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Virginia child care rating system aims to improve kids’ school readiness
Virginia has implemented new guidelines to establish a unified rating and improvement system to assess the commonwealth’s publicly funded early childhood care providers. Approximately 75% of child care programs that received public funding previously did not participate in the state’s voluntary quality measures, according to Del. David Buolva, D-Fairfax, who co-patroned 2020 legislation that led to all publicly funded providers being required to participate.
UVa administrators and faculty paint conflicting pictures of May 4 encampment clearing
At a University-run virtual town hall Tuesday and an independently organized faculty-led town hall Thursday, administrators and faculty presented differing accounts of the events of May 4, when police forcibly cleared a pro-Palestine encampment near the University Chapel. The details contested between the town halls included the clarity of the University’s tent policy, aggressiveness of protesters, provision of medical treatment and the presence of suspicious individuals at the encampment.
Williamsburg asks joint school district to improve city students’ performance as potential breakup looms
As Williamsburg mulls breaking away from its joint school district with James City County, city leaders want to know what the district is going to do to improve the performance of Williamsburg students. This comes after a feasibility study from the city on creating an independent school district laid bare the stark difference in academic achievement between students from Williamsburg and their peers from James City County.
2 Virginia Universities Won’t Require DEI Classes After Governor’s Review, Board Pushback
Starting this fall, undergraduate students at two public Virginia universities, Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason, were going to be required to take diversity-themed coursework. The efforts had been years in the making, the classes had been crafted and faculty bodies had already signed off. But earlier this semester, the impending mandates faced 11th-hour scrutiny from Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin. His administration asked to review the syllabi for the classes—a move that one Virginia Commonwealth faculty member called “hostile state scrutiny.” A spokesman said that Youngkin had heard concerns from parents and students about “a thinly veiled attempt to incorporate the progressive left’s groupthink on Virginia’s students.”
New budget agreement shows state officials aren’t serious about flooding
How will Virginia defend vulnerable communities, including those in Hampton Roads, from rising seas and recurrent flooding? That question, asked time and time again in recent years, will have more urgency in the wake of the budget agreement brokered between lawmakers and Gov. Glenn Youngkin this week. Democratic negotiators agreed to remove language from the budget they approved in March that would return Virginia to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate, market-based emissions reduction compact that has generated more than $800 million for flooding projects and energy-efficiency programs.
What we know about how UVa’s narrative differs from eyewitness accounts of May 4
University of Virginia officials have cited a number of justifications for their decision to have state police wearing tactical gear break up a small encampment of anti-war protesters on May 4, arresting 27 people and deploying pepper-spray into a crowd of students, faculty and members of the public. But witnesses and video footage raise questions about the claims made by President Jim Ryan, UVa Police Chief Tim Longo and other top officials.
Fears grow as Mountain Valley Pipeline nears completion
The most visible scars from the Mountain Valley Pipeline are gone now from the pastoral property that Anne and Steve Bernard call home. But the Bernards remain troubled by what they can’t see. “Bottom line: I’m scared to death of that pipe sitting out there,” Steve Bernard said of the buried steel pipe, through which highly pressurized natural gas could soon begin flowing along a route that passes about 150 feet from the couple’s white frame house and adjacent art studio.
Gibson: Online sexual abuse against women is imperiling our democracy
Last month, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s painful experiences as the victim of AI-driven sexual abuse appeared in a piece in Rolling Stone. Titled “Fake Photos, Real Harm: AOC and the Fight Against AI Porn,” the article explores how U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez first discovered the artificially generated explicit images of her, and her effort to amend the Violence Against Women Act in order to create civil liability in response to this new form of sexual abuse. Like so many people who read it, I was both horrified and motivated.
Schmude: Amid expansion, Chesapeake Regional seeks unnecessary price hikes
Chesapeake Regional Healthcare recently announced more than $150 million in new construction across Hampton Roads. In the same breath, the system has demanded dramatic price increases for Tidewater’s people and businesses in its current negotiations with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia. I spend my time advocating for health care affordability because it is consumers and businesses that pay for health care, and they should not bear the burden of flagrant cost increases to fund Chesapeake’s expansion plans.
Textbook decision tabled in Montgomery County after questions about bid process
It was a question of buy the book or by the book at a Montgomery County School Board meeting this week. A decision on which English textbooks to purchase for the county’s elementary school students was delayed after school board members learned that two competing vendors were not treated equally – both made offers, but only one was asked to revise its proposal and lower the price tag. “This opens up a lawsuit,” board member Derek Rountree said Tuesday.