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Bumper Sticker for the Times
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A Troubling Gap in School Transparency
by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
Republished with permission from IWFeaturesLast week, Fairfax County police confirmed that a public school student reported she was physically attacked at Centreville High School on March 4. Inside sources have told IW Features that the incident occurred during instructional hours and that the alleged assailant is a black male student. One source described the incident this way: “A boy beat the crap out of a girl.”
As of publication, Centreville High School administration has not notified families of this incident.
While the racial identity of a student should be inconsequential, the district’s equity framework appears to have made it a relevant consideration. In pursuit of equitable outcomes—a central component of the Fairfax County Public Schools Strategic Plan—administrators have adopted policies aimed at reducing reliance on suspension and expulsion, as well as disparities in disciplinary actions among student groups.
As part of this shift, discipline reform has increasingly emphasized a “restorative justice” approach to addressing student misconduct, including incidents involving violence in public schools.
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Youngkin Blasts Spanberger for “Blatant Lie” On Gerrymander
Youngkin making a point. Image credit: The Roanoke Star by Scott Dreyer
Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), usually known for his mild-mannered demeanor, broke with decorum and accused current Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger of lying in her support for a “yes” vote in the current election to redraw Congressional lines.
On March 25, Spanberger appeared in this commercial, calling on Virginians to vote “yes” in the election currently underway. By 10:00 p.m. on March 26, her post on Twitter/X had only about 2,500 likes but the same number of comments, virtually all of which were critical of her position.
Also on March 25, Youngkin unleashed his irate response to Spanberger.
“This is a lie. A blatant lie. Not to mention a complete reversal of your campaign promises.
“This unconstitutional power grab will permanently rig Virginia’s Congressional maps and disenfranchise millions of Virginians.
“Virginia, VOTE NO.”
Also by 10:00 pm on March 26, Youngkin’s post had about 29,000 likes, more than ten times that of Spanberger’s likes, and of Youngkin’s 1,700 comments, most were supportive.
There are at least five facts that justify Youngkin’s vehement accusation of Spanberger being dishonest.
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Lawsuit Accuses Virginia Schools, VHSL of Religious Discrimination
Founding Freedoms Law Center files lawsuit against Roanoke County Schools and Virginia High School League on behalf of a homeschooled student.
by Victoria Manning
More than 30 states permit homeschooled students to participate in public school sports funded by taxpayers—but not Virginia. The Virginia High School League (VHSL) controls eligibility rules for the state’s public high school sports. Now, the Founding Freedoms Law Center (FFLC) is suing both the VHSL and member school district Roanoke County, alleging the prohibition of sports participation simply because of homeschooling is discrimination based on the plaintiff’s religious beliefs.
The plaintiffs elect homeschooling for religious reasons. Their faith doesn’t require their son to be shielded from public activities such as athletics, but they believe public school teachings could expose their son to educational philosophies contrary to their faith.
The lawsuit, brought by the family of a 9th grade homeschooled student, alleges irreparable harm because he was denied opportunities to compete at a high level of running granted to other students in his community. College coaches utilize data from Milestat, a system that tracks the performance of track and field athletes as a recruiting tool. The plaintiff claims the only events available to log his running times are through the Milestat system used by the VHSL.
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Democrats: Trust the Machines
In a blow to election integrity, HB968 will ban hand counting ballots in almost all cases.
Image credit: Chat GPT by Jacob Grandstaff
With Democrats controlling the legislature and the Governor’s mansion under Abigail Spanberger, Virginia is on the verge of enacting an election bill that requires machine-counting and restricts hand-counting to cases when a machine scanner is broken and would take too long to fix or replace.
The bill, HB968, passed along party lines, 65–33 in the House of Delegates, and 21–19 in the Senate where Democrats hold a two-seat majority. Virginia already uses ballot-scanning machines to count votes in most cases, however, this bill would remove the possibility of switching to hand counting if the machines are ever found untrustworthy or if local jurisdictions prefer ballots be counted manually. The real danger with this bill, lies in the limitations it puts on hand counting during recounts and election audits.
Spanberger is almost certain to sign this bill. The unlikelihood of a veto doesn’t make it a good development for the state’s elections.
This bill marks a troubling step backward for transparency and integrity.
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No Kings: Geriatrics Rise Up. Very Slowly.
by Kerry Dougherty
No Kings rally in Richmond. Image credit: ABC News. We get it, geezers. You didn’t vote for Donald Trump. You hate him.
We saw you shaking your canes at the president during your silly “No Kings” protests on Saturday.
Who wants to tell them that we don’t HAVE a king?
We have a president.Then again, you can’t expect people who don’t know what a woman is to know what a king is either.
His name is Donald Trump and he was elected. Trump won the popular vote. Trump won the electoral college. Trump won every swing state, soundly beating the day-drunk Dems selected to replace the zombie they first nominated and then stabbed in the back.
When Trump beat Hillary in 2016, the left was seething. To show their anger they knitted pink vagina hats, put them on their heads and took to the streets.
They looked like a bunch of nuts and accomplished, well, nothing.
Ten years later, they emptied the nursing homes – apparently banned people of color – and filled the sidewalks with 70, 80 and 90-year-old white people struggling to hold aloft “No Kings” signs.
You could almost smell the Ben-Gay. Continue reading.
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DREAM On
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Virginia law provides that a student attending a public institution of higher education shall be eligible for in-state tuition, regardless of citizenship or immigration status if the following conditions are met:
- Attended high school for at least two years in the Commonwealth;
- Graduated from a public or private high school; completed a home school program; or passed the GED (or equivalent) exam.
- Student, or parents or guardians, filed Virginia income tax returns for at least two years prior to enrollment.
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”
In other words, if the son or daughter of an undocumented immigrant can qualify for in-state tuition at the University of Virginia based on their residence in the Commonwealth, the state must allow a student from Arkansas, New Hampshire, etc. to attend the University on the same basis.
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Youngkin-led VDOE Backed Limits on Undocumented Students’ Program Access
Trump pressured states to limit undocumented high school students’ access to career education programs
By Matt Barnum and Lily Altavena, Chalkbeat
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters
Photo credit: Hannah Beier for Chalkbeat At least three states have taken steps to restrict undocumented high school students’ access to dual enrollment and career-technical education programs, according to documents reviewed by Chalkbeat. In one state, the policy was reversed following Chalkbeat inquiries.
These moves come as efforts to limit educational funding for undocumented immigrants ramp up nationwide. They build on controversial guidance from the Trump administration that restricted federally funded preschool and adult education programs to citizens and legal residents.
But these state actions are particularly striking because they chip away at protections based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe decision, which requires public schools to serve all students, including those who lack legal permission to be in the country. They suggest the Trump administration has made more progress than previously reported in eroding the protections enshrined in the ruling, long a conservative target.
In Virginia, nearly every school district quietly agreed to exclude undocumented students from participating in certain federally funded career-and-technical education programs, according to records obtained by Chalkbeat.
It is not clear how many undocumented students actually lost access to programming. But at least one school district in Virginia was denied $150,000 in federal funding because it didn’t agree to exclude those students.
On Thursday, after repeated Chalkbeat questions, the state education department said it was abandoning the policy. School districts will no longer be required to restrict undocumented students’ access. The original policy came under the state’s previous Republican administration. The department is now led by a Democratic appointee.
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Jeanine’s Memes
See more memes at the Bull Elephant.
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Radical UVA GROUP Attempts to Sabotage Miyares Speech
Image credit: Chat GPT by The Jefferson Council
Yesterday, UVA Dissenters, a self proclaimed “collective of anti-imperialist organizers” brazenly and publicly urged its members to “spam” register for a Center for Politics event featuring former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares with no intention of actually attending. The stated goal was to “screw up their numbers,” flooding the registration system with fake sign-ups in order to block real attendees from securing a spot.
Let’s be clear about what this is: it’s not a protest. It’s sabotage — and it absolutely runs afoul of a number of UVA’s fundamental principles.
It conflicts with UVA’s Statement on Free Expression and Free Inquiry: That policy states that “all views, beliefs, and perspectives deserve to be articulated and heard free from interference” and that the University must not allow others to “obstruct or shut down” protected expression. Coordinating fake registrations to undermine a speaker event is textbook obstruction.
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Bacon Meme of the Week
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Is Virginia Ready for a Recession?
by Chris Saxman
Q – Is Virginia ready for a recession?
Let’s look at some macro level stuff first.
US government debt at 9am this morning:
About 1/3 of which is maturing soon:
That’s $10trn of US government debt, right?
That will be refinanced at HIGHER rates.
Add in $2trn more from this year’s deficit. That’s $12trn.
Plus another $2trn in corporate debt. That’s $14trn.
$14trn this year.
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Redistricting Unfairness Started in Democrat- Controlled New York, Not Texas
The problem isn’t Republican states, but Democratic states where unfairness has prevailed for so long that Democrats cannot recognize the word fair anymore.
by Shaun Kenney
Tension between Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and the renegades in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly is flaring up yet again, only this time it isn’t taxing data centers to death but taxing Virginia’s patience:
With less than one month to go, nearly a dozen Democratic state lawmakers, strategists and candidates say Spanberger — Virginia’s popular Democratic governor who cruised to victory by double-digits last November — needs to step up more assertively to sell the referendum to voters. And they’re warning that she’ll bear the brunt of the blame if the effort fails.
It’s not that she’s doing nothing: Spanberger has endorsed the referendum and launched an ad supporting it this week, her first of the campaign, as POLITICO first reported. But critics say it’s the bare minimum for an effort that is supposed to be a top Democratic priority as the party works to counter GOP-led states that are redrawing their own maps.
Of course, this shibboleth of blame shifting — Republicans did it first, Democrats are responding — just isn’t playing out for the precise reason that it just ain’t true.
If the question around redistricting is who is playing with the lines, or more precisely whether playing with the lines is a reaction to bad form on the opposite side, then the answer — and indeed, the blame — lies with New York Democrats, whose effort to gerrymander their congressional seats so as to remove a lone Republican in Staten Island was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court this March.
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Stacking the Deck for Dems and Incumbents
The mechanics of Virginia’s proposed mid-decade redistricting create obstacles for underdogs running for Congress.
by Ken Reid
There are various reasons for defeating the April 21 referendum to allow the Democrat-controlled General Assembly to redraw Virginia’s 11 U.S. house districts to give them a 10-1 advantage vs. 6-5 in the Nov. 3 congressional midterm elections.
One issue, which has gotten scant attention, is the confusion caused for candidates who want to run for House of Representatives.
Under Virginia law, to qualify to run for U.S. House, a candidate must, in part, secure the signatures of 1,000 qualified voters of that district on double-sided paper petition forms.
Well, who knows what the districts will be?
Democrats think they solved that with a provision inserted into House Bill 29, a budget bill, which extended the June primary to August 4, and petition and filing forms deadline to May 26. Governor Abigail Spanberger signed it into law.
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Bipartisan Praise Greets New Superintendent at Board of Ed
by Todd Truitt
State Superintendent Jenna Conway
Photo credit: VDOEThe Virginia Board of Education convened this week for its first meeting under the new administration of Governor Abigail Spanberger. The meeting represented a milestone for State Superintendent Jenna Conway, who presided over the Board for the first time in her new role. Rather than a reset, her first Board meeting as Superintendent signaled a steady, cohesive transition into the role.
Conway had already spent seven years at the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), most recently serving as a deputy superintendent overseeing early childhood care and education initiatives and receiving national recognition for those efforts.
Before arriving at the VDOE, Conway worked in early childhood at the Louisiana Department of Education during a period of sweeping, high-impact reforms—alongside neighboring states, like Mississippi—in which those states began implementing literacy reforms and raising academic standards to drive significant academic gains as part of the so-called “Southern Surge.” Some have credited those states’ improvements in early childhood programs as having been also crucial to their subsequent K-12 success.
Gov. Spanberger’s promotion of Conway as the VDOE’s chief executive elevated a leader from within the VDOE’s ranks rather than bringing in an outsider. Her continuity is especially significant given the leadership turnover under former Governor Glenn Youngkin, during which Virginia had three state superintendents in four years (all of whom were outside hires).
At this week’s Board meeting, Conway was already well known to the incumbent Board members appointed by former Gov. Youngkin. Several offered glowing praise for Conway.
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