Category Archives: Schools and Public Recreation

Heat Wave? Here In Southeastern Virginia We Call It July.

Posted on July 26, 2023 by | 47 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Stop the presses. It’s July 26th. And it’s hot. My trusty iPhone weather app says it will hit 91 today, 94 Thursday and 96 on Friday.

Who could have predicted such temperatures? Actually, all of us. It’s called JULY.

And yes, much of the country is in a record heat wave with far hotter weather. It’s not the first heat wave and it won’t be the last. But there is a new breed of “safetyist” afoot. Not the usual alarmists who feel it’s their duty to remind us every summer to wear light clothing, drink water — not tequila — and not to exercise at high noon, as if we are idiots.

This new bunch is raising the alarm on the dangers of temperatures — get this — above 90.
Continue reading →

47 Comments

Posted in Environment, Public safety & health, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Dollars and Scholars

Posted on May 29, 2023 by | 55 comments

by John Butcher

Table 15 in the 2022 Superintendent’s Annual Report includes the division expenditures per student for operations. Let’s juxtapose those data with the 2022 division Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates. But first: Economically Disadvantaged (ED) students (those eligible for Free/Reduced Meals, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], eligible for Medicaid, or identified as either Migrant or experiencing homelessness) pass the SOLs at rates about 20 percent lower than their more affluent peers (not ED). Thus, division SOL averages are affected by the relative percentages of ED and Not ED students in the division. The (very nice) SOL database provides data for both groups so we can look directly at the divisions’ performance.

To start, here are the 2022 SOL reading pass rates graphed vs. the per student expenditures.

There’s no room to label that crowd of data points. I have settled for labels on some of the high performers and three not-high performers. The aqua points are the state averages. Richmond is the gold points.

As you can see, some of the high-expenditure divisions do very well while some do not. And a number of low expenditure divisions do just as well as the best high expenditure ones. Falls Church leads the pack for the Not ED rate but is just above the state average as to its ED number. Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Does Virginia Beach School Board Care About Girls’ Sports?

Posted on May 9, 2023 by | 22 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

If you live in Virginia Beach, I have some questions for you:

Did you sit at home while the Bathrobe Brigade on the School Board fought to keep schools closed, long after we knew kids weren’t at risk from Covid-19?

Did you watch on public access TV as the hysterical hypochondriacs of the School Board battled to keep face diapers on kids long after we knew they were doing absolutely nothing to stop the spread?

Did you sit on your hands when you learned that graphic novels featuring oral gay sex were on the shelves of public schools and the woke majority on the School Board wanted to keep them there?

Well, it’s time to get out of your La-Z-Boy and join the weary parents and grandparents who have been fighting your battles for you.

Get to tonight’s school board meeting at 6 p.m. Join the 87 people who had signed up to speak as of late yesterday, according to board member Vicky Manning.
Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Leadership, Parental Rights, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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School Closures Resulted In Spike In Suicide Attempts Among Kids

Posted on April 27, 2023 by | 13 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

How is it that those of us without fancy degrees from prestigious universities or medical training intuitively KNEW that the Covid-19 lockdowns and school closures would have a profoundly negative effect upon kids?

I watched one of my nieces, who graduated from high school in 2021, spend her junior year at home, isolated from her friends and extended family. A future physician and excellent student, she sat alone, doing class work off of a computer screen. On top of that, her entire social structure was dismantled. There were no sleepovers or parties, no sports, dances or proms. When schools finally reopened she was seated more than 6 feet away from the nearest other student at lunch and if they dared speak to each other, a teacher would scream, “NO talking!”

All for a virus that barely affected kids, as we all knew from the earliest weeks of the pandemic.

I worried about her and her friends. Turns out, she’s OK. Some of her classmates? Not so much.

Last week, UVA Today published a study showing a sharp increase in the number of attempted suicides by children ages 10 to 19 from 2020 on.

The rate of suspected suicide attempts by poisoning among children and adolescents ages 10 to 19 reported to U.S. poison centers increased 30% during 2021 – the COVID-19 pandemic’s first full year – compared with 2019, a new UVA Health study found.

Attempted suicides continue to climb.
Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Children and families, Education (K-12), Health Care, Individual liberties, Mental illness and substance abuse, Psychology, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Unaffordable Housing, Redux

Posted on April 19, 2023 by | 10 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Proposed housing construction in the city of Harrisonburg could add about 1,200 students to the Harrisonburg City Public Schools, with housing already under construction in Rockingham County possibly adding 400 more.

A quarter of the 1,600 potential students could be absorbed by the opening of Rocktown High School, leaving the city to build however many new schools it takes to educate 1,200 elementary and middle school students.

This projection is based on my using other people’s multipliers on a compilation by the invaluable Scott Rogers on HarrisonburgHousingToday.com. The housing count is Scott Rogers’; the school estimates are mine.

The multipliers in question come from Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS) and from Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI). HCPS came up with its numbers based on who lives where in the city, and ESI does it for a living. They vary, somewhat. ESI thinks a townhouse will generate .52 students and the HCPS method forecasts .45 students.
Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Children and families, Education (K-12), Housing, Land use & development, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Snow Angel Philosophy

Posted on April 17, 2023 by | 8 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald

Snow angels or philosophers? It seemed like an easy choice to me. A James Madison University admissions official read the letters from a male who wrote about how well he understood the great philosophers and a female, from Ohio if memory serves, who wanted to know if she’d be able to make snow angels in Virginia. Easy choice. Somebody who’s read philosophy in high school is going to be better equipped to learn at a post-secondary level.

The admissions official went with the snow angels. I don’t remember the adjectives she used but I remember thinking they didn’t have a lot to do with education.

Only a moment, and a long time ago. My kid turns 34 next week, so it’s been a while since I had a reason to attend an admissions event.

I think of that when I hear references to JMU’s selling points. The school has a rock wall, claims the best food service among Virginia’s colleges, and is the best-looking campus. (Ron Carrier said he loved mulch so much he’d roll around in it if he could; the last time I saw him he was spreading mulch in a public area, apparently because he could.) Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Leadership, Schools and Public Recreation

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Virginia Dems Refuse To Support Female Athletes

Posted on January 31, 2023 by | 37 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

I’m old.

Old enough to remember when there were sane members of Virginia’s Democrat Party.

They’ve apparently died or left the building and the party is under the complete control of woke loons. Like Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, the former Speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates, who recently pretended not to understand why the Old Dominion needs a law prohibiting transgendered athletes from competing in female sports.

(Frankly, I have no problem with trans-men competing against males. Let ‘em try. Truth is, females are smaller and don’t have the strength of men and no amount of hormones and body hair will give them an unfair competitive advantage over biological males.)

Referring to HB1387, a bill introduced by Del. Karen Greenhalgh of Virginia Beach that would require athletes to compete in sports that comply with their biological gender, Filler-Corn voted against the bill and called it “mean-spirited,” sneering: “We have had transgender youth living in the commonwealth, and there has been no takeover of women’s sports,” she said. “I just don’t understand why this conversation continues.” Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Education (K-12), Feminism and women's rights, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Rent-A-Cops in the Schools Now?

Posted on August 12, 2022 by | 86 comments

Photo credit: Mother Jones

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

The Halifax County School Board is planning to hire a private firm to provide security at all county schools, in addition to school resource officers (SRO).

That is the world brought to us by a gun-crazy society with its no-compromise embrace of the Second Amendment, aided by a compliant Supreme Court.

As reported by the News and Record (South Boston), the proposal calls for four school security officers (SSO) to patrol the high school, along with the school resource officers (SROs) from the sheriff and town police departments, as well as the stationing of a guard at each elementary school for the first time. Continue reading →

86 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Gun rights, Schools and Public Recreation

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School Security and Public Recreation

Posted on July 10, 2022 by | 37 comments

Courtesy of ESPN

by James C. Sherlock

Richmond Free Press (RFP) has editorialized about an issue of importance to all Virginians.

The editorial “Indoor basketball courts or outdoor courts? Why not both?” discusses the fact that the City of Richmond has late-stage plans for the construction of the new George Wythe High School that have secure entrances to indoor facilities and no plans for outdoor basketball courts.

RFP in its editorial makes a plea to the mayor and city council to let the adults and kids in the neighborhood use the high school as a community asset for recreational activities when the kids are not in school.

The RFP editorial board is spot-on.

It is or should be an issue all across the state. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Schools and Public Recreation

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