neighboring divisions about aligning on one regional school calendar in the future. He hopes this will simplify things for RPS employees whose kids attend school in the counties.

  • Transportation Update - The Transportation Director tells the Board that he’s filled almost all his driver vacancies. (His secret? He makes sure they have a full day’s work!) He also just got a bunch of new buses, and is preparing to auction off the old ones. He’ll launch Traversa in January so families can get real-time bus ETAs. And while he can’t do anything about it being dark at bus stops in the winter, he does assure a concerned Ms. White that our younger students will stay safe because they are accompanied by a parent, as is division policy.

  • Arthur Ashe Update - Chairwoman Rizzi and Rep Young have been in mediation with the City’s Chief Administrative Officer about “disposition” of the AAJAC. “Candidly, we arrived at a brokered agreement that I would characterize as a win-win for everyone, first and foremost, for our students.” A decision is “imminent.” 

  • Speaking of Arthur Ashe - his nephew and the Richmond Tennis Association want to build a $12M indoor facility to “develop inner-city junior tennis.” RPS students would receive free tennis instruction and access to courts. They want to build this facility behind Lois Harrison-Jones Elementary School, and need the Board’s permission to take ownership of this land. TBD.

  • Speaking of sports - the RPS Board honored the late Coach Bo Jones, a 40-year coach at Huguenot, by naming the school’s gym and bus loop for him. Congratulations to his family!

  • Career & Technical Education - COO Fox has put the States’ $20M grant funding to use already at the Altria warehouse on Maury St - the site of our soon-to-be new CTE school. They’re doing some work to create temporary office space for RPS employees (get them out of Norrell! Stat!), and conducting a feasibility study to get an idea of budget. Engagement will be underway soon to hear what programming the community wants the school to offer. Look at RPS go, building all the things!

  • A New Budget - The Governor finally signed a budget amendment… 2 months into the fiscal year. RPS is getting an additional $9M-ish, which the Governor hopes they can use to solve all their academic and absenteeism problems. Despite the very specific spending plan he’s worked up, Youngkin still hopes school divisions will feel “empowered” to use their “creativity.” 

  • Fiscal Mapping - The Board narrowly passed the so-called “Children’s Budget!” RPS will work with the City on this “research project” that analyzes our current State, Local, and Federal funding, and determines which of children’s needs are (or are not) being funded. It’s clear that a few Board members still have no idea what this project is or does, though: White thinks they’re giving RPS money, and DrHM is convinced they’re trying to combine Headstart and VIP grant funds for some reason? Something about opening up childcare centers in homes? I won’t even pretend like I understand her anti-Fiscal-Map rant. 

  • Safety & Security - Join new Security Director, John Beazley, every Friday at noon for virtual "Safety Chats”! This Friday, Sept 29, he’ll be sharing and taking questions about kid’s social media use. If you’re extra lucky, you’ll get to meet 🛋️ (Emily) too!

Whose Job is it Anyway?

A lot of non-RPS Richmonders were upset that the Superintendent’s daily newsletters and social media updates were only available to people who opt in to receiving them. So many, in fact, that I thought I’d share this reminder:

It is your School Board representative’s job to engage with you, whether or not you have kids in RPS. It’s true! 

“Effective school boards have a collaborative relationship with staff and the community and establish a strong communications structure to inform and engage both internal and external stakeholders in setting and achieving district goals” (source)

They’re supposed to keep you - their constituent - up-to-date about changes they’re considering to educational policies, budgets, and district goals. They ought to be sending out newsletters and/or holding regular town halls in order to hear from you, too.

I’m not super sure the Board knows this - they tend to use the RPS Engagement Team as their personal PR managers, instead.

But now you know. So when you’re caught off guard by policy updates - especially as an “external stakeholder” - hold your elected officials accountable. 

If you’re not signed up for their updates, and not signed up for the Superintendent’s, then you cannot reasonably expect to be kept abreast of what happens in the division. 

That’s it. That’s my Civics 101 Soapbox. 

And with that - we’re all caught up on the Board’s August 21st, Sept 11th and Sept 18th Board meetings! Congratulations! We survived! Even if relistening to them all on double-speed started rotting my brain, and planting School Board characters in my dreams. Twice! 😬

Becca DuVal