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Fight to preserve historic New Market Heights Battlefield from development wins white flag
Around 7 a.m., Sept. 29, 1864, five regiments of U.S. Colored Troops charged Confederate defenses under withering fire and dislodged troops dug in at New Market Heights in Eastern Henrico — about a mile east of what is now Interstate 295. Fourteen Black soldiers and two of their white officers ultimately were awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor in the savage fight that cost 161 Union lives and left another 666 soldiers wounded.
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More fresh regionally grown produce headed to school cafeterias
More fresh lettuce, tomatoes and other regionally grown produce could be headed to the cafeteria meals served to students in schools in Richmond and Henrico and Chesterfield counties.
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Charles ‘Baby Charles’ Jones Jr., promoter, manager and producer for entertainers, dies at 47
Charles “Baby Charles” Jones Jr. managed, promoted and produced recordings for new and up-and-coming singers and hip-hop artists during his 30 years in the entertainment field. But the Richmond native was proudest of his work guiding and mentoring the music career of his oldest son, Charles Jones III, better known as Young Prince Charles in the rap world.
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William Hugo Van Jackson Jr., musician and music educator, dies at 86
William Hugo Van Jackson Jr., a jazz performer who spread his love of music to thousands of Richmond students through his music teaching and directing of high school bands, has died. Mr. Jackson, who was living in Ellicott City, Md., died on Sunday, April 3, 2022. He was 86.
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Family at Fourth Baptist Church sues pastor, two deacons
The pastor of historic Fourth Baptist Church is facing another legal challenge, this time from a Richmond family that claims he and two deacons wrongly removed them from the active membership rolls.
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Council member Katherine Jordan submits plan for ranked-choice voting for City Council
Richmond voters for the first time could cast their ballot for more than one candidate in the 2024 City Council elections.
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Hampton University announces new president
A former three-star Army general has been tapped to become the next president of Hampton University.
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Richmond Virtual Academy may become its own school
The Richmond Virtual Academy is to become a new elementary school that could enroll between 400 and 500 students a year in online classes, the Richmond School Board decided Monday night. Instead of phasing out the program online learning program as Superintendent Jason Kamras proposed in February, the board, after hearing pleas from academy supporters, adopted a proposal by School Board member Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, to make RVA a school of record like other elementary schools, and eligible for annual state and local funding like other schools. While that decision must be approved by the state Department of Education, the vote to keep RVA as a functioning entity came as the board finalized its budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year. The board had a deadline on Wednesday to deliver a finished budget to City Council. Overall, the approved budget authorizes a record $548 million in total spending, or an expenditure of about $25,253 for each of the 21,700 students RPS estimated as enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Along with grants and one-time federal funds, the RPS budget provides $356.6 million in general fund spending, which mostly includes revenue from the city and state, or about $16,400 per student. The board, which cut $6 million from Mr. Kamras’ original general fund proposal, is relying on receiving a $15 million increase from the city in the fiscal year that begins July 1. That would boost total support from the city from $185.3 million this fiscal year to a new record of $200.3 million in 2022- 23. The increase from the city is largely designed to fund the local share of a 5 percent pay increase for teachers and other staff that the state plans to institute. Staff and teachers of the Richmond Virtual Academy, currently listed as a program and funded with federal CARES Act dollars, advocated for it to remain open and funded and rallied parents to lobby for the survival of the academy that adopted the owl as its mascot and bills itself as a space “where learning is a hoot.” The board’s vote was both a reaction to the lobbying and a rebuke to the adminis- tration, which had notified the academy’s entire staff that they would be laid off as of July 1 and would need to reapply for positions within RPS. Mr. Kamras initially proposed cutting the program from 70 to just 10 instructors, who would largely teach homebound students too sick or injured to come to school or students removed from in-person learning for discipline reasons. Cindi Robinson, the academy’s princi- pal, said the board’s action is good news for parents and students. “Virtual learning is not just a Band-Aid,” Ms. Robinson said, noting that numerous school divisions have found some students “actually thrive and do better” in an online program. Among them is Sheila Barlow’s 19-year- old son, Douglas. Ms. Barlow told the board that the virtual school has been a boon for her son and other students like him with serious disabilities who can now attend class from home in a safe environment. Her son has Down syndrome and can- not talk, she said. “He has a sign language interpreter for all of his classes,” Ms. Barlow told the Free Press. “If he goes back to in-person learning, my son would not have that service.” While the board’s action appears to have saved the virtual academy, the board’s funding will provide only for a reduced operation. Richmond’s virtual operation enrolls about 768 students, including 500 elementary school students, which is fewer students than Henrico and Chesterfield’s school systems. But that would shrink further. The board’s funding would allow for only 30 total staff, including a principal, counselors and other staff and about 23 instructional staff strictly for elementary programming. Currently, the school has at least 70 staff members, including a 43-member instructional staff. As part of the transition, the School Board agreed with the administration’s plan to end enrollment for middle and high school students who can move to the state’s online program, Virtual Virginia. The revamped Richmond Virtual Acad- emy also will oversee virtual educational programming for students who are home- bound for disciplinary or health reasons. According to board members, the ad- ministration is expected to drop the cur- rent homebound program that dispatches teachers to the homes of students to provide in-person instruction two hours a day. If it becomes a school of record as anticipated, RVA would not only have a budget, but would also report state Stan- dards of Learning test results. The board’s budget, meanwhile, cuts more deeply into the central office staff than Mr. Kamras proposed and largely eliminates contracts for consultants pro- viding curriculum training. Ms. Gibson also won approval for an audit of Mr. Kamras’ original budget plan after she turned up a significant discrepancy in total employee numbers compared with the current year. The board also provided funding for the first time to enable 400 students to take math, science and other required high school classes at the Richmond Technical Center along with their career and voca- tional training programs. Under the initiative advanced by Jona- than Young, 4th District, the students will no longer have to be shuttled back to their home schools for those courses. This change is seen as a harbinger of the proposed career and technical high school that RPS plans to create in a former tobacco plant in South Side. In addition, the board also provided funds to support an increase in the number of students during the next four years at two specialty high schools, Richmond Com- munity and Franklin Military Academy, and three regional high schools, Code RVA and the Maggie L. Walker and Appomattox regional governor’s schools.
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City Council wants South Side homeless shelter to remain open temporarily
Could there be a spike in homelessness in Richmond?
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RAA warns service in jeopardy without greater city subsidy
Richmond has long boasted of having one of the best ambulance services in the country. But the Richmond Ambulance Authority is warning City Council that the ability to maintain quality emergency response is being jeopardized by Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s decision to limit the city’s financial support.
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Re-entry training program locked out of former school building
The shutdown has come for a Richmond-based program that linked people released from jails and prisons to training for construction jobs.
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City sluggish in distributing health grant, establishing emergency fund
The City of Richmond last year was awarded a $4 million federal grant to improve health literacy in Black and Latinx sections of the city.
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Transit union calls for assaulted GRTC driver to be reinstated
GRTC is facing pushback for firing a driver who subdued a passenger after he refused to don a mandatory mask and hit the driver on the arm when he called for assistance.
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Former Monroe Park Conservancy head acquitted in assault
Alice M. Massie, the former president of the Monroe Park Conservancy, has been acquitted of assaulting a Virginia Commonwealth University student.
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Evelyn H. Price, retired teacher and church leader, dies at 85
Evelyn Louise Harris Price, a retired Richmond educator and active churchwoman, has died.
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New book reveals details about Mary Lumpkin and the slave jail that became VUU
The stories of enslaved Black women largely have been erased from American history.
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Training program for released convicts faces shutdown
Rodney Brown had just served a six-year sentence in prison in 2018 when he found his way to the nonprofit Adult Alternative Program at 4929 Chamberlayne Ave. in the city’s North Side.
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Signs of the times
University of Richmond campus buildings honoring slaveholders and segregationists are getting new names after years of pushing Board of Trustees to make changes
Six buildings on the University of Richmond’s campus are being cleansed of the names of slaveholders and champions of segregation, including a building named in honor of the university’s founding president, the Rev. Robert Ryland.
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Brenda Howlett Melvin, retired educator, dies at 76
Brenda Eulalia Howlett Melvin, a retired educator described by her family as “a ray of sunshine” and a person “who loved to celebrate everything and everyone,” died Monday, March 21, 2022, in a local hospital.
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Marker recognizing city’s liberation by Union troops near Civil War’s end damaged in East End
An accident or act of intentional vandalism?
