Congratulations to all of the Near West End public schools! Every single one of them is fully accredited according to the statistics that were released yesterday by the department of education.

Fully Accredited schools include:

Crestview Elementary 

Tuckahoe Elementary

Tuckahoe Middle

Freeman High School

and in the city:

Mary Munford Elemenatary

Albert Hill Middle

Thomas Jefferson High and

Community High  School

The Times-Dispatch reports that Henrico County Public Schools will hire a residency-compliance officer to make sure that students actually live in Henrico County.  

The position, posted on the Henrico schools’ employment site, is part social worker and part investigator, Morton said. The advertised pay range is $49,437 to $87,776. Morton plans to have the position filled by Aug. 1.

Henrico spends about $4,000 of county money to educate each pupil; with other money added, the total expenditure is $8,957 per year. Multiply that by the 50 out-of-district students discovered last year, and the position more than pays for itself, said Morton, who hopes having a residency-compliance officer will deter families from trying to beat the system.

The new officer may work himself out of a job, he conceded, but the position will be realigned as necessary.

Morton said his office has heard numerous complaints over the years about outside students attending Henrico schools.

Style Weekly reports today that the University of Richmond will open a family law clinic downtown in a joint venture with VCU. 

The University of Richmond is reaching out of its secluded West End campus to set up shop downtown.

In partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University’s social work and psychology programs, UR is making its first major commitment to downtown in the fall. UR’s family law clinic will pair law students with Richmond attorneys who are representing low-income families pro bono. In a separate program, undergraduate and graduate students at UR and VCU will work with city-based organizations that provide services pro bono to low-income families.

The satellite campus will take over about 4,200 square feet at 626 E. Broad St., former headquarters of Franklin Federal Savings & Loan, which is across the street from the new federal courthouse. It’s expected to open to students in time for the fall semester, says Adrienne Volenik, acting director for UR’s National Center for Family Law. The Wilton Cos. donated the space for the campus, she says.

Greg Muzik, Mary Munford’s principal, recently announced that Munford will get an ADA upgrade (hopefully  this summer). Fortunatly, Munford’s ADA upgrade looks much simpler that some of the other schools that are older, like William Fox Elementary in the Fan.

“Munford is scheduled to have a ADA upgrade to our building. This work may take place this summer.  We will be relocating the handicap parking spaces so they will be closer to the school entrance that faces the bus loop.  A ramp to this entrance will be installed along with new door hardware.”

In fact, it looks like 33 of Richmond’s schools may get upgraded. Well it is about time!

Hopefully, Richmond won’t have to scramble to quickly replace Superintendent Deborah Jewell-Sherman who just annouced she will be leaving as of July 31st to go to Harvard.   What we need is someone really good to replace her.

Once she leaves, the School Board has 180 days to hire a full-time replacement. While that window won’t expire until late January, the Board is prohibited by state law from acting on its search between the November election and the first of the year, when the new Board is seated.

The Board is expected to ask assistant superintendent for instruction Yvonne Brandon to serve as interim superintendent. Brandon, the only upper-tier administrator not retiring or otherwise stating a desire to leave the system, was recently a finalist for the superintendent position in Memphis.

The Richmond School Board tentatively approved the Patrick Henry Charter School last night. Hills and Heights has a play by play of the meeting. And the Times-Dispatch covers it in today’s paper as well.

Voting in favor of the application were Dawson, Bridges, Carr, West, and Braxton. Voting against were Smith and Wilson. Wolf abstained.

Deborah Jewell-Sherman, Richmond Public Schools Superintendent was just named the  Virginia Superintendent of the year.  And, if you blinked you might not have noticed the local coverage as  School Board Rep, Kim Bridges points out. 

Here is a message that she sent out to the Mary Munford community via the PTA e-newsletter:

*** Message from Kim Bridges, 1st District School Board Representative ***
Bridges For Schools Update - May 2008

It’s official:  Richmond has the best in Virginia
If you blinked (or didn’t read all the way past the obituaries) you might have missed it, but Dr. Jewell Sherman was named Virginia Superintendent of the Year on Tuesday evening.  
After being selected as one of eight regional finalists, she was chosen by a group representing superintendents, PTA, the state Department of Education, the Virginia School Boards Association, and the business community.  It’s quite an honor, and Richmond’s superintendent will now proceed to the national award level along with the best of the best across the nation.  She deserves our congratulations and thanks–and if you feel so inclined, you may reach her at djewell@richmond.k12.va.us.

A Tale of Two Systems?
The statewide recognition illustrates a point that has been vexing me for some time.  The current status of Richmond Public Schools could be, to borrow from Dickens, “A Tale of Two Systems.”  (Even the first line of A Tale of Two Cities rings true for RPS.  Extra credit to any fellow English major or avid reader who can prove your recall of the novel’s opening–no googling allowed!)  It’s not just me; others have noticed that the state and national perspective of RPS differs considerably from the local perspective.   I’ve been examining that disconnect and have asked Councilman Tyler if we could delve into it at the next 1st District Town Hall meeting on May 28.  Please join us at Mary Munford that evening at 7:00 p.m. for a dialogue on “Perception and our Public Schools.”  I’ll be inviting members of the media to attend as well, as a number of 1st District folks have approached me to ask, “What’s up with the coverage of RPS?”  I think it will be an interesting and productive discussion - please come.

More chances to talk
Speaking of dialogues and the attributes of a successful superintendent, the school board is hosting several public forums to hear from the community about what we want in our next superintendent. These four public forums will be a critical first step in beginning the superintendent search process.  The 1st District will host the forum at TJ on May 14 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and I’ll share the other dates below.

Progressing Procurement and Improving Infrastructure
Hopefully you got the chance to read about the actions taken so far to improve the school system’s procurement woes.  

The statewide expert has begun his work to “reengineer” the entire department.  With his guidance, that process should be done by July 1.

I received another promising report at yesterday’s school board Facilities and Operations committee meeting.  With city council’s support in the upcoming budget, RPS is looking ahead to an unprecedented level of capital projects for ADA upgrades, City of the Future new/renovated school construction, and yearly maintenance/critical repairs next year.  The list of schools that need funds for HVAC, roof and other repairs are the most critical and time sensitive of the maintenance projects–not niceties but necessity to keep children protected from the elements during the school day.  These old buildings may be solid and beautiful, but they need on-going care to keep them functional.  Please thank council members for putting the funding in place for these projects as they finalize the city budget.

Don’t sit on the sidelines!
There’s much more to talk about, but I’m going to end with upcoming school board dates and a promise to touch on additional topics in the days ahead.

May 14 @ 6 p.m. - Public Forum on our superintendent search at TJ
May 17 @ 10 a.m. - Public Forum on our superintendent search at Lucille Brown
May 19 @ 6 p.m. - School Board meeting
May  21 @ 6 p.m. - Public Forum on our superintendent search at Franklin Military Academy
May 28 @ 6 p.m. - Public Forum on our superintendent search at Holton
May 28 @ 7 p.m. - 1st District Town Hall meeting featuring discussion of “Perception and our Public Schools”

* Spring Playground Clean Up Day (and Pancake Breakfast!) are THIS SATURDAY at Mary Munford *

If you use the playground, why not stop by and help make it prettier?

Saturday, April 26 from 8am-noon. Volunteers are needed to help weed, prune and mulch both playgrounds. You do not need to stay the entire 4 hours. Any time that you can give would be appreciated. Feel free to bring any gardening tools that you may have. When you arrive, look for the sign up list of jobs by the doors to the cafeteria.

Also, the same morning, the Compass Club with Paula Katz is hosting a Pancake Breakfast in the cafeteria. Families can come for a great pancake breakfast, then work off all the calories helping with the playground work! The breakfast is $5 for adults and $3 for children. Proceeds will go towards the club’s charitable giving to the children of Southeast Asia.

The University of Richmond was among 48 universitiues to receive money from The Howard Hughes Medical Institute. UR will get $1.4 million towards its teaching computer science to introductory science course students.

A year ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute issued a challenge to 224 undergraduate colleges nationwide: identify creative new ways to engage your students in the biological sciences.

Now 48 of the nation’s best undergraduate institutions will receive $60 million to help them usher in a new era of science education.

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Computational Tie Binds Interdisciplinary Classes

If you want to see the big picture in science, you’ve got to learn to crunch the numbers. That’s a theme at the University of Richmond, where faculty funded by a $1.4 million HHMI grant are teaching computer science in their introductory science courses.

“We’ve found that students who don’t have at least a rudimentary background in programming are at a real disadvantage,” says HHMI grant director Kathy Hoke, a mathematician. “The ties that bind disciplines tend to be computational.”

The faculty at this Richmond, Va., institution aim to expose students to computer science and more in a new, two-semester course that replaces standard introductory classes in computer science, biology, chemistry, physics, and math. Instead of learning these subjects in isolation, students will approach them in an interdisciplinary way. Students will use their programming skills to investigate pertinent science questions, such as modeling key HIV proteins and analyzing their ability to bind to inhibitory drugs. That class will prepare students for upper-level courses in each field, which they can pursue from their sophomore years onward.

“We want our students to think algorithmically,” Hoke explains, saying it will better prepare the students for a career in science. “And we’ll structure the class so they learn to answer questions like this by drawing from different perspectives, such as molecular biology, thermodynamic analysis, and mathematical modeling.”

The emphasis on computation is also reflected in newly-offered courses in bioinformatics, biophysics, computational science, neuropharmacology, and systems biology. Hoke says these subjects all combine elements from multiple fields; progress in each one is dependent on the use of databases and quantitative methods. Systems biology, for instance, draws heavily on genomics and molecular biology, which are data-intensive fields.

The same can be said for epidemiology, which looks for medical trends in human populations. Using its HHMI grant, Richmond is adding a new faculty member in epidemiology this year. “Epidemiology draws on multiple disciplines, and it’s an area that we currently don’t have expertise in,” Hoke says. “And we’ve found that questions about disease really engage students from a variety of different majors.”

Julie Rechel, age 20, of the University of Richmond, finished as the first place female at the Twenty-12 Talent Identification Triathlon in Tuscaloosa, Alabama this weekend. She won the race with at time of 1:06:57.
Sunday’s race was a chance for USA Triathlon or USAT officials to scout and develop talent for the Olympic Games in 2012 or 2016.

Rechel, a student at the University of Richmond, said she didn’t expect to be out front on the bike in the women’s race. “I just held on and brought it home on the run,” she said.

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