Keep everyone safe from COVID
Starting this week, both city and county schools will have most students physically in class five days a week, for the first time since the pandemic hit in March of 2020. The districts have worked to put COVID mitigation measures in place as school resumes.
The city decided to hold in-person classes for multiple reasons, explained Assistant Superintendent Kim Powell at a town hall last weekend. “School operations were very successful in keeping students safe even before the vaccine,” said Powell, who also noted that “it’s a mandate from the governor. There’s no decision to be made about whether to reopen.”
The city has encouraged all employees to get the vaccine, and Powell said that when the district sent around a staff survey, 95 percent of respondents indicated that they had been fully inoculated. County schools leadership estimates “the percent of teachers and staff who have been vaccinated is in the 70-80 percent range,” according to a spokesperson. In the city and county combined, roughly 70 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 are vaccinated, according to the Blue Ridge Health District.
It’s possible that widespread outbreaks could see the return of virtual school, but at the town hall city schools Acting Director of Human Resources and Student Services Beth Baptist didn’t commit to a specific number of cases at which that would happen. “We’ll do whatever the recommendation is from our local doctors and the health department,” Baptist said.
Both school districts also improved their ventilation systems, and will require students to wear masks at all times. Both districts have also put in place social distancing measures within classrooms and other indoor spaces; the city, for instance, has replaced long cafeteria tables with individual desks.
Grab your pencil case, your erasers, your mask, and your hand sanitizer, and get ready: It’ll be a year unlike any other.
Continue renaming buildings
Like so many of the roads and buildings in this state, many of Charlottesville and Albemarle’s schools are named after old white men who held abhorrent views about race and gender. The city and county have already started the process of renaming some of their school buildings, and will continue to do so in the next year.
The county stripped the names of segregationist administrators Paul H. Cale and Mortimer Y. Sutherland, as well as revolutionary war soldier and slaveowner Jack Jouett, from its schools in the last two years. They are now called Mountain View, Lakeside, and Journey, respectively. The county’s researching all its school namesakes. Next up: Broadus Wood Elementary, named for the farmer who donated the land where the school sits.
Charlottesville is currently reviewing the names of elementary schools Clark and Venable. Both are good candidates for renaming: Clark is named for George Rogers Clark, the revolutionary war soldier and slaveowner whose statue was removed from UVA Grounds this summer. Charles Venable was a confederate soldier and an aide to Robert E. Lee.
Hire a new superintendent
Charlottesville is in the midst of a search for a new superintendent, after long-time city schools’ boss Rosa Atkins left for a job with the state department of education in May. The district hired consulting group Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates to survey district teachers, staff, and community members and create a “leadership profile” for potential superintendent candidates. The report says the district should look for someone with “budget and finance experience,” who is “a communicator who can build relationships and trust in a diverse community,” and is “deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Know anybody who might be right for the job?
Figure out reconfiguration
A plan is in the works to rearrange the city’s elementary and middle schools. Buford Middle will include grades six, seven, and eight, and fifth graders will stay in elementary schools, and Walker Upper Elementary, which currently serves grades five and six, will become a preschool. In April, the district announced that Charlottesville-based architecture firm VMDO will lead the redesign. It’s not a cheap project: The initial options VMDO presented had price tags ranging from $50 million to $100 million, with a Buford renovation as the big-ticket item. The architects will hold community input sessions on the designs throughout the fall. The city hopes construction will begin in 2023.
