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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 [...]
It took two men with a vision to create an all-girls village On the Tuesday before winter break, a spirited debate has broken out in Jamie Knorr’s sixth-grade history class at Village School, the all-girls middle school he and Proal Heartwell founded two decades ago. A few of Knorr’s students [...]
A group of Charlottesville High School students are on an espionage mission from NASA to capture photographs of a competitor satellite while managing a limited store of energy and avoiding having their own satellite’s photo snatched by the competitor. BACON, or the Best All-around Club of [...]
The parent of an eighth-grader who receives special education at Buford Middle School says her daughter doesn’t appear like she’s disabled. Lisa Torres’ daughter is moderately to severely dyslexic and has some difficulty with speech articulation, but she’s enrolled in advanced classes and also [...]
At the start of a new academic year, it’s inevitable that some students mourn their summer vacations and others feel happy to have something to do. Either way, going back to school can be a stressful time for both students and parents. Who’s picking Jacob up from football practice? And how much [...]
Students, faculty, and supporters of Sweet Briar College are breathing a sigh of relief that the home of the Vixens will stay afloat for at least another year. Following months of uncertainty over the future of the women’s liberal arts college after President James F. Jones announced in March [...]
“Good news,” tweeted Amherst-area Delegate Ben Cline. “VA Supremes endorse our Sweet Briar argument. Back to Bedford Circuit for rehearing and hopefully injunction to stop closure!” With its opinion rendered less than two business days after an already accelerated [...]
By now, practically everyone in academic circles has heard the official explanation—declining enrollment and revenue—for why the board of directors voted to close Sweet Briar College. Harder to understand is the follow-up question, particularly now that an alumni group claims to have raised at [...]
College presidents don’t usually skip commencement, but the leader’s absence is just one of the bumps endured by the Sweet Briar College Class of 2015, which graduated Saturday. The largest earthquake in memory struck during their registration in August 2011. And now their college [...]
When the Sweet Briar College class of 2015 walks the stage at commencement on Saturday, May 16, hundreds of their family members, professors and friends will be present to see what may well be the school’s last graduation ceremony. Sweet Briar Professor Marcia Thom-Kaley is urging one [...]
The display case near the entrance of the Central Library holding a coat-hanger necklace, birth control pills and condoms had gone unremarked upon since it went up April 1. Three weeks later, it captured the attention of a local library user who said it was inappropriate for children and [...]
Orange is the new Black History Month flashpoint following a March 12 high school program titled “Black Lives Matter.” An anonymous deputy called the event “anti-police” and “political” in a Facebook message that went viral, and by Monday, March 16, parents were keeping their children home [...]
Weeks after the board of Sweet Briar voted to shutter the school following the spring semester, alumnae and faculty are fighting back, raising more than $3 million through the nonprofit Saving Sweet Briar and hiring the international law firm of Troutman Sanders to pursue legal action to block [...]
A week after Sweet Briar’s board of directors announced plans to close the 114-year-old women’s college in Amherst, shock and grief among students, faculty and alumnae has given way to anger, defiance and questions about the basis for the decision. “I just think it was handled so badly,” said [...]
This week marks our first-ever pride issue—just in time for Charlottesville’s Pride Festival this weekend. Check out our other feature stories on deciding whether to marry as a gay couple, on UVA’s lack of gender-neutral housing for trans students, and on the festival itself. Here’s [...]
Charlottesville City Schools have one more half-million-dollar payment to make on the contract that put a Fujitsu touch-screen tablet in the hands of every middle and high school student in the division in 2012, and while the aging computing devices have been criticized as glitchy and slow, the [...]
It’s that time of year again: Kids are headed back to school. As both county and city school divisions prepare for the annual return of students, we’ve collected updates on a few hot topics in local public education, from starting bells to snow days. Check out our feature stories on [...]
In 2009, Albemarle County launched its Math, Engineering & Science Academy (MESA) at Albemarle High School as a pilot program for a new model of learning. Five years later, enrollment in MESA has more than doubled, and administrators are taking more steps towards career-oriented learning [...]
Early this month, the Albemarle County Planning Commission heard from not one but two private school headmasters at its regular meeting in Lane Auditorium at the County Office Building. The institutions themselves were very different: Tandem Friends School, a 44-year-old Quaker middle and high [...]
Have you ever really stopped and listened to lyrics like those in Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” or Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty?” It’s startling when you hear some of the words that kids sing today. But that’s where programs like Mobile Music Mission come in. As a local company that lets kids [...]