Some hard numbers on home schooling. The COVID-19 epidemic has not been kind to Virginia public school enrollment. From an article in the Free Lance-Star: In Stafford County, as of early September, 471 students had withdrawn from the public school division for home schooling this year — that’s nearly three times the 162 home-school students the previous year. In Spotsylvania County the number of home-school students are 1,519 this year compared to 1,089 last year. The city of Fredericksburg saw 172 home-school requests this year, a jump of about 100. Another 52 Spotsylvania families indicated they were withdrawing for private schools. Local school officials lament the loss of state and federal aid.
Hampton Roads’ Deep Dig. Construction has begun at last on a $3.8 billion project to add twin two-lane tunnels and make other improvements to Interstate 64 linking Norfolk to Hampton. The existing four-lane Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel is one of the worst transportation bottlenecks in the state. Funded with regional transportation tax dollars, the tunnel will employ new tunnel-excavation technology, reports Virginia Business. A German-fabricated boring machine with a 46-foot-diameter rotating cutterhead will drill 50 feet deeper than the existing tunnels.