Failing grade: Community responds to ProPublica/NYT piece on racial inequities in city schools

Last week, ProPublica and the New York Times published a scathing indictment of Charlottesville City Schools, pointing out persistent and widening achievement gaps between white and black students. The article also highlighted the overrepresentation of white students in the city schools’ gifted program, and made a general case that the needs of black students and […]

Bird watch: Intoxicated cedar waxwings slam into CHS

You can tell it’s spring when the birds return—and start crashing into the windows at Charlottesville High while drunk on Japanese pagoda tree berries. Avid birder Walker Catlett, 17, a junior at CHS, saw cedar waxwings flying into windows, and so far has documented at least eight dead and others stunned from soaring into the […]

High school beat: Newspaper editors share the real stories

What’s it like to be a teenager in 2018? We figured nobody’s better plugged in than newspaper editors, so we checked in with the editors at Charlottesville High and Western Albemarle, as well as a CHS junior. Here’s what we learned about the differences between city and county schools—and what they have in common. Olivia […]

The UVA Issue: The final words

As excited fourth-years take their final walk on the Lawn and up the portico steps of the recently refurbished Rotunda, they will no doubt be reflecting on their years at the University of Virginia. Just in the last school year, UVA has made headlines for scientific discoveries, Olympic athletes who have roamed Grounds, and improving […]

Spreading the words: The Virginia Festival of the Book

Every March thousands gather in Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book, now in its 22nd year, to celebrate storytelling and literacy. With most events free of charge and open to the public, the festival encourages book-lovers from all over to attend readings and panels, to see some of their favorite writers up close, […]

How to spend $162 million: The city’s budget increases 3.5 percent

Charlottesville City Manager Maurice Jones presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2017 to City Council on March 7. The $161,871,784 budget is a 3.5 percent increase over 2016’s fiscal year budget, which was approved at $156,391,435. The latest budget is Jones’ sixth version. “The biggest chunk is going to the schools,” he says, and […]

Teaching Model: Dr. Pam Moran employs a student-centered approach

Visiting the library of Woodbrook Elementary School, Dr. Pamela Moran, superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools, was in her element. A group of third-graders were busy showcasing their reading skills for a pair of small collies, therapy dogs provided by the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA. The students rested on pillows or sprawled across the carpeted floor, gently […]