Co-op travails: Molly Michie seeks preschoolers—and their parents

Faced with a recent decline in enrollment, the city’s first co-operative preschool, which has operated for more than 50 years, is struggling to stay on its feet. Molly Michie Cooperative Preschool was founded in 1967 as the city’s first integrated preschool, with an emphasis on learning through play. Being a co-op means parents are deeply […]

Tough talks: Hundreds gather to discuss racial inequities in city schools

Charlottesville City Schools has opened up a dialogue on racial disparities in its schools, with a survey to parents and a series of community forums, the first of which was held on October 23. Though data on the black/white gap in city schools—in everything from suspension rates to participation in gifted programs—has existed for decades, […]

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 […]