RVA Mag

Richmond, VA Culture & Politics Since 2005

Menu

Op-Ed: RPS Students Deserve Better Than Jason Kamras

|

Topics: , , , , , , ,

City Council candidate and Mayor’s Education Compact member Willie Hilliard says Richmond’s School Board should offer a two-year contract for continuity amidst the pandemic, but should not commit to the four-year contract Superintendent Jason Kamras wants.

RPS students deserve an excellent education, and building a welcoming, rigorous public school system involves all of us. But superintendent Jason Kamras has brought a top-down approach to our community, caring more about corporate interests than including all of Richmond’s students, families and teachers in the future of their schools. RPS students do benefit from stability during a pandemic, and therefore, Mr. Kamras’s contract should be renewed for two years. However, we should expect more of our public servants than using a pandemic to leverage for more, especially as Richmonders have, for the past three years, used our public dollars to pay him over five times the median Richmond salary. 

Mr. Kamras initially pushed for school reopening, but brave RPS families and teachers organized and spoke in no uncertain terms that reopening schools was not acceptable. It was the power of the people that forced Jason Kamras to acknowledge that a majority of his schools would be empty and unstaffed if he pushed to reopen schools.

We can give him credit for listening. We can give him credit for working hard. However, ultimately we need to pursue the course of action best for RPS students and honor the school board that was just democratically elected by Richmond. That school board came to power as an expression of community will, and they should not tie their own hands by signing a four-year deal. 

The dreams of our students, not to mention our economy and our democracy, are built on a foundation of strong public schools. Now more than ever, we need to engage our entire community to put the needs of Richmond’s students first. But instead of bringing the community together, Jason Kamras has caused division and conflict, making decisions behind closed doors and bringing many highly-paid C-suite officers from Washington, DC. Even more divisive is his demand to receive a four-year contract or he will leave. 

Richmond Public Schools need change. By so many measures we can see that our children deserve better, but we know that a top-down, closed-door change won’t work. The people of Richmond are proud of their community, their teachers, their families and their young people. We want to be fully engaged in envisioning a new future. The only path to lasting school improvement is real partnership — not a series of backroom deals led by corporate interests that seek to reduce the public’s voice in our schools. In districts across the country, we have seen that divisive turnaround strategies can temporarily boost test scores while sowing the seeds of division. When superintendents move on to their next job, they leave communities with less ownership of their schools and no sustainable, shared, lasting commitment — the commitment that research shows leads to the deep change that our students and teachers deserve. And at this point, due to the pandemic and the cancellations of SOLs, we lack even the barest of abilities to judge the Superintendent’s performance while he fights for a four-year contract. 

Black and Latinx communities are the most likely to have change done to them instead of with them. More than 80 percent of the students in Richmond’s public schools are not white. We reject approaches that are not led with the people most impacted, especially when we see alarming evidence of declining graduation rates in certain RPS cohorts. Every parent in Richmond wants a quality education for their child. And a great education is only possible if we create a long-term, shared vision for the Richmond Public Schools. We have to be sure that we are listening to all of the RPS communities and not simply the loudest or the most active on social media. 

Our children can’t afford to wait. Their future is now. We call on the School Board to renew the Superintendent’s contract for two years. We call for the Richmond Public Schools to be guided by the collective expertise of our educators, students and families. 

Jason Kamras has not been transparent or accountable to the public about the management of our schools. 

Time and time again, Jason Kamras has managed our public schools from behind closed doors. Instead of building strong public support for education through transparency and shared responsibility, the Kamras administration has made decisions in secret in violation of open meeting laws, hidden information that should be publicly available, and even restricted people’s ability to openly criticize the district. The Kamras administration fought against reporting teacher retention data as part of the Dreams4RPS Strategic plan; has consistently failed to make school board documents public; and has failed to complete the 2018 Promise of Equity Audit, a much-needed examination of the district’s racial inequalities. Advocates including the Virginia Coalition for Open Government have spoken out about the blatant disregard for the law and transparency by the Kamras administration. 

Transparency is a core element of good government and effective public school districts. Parents and teachers cannot build trust with an administration that refuses to manage public schools with the help and cooperation of the public. Leaders who are committed to transparency and accountability don’t hide information from the public; effective public leaders have nothing to hide. 

To be clear, the job of the Superintendent is to execute and administer the governance of our schools fairly and democratically: it is not to be a communications or PR manager for the district. Jason Kamras’ daily newsletter, his social media presence, his discussion of social and political issues, and 30 minute math lessons during the spring are very effective at creating a sense of unity, connectedness, and progress in the district. But a fully effective Superintendent should be judged by how they made the least connected members of the RPS family feel. 

Kamras is working for corporations and his personal networks, not our kids. 

He got his start in education with Teach for America, and worked under Michelle Rhee in Washington D.C., both part of a national movement to undermine the role of teachers in favor of increasing corporate presence in schools. He trained at the Broad Academy from 2015 to 2016.

The Broad Academy is a leadership training program of the Broad Center, whose “graduates” have been associated “with corporate management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of decision making, and introduce unproven reform measures.” 

In Richmond Kamras has granted lucrative contracts to the Great Minds, an organization whose founder and CEO is linked to the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. He has hired associates from D.C. and charter networks for leadership positions in the Richmond Public Schools, giving them all significant raises. He’s also shown that he’s prepared to support the corporate interests over the public interest, backing the failed Navy Hill Coliseum deal proposed by Thomas F. Farrell, CEO of Dominion Energy, a lead advocate for hiring Kamras. Jason Kamras has consistently put the interests of corporations and his personal rolodex ahead of the children of Richmond. 

We want everyone to support our public schools, including our local business community — but corporations and personal associates shouldn’t have a seat at the table when teachers and parents are left out. When corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes then we have full public coffers, and all of us can democratically decide how to allocate funding – that’s the way to ensure students and families aren’t left behind. We can’t turn our schools over to interests driven by profit and efficiency, not equity. The values of all of the people of Richmond should drive the leadership of our schools, not corporate interests.

Jason Kamras’s ties to corporations mean he won’t stand up to demand that they contribute to funding our schools through a higher corporate tax rate. The residents of Richmond should not be asked to bear the cost of schools alone when the corporate tax rate hasn’t been raised for 40 years, but Jason Kamras will not fight for fair funding. 

Kamras has not supported teachers or effective instruction, and we all know that the most important factor in a child’s education is the quality of their teachers. 

Jason Kamras has brought the failed practices of Washington DC to Richmond, emphasizing standardization and testing over the development of a high quality, professional teaching community. Across the nation, in places where administrators blame teachers for the heavy burdens placed on schools by poverty, districts have turned to more rules and regulations over what and how teachers teach — all driven toward increasing scores on standardized tests, not building a healthy and vibrant school community. The Kamras administration has favored a “scripted” approach to curriculum, relying on rote scripts delivered by teachers with little room for creativity. These programs are often referred to as “teacher proof” and do not attract high quality, committed teachers to classrooms. Many talented teachers, faced with scripted curricula, choose to leave for another district that will treat them as professionals.

Research has clearly shown the power of excellent teachers in every classroom. Is Jason Kamras helping Richmond recruit and retain excellent teachers? Is Jason Kamras making Richmond a place where the most committed and talented teachers want to work? If one looks at his leadership, from his failed effort to implement a teacher comprehensive performance-measurement system in Washington, DC to his failing to provide contemporaneous teacher retention data, we should be worried that RPS is losing its long-serving, high-quality teachers, especially in light of the demands of them by the pandemic. 

Kamras has not built a shared agenda for our public schools. Our children deserve a uniter, not a divider. 

The families of Richmond are the people most invested in our children, their education and their future. Our families hold the highest expectations for their children, they pay the taxes that support the district, and they are the people, rooted here for generations, who make our community strong. 

We know, across the nation, that most superintendents stay in urban districts for less than 5 years. It is essential that all of Richmond’s families have a voice in choosing the leadership of their children’s schools because they will be the people advocating for their child from the time they set foot in a classroom for the first time to the day they cross a graduation stage. Superintendents and politicians will come and go, but we know that deep change takes time. Without a strong partnership, long-term change just isn’t possible. 

Black and Latinx communities in Richmond are disproportionately enrolled in our public schools and disproportionately underrepresented in the governance or leadership of the district. We don’t need paternalistic ideas of reform from Washington, DC. We need true collaboration to surface the best possible ideas from around the world and bring them to our classrooms. 

Jason Kamras has opposed the right of teachers to organize and advocate for better schools. Jason Kamras has fought public access to information. In the two years he has led the Richomnd public schools, Jason Kamras has not brought the community together to push for excellence. His hollow proclamations about equity and justice are not backed up by support for public access, teacher excellence, or elevating the voices of the black and brown families who the Richmond Public Schools seek to serve. 

Jason Kamras has been ineffective in bringing our community together to make the urgent, substantive change that our children deserve. 

We cannot wait four more years. Our children deserve an excellent education now, in spite of the burdens of this pandemic.

We can’t allow Jason Kamras to limit our community’s future with closed-door deals, corporate influence, and nepotism. There is a logic to maintaining continuity of leadership during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, but allowing a four-year renewal will allow the Superintendent’s lack of transparency and failure to build coalitions to continue harmfully for far too long. Our children deserve a leader who will bring the community together over the long term, and lead with transparency to build a shared vision of public education that honors the voices of our community, demands excellence, and puts racial justice at the center of transformation. 

For too long Black and Latinx communities in Richmond have been left behind. The racist defunding of the school system leaves it unable to deliver on the promise of opportunity. For equity and justice to move beyond lip service, the parents, teachers, and students of Richmond must be included in guiding the system that seeks to serve them. The demand of a four-year contract or nothing is very disturbing. It doesn’t say that he’s truly committed to this school system by using a take it or leave it approach. We’re not saying NO to Kamras, we’re saying two years is more than sufficient enough to prove that you’re worthy of further lucrative commitments from a cash-strapped school division.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect RVA Mag editorial policy.

Top Photo: G.W. Carver Elementary School in Richmond. Photo by Noah Daboul. Research by Kath Connolly, Nat Hardy, Gary Broderick, Quinton Robbins.

Op-Ed: Kenya Gibson’s Substantive Racial Justice Leadership Is a Threat to the Powerful

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , ,

Richmond Third District School Board candidate Kenya Gibson has come under fire in the run-up to her election campaign. To Richmond community organizers Monique Drake and Brionna Nomi, the critiques are misleading and disingenuous.

At a time when people in Richmond and across the country are awakening to issues of systemic racism and racial injustice, leaders of color are standing up to represent the voices of their communities and serve as bold, undiluted agents of change. However, progressive Black leaders who dare to address and eradicate historic inequities face blowback from moneyed interests who seek to maintain their power, status and privilege. Kenya Gibson, who serves as the Third District School Board Member in Richmond, is one such leader.

Kenya Gibson is the most consistent and stalwart progressive elected official Richmond City has to offer. During her tenure, Kenya and supporting board members successfully fought for  the construction of three new schools without closing or consolidating existing schools. Kenya has secured more free speech protections for teachers and fought to improve teacher retention, a longstanding problem within the city. Kenya successfully sought to protect funding for Richmond Public Schools and helped to defeat the costly $1.5 billion real estate tax-funded Dominion Coliseum redevelopment plan. She pushed the School Board to adopt good governance policies that promote transparency, engagement, and a needs based budget. 

Yet despite Kenya Gibson’s substantive record – or, arguably, because of it — a group of parents, many aligned with the policies and initiatives of Mayor Stoney, are positioning themselves as “integrationists” and challenging Kenya. The “integrationists” accuse Kenya, a consistent progressive champion in her community and a woman raised by a white mother and a Black father, of supporting the Confederacy, opposing LGBTQ rights, and opposing school integration. This effort is a strategy devised by political interests on behalf of the elite establishment.  

Certainly, there are some good faith actors who differ with Kenya’s policy choices. However, these individuals are not the driving force behind the campaign against her.  

In the era of Black Lives Matter, BIPOC communities — using their voices and with a sense of agency — articulate a vision of racial justice that combats systems and policies of oppression. Black Richmonders such as Kenya have a conception of racial justice that includes removing Confederate monuments and names, but they don’t allow the conversation to stop there. Kenya has spoken out against new prisons and argued for the removal of police from schools. She has pushed for an understanding of racial justice that moneyed interests and wealthy donors don’t like. Kenya has pushed for progressive taxation — raising taxes on the wealthy with an eye towards promoting high-quality fully funded schools, secure housing, robust transportation, and other public services. 

A people of color-centered justice movement has been hijacked and misappropriated by some white liberals who wish to center themselves and their own needs without authentically engaging with Black communities. Often it is those with privilege who have access to resources and power in our society who benefit most from a more superficial understanding of racism. Non-profits reliant on funding from the wealthy can often reproduce a superficial understanding. Who benefits when racial justice is not about policy and systems, but rather about symbols or individuals engaged in self-help? Often, it’s professional-class white liberals who then get to feel good about themselves while ultimately leaving the power structure intact. In the end, their actions work against the very values they claim to champion.

Many of those engaged in this attempt to smear Kenya are supporters of Mayor Stoney and the Navy Hill Development/Dominion Coliseum proposal that Kenya helped defeat. Mayor Stoney has contributed to and endorsed Kenya’s opponent. Others are white parents newer to the district, who don’t seem to fully grapple with the contradiction of demands that the school system be responsive to their racial justice analysis in the absence of a well-funded broader inclusive process, where all parents are engaged. It’s a context where the form of racial justice can lose the content. 

Examining the specific accusations made against Kenya reveals how deliberately misleading her detractors have been. 

Cindy Menz-Erb, an ally of Mayor Stoney who lost to Kenya in a 2017 special election, wrote an email to an exclusive group of Third District parents making outlandish and categorically false assertions. The same assertions later appeared on a flyer for the suspicious and newly formed “Northside Parents Collective.” We know that these items would be disturbing if true, so they’re worth debunking.

For starters, Kenya’s detractors have accused her of being pro-Confederate because she was the lone vote against the renaming of J.E.B. Stuart Elementary — named for a Confederate general — in honor of Barack Obama. The context behind Kenya’s vote is that she wanted more time to consider renaming the school after local Richmond leaders, such as civil rights attorney Oliver Hill, or Albert Norrell, who was one of the first Black principals in Richmond. Kenya’s position echoed that of longtime community members who spoke out against the renaming process.

Image via Support Richmond Public Schools Facebook Group

Critics also accused Kenya of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment for opposing a revised student dress code, which was more equitable for gender nonconforming students, within the Student Code of Responsible Ethics (SCORE). Kenya in fact supported the changes to the dress code for LGBTQ+ students, but voted against the SCORE document because it failed to address disciplinary procedures that, in practice, criminalize normal childhood behavior.

Further, Kenya is accused of being an integration foe because she opposed pairing, a severely flawed model for school integration. As part of Richmond’s rezoning process, Superintendent Jason Kamras and some school board members pushed the idea of school pairing as a strategy for creating a more diverse student body. Under pairing, a school district takes a majority-white school and a majority-Black school, both of which serve Kindergarten through 5th grade, and pools the students. One of the schools is then assigned to the K-2 students in the pool, and the other school to grades 3-5. 

The pairing idea for Kenya’s Third District — actually a tripling — would have combined three K-5 schools: Linwood Holton Elementary, which has a 55 percent Black and 45 percent white student enrollment, and Barack Obama Elementary and Ginter Park Elementary, both of which are more than 90 percent Black. The plan would have turned Obama and Ginter Park into K-2 schools, and Holton into a 3-5 school. 

It is true that pairing had some support from parents legitimately interested in racial justice. That acknowledged, pairing is a model that is in conflict with what we know are best practices for education. Public education advocates have pushed for a community schools model precisely because it promotes parental involvement. Pairing would have made parental involvement more difficult for those families who don’t have access to transportation and who work jobs that don’t afford them flexibility — in other words, the burdens of pairing would have fallen heavily upon Black working-class families. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District is one of the only school districts in the country that has attempted pairing. The superintendent who pushed it there, Clayton Wilcox, was suspended and ultimately resigned over a pattern of racist and sexist remarks. Parents have spoken out about the effect of pairing disproportionately burdening working-class families 

Superintendent Kamras falsely characterized pairing as a method of integration and likened those who had concerns about pairing to racist Jim Crow segregationists. Ultimately, he was unable to convince any school board member to back a pairing effort in their own district, yet tried to put Kenya on the spot and force the plan in Northside. Community members saw Superintendent Kamras pushing a policy lacking a track record and characteristically short on details, such as costs and what transportation would look like. Also lacking was data on the long-term impact the transition of pairing would bring on already traumatized and stressed children. Worst of all, white parents were centered in the discussions on pairing, while Black parents were misled, delayed, or altogether kept out of the process.

Here is a point we must emphasize: While integration must be understood as a tactic of achieving racial justice, integration itself is not necessarily a racial justice silver bullet. At the time of Brown v. Board of Education, integration was a tactic the NAACP used to intervene in the various components of white supremacist infrastructure. Their strategy was not based on the notion that the habits of poor Black people could only improve if they were exposed to the “middle-class” values of white people, or that diversity is a valuable pedagogical device. Rather, the NAACP understood the dynamics of white supremacist budget priorities that “separate but equal” school districts for white and Black students made it politically impossible for Black students to receive the necessary funding.

This should be instructive then in identifying the criteria to evaluate whether integration efforts are advancing racial justice and representing the transformation we need. Who does it place as the central protagonist? Does it reproduce existing power relations or transform them? Does it result in more overall funding for schools? Does it result in a gain in the resources being spent on students of color?

Kenya has stood up for parents, students, and teachers against an initiative she viewed as lacking in transparency, poorly thought through, and lacking consideration of the perspective of educators, as well as a significant representation of RPS parents. Kenya has extensively experienced and considered the role racism plays in schools, and remains a stalwart advocate of integration done well, led first and foremost by the communities integration is supposed to serve. Her commitment to racial justice is reflected in her endorsements by The Richmond Crusade for Voters, Justice and Reformation for Marcus-David Peters, Richmond For All, and others.

Kenya Gibson is what real social justice leadership looks like: substance over symbolism. She has won funding for students, supported community schools as a formula for success, defeated efforts that infringe on democratic governance, and made Black Lives Matter at Richmond Public Schools. Since Kenya’s positions are popular, adversaries attempt to challenge her with harmful statements and false accusations. We see through it, and we are confident voters in the Third District will as well. 

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect editorial policy.

Top Photo: Kenya Gibson speaking at a Justice & Reformation Fish Fry at Marcus-David Peters Circle. Photo by Kristin Reed.

Adding Fuel To The Fire

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A polarizing petition circulated on the first day of school by state Senator Glen Sturtevant has local school and government officials outraged.

Tuesday, September 3 was the first day of school for Richmond Public Schools, a day that is generally fun and memorable for students and their families. But at Mary Munford and William Fox Elementary Schools, back-to-school excitement was overshadowed by a campaign tactic used by Republican Virginia state Senator Glen Sturtevant, who is up for re-election in November.

That morning, Sturtevant campaign workers met arriving students and parents at Munford and Fox with petitions they were encouraging the parents to sign. Entitled “Save Our Neighborhood Schools,” the petition had been drafted by Sturtevant himself, and stated that “State Senator Glen Sturtevant strongly opposes the rezoning of Mary Munford Elementary and Fox Elementary.”

The petition referred to “pairing” proposals currently being considered by the Richmond School Board, some of which would combine the student bodies of William Fox Elementary, which is 60 percent white, and John B. Cary Elementary, which is 83 percent black. This combined student body would then attend Fox for kindergarten through 2nd grade, and attend Cary for 3rd through 5th grades. Another pairing proposal would combine Munford’s student body, which is 72 percent white, with that of Cary.

In a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch column, Michael Paul Williams pointed out that the title of Sturtevant’s petition carries heavy historical implications. Williams writes that “S.O.N.S.” was an acronym commonly seen on bumper stickers used in local opposition to the crosstown bussing proposals of the 1970’s, which sought to end de facto segregation that had persisted for more than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education.

Richmond School Board Chair Dawn Page and School Board member Scott Barlow told VPM that they feel the Senator’s actions are unwelcome and intrusive. School Board Vice Chair Liz Doerr expressed her distaste and concern for the actions in a public FaceBook post that evening, calling it an “election year stunt,” and Mayor Levar Stoney echoed this sentiment, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Sturtevant’s petition says that the rezoning proposals are “wrong for our schools.” However, his petition only mentions Munford and Fox. “Developing a petition specifically for Mary Munford and Fox, the whitest and most affluent schools in the city, was race baiting and political posturing,” said Doerr. “I would like to remind the Senator and his campaign team that he represents many other schools in Richmond that will be impacted by this plan other than just Fox and Munford.”

Mary Munford Elementary School, via RVAschools.net

Along with the announcement of his petition on Tuesday, Sturtevant’s office sent out a press release detailing legislation he planned to propose in the General Assembly. The legislation Sturtevant proposed in his petition would require a voter referendum before a school rezoning plan can be enacted — despite the fact that rezoning is already one of the main tasks that school board officials are elected and expected to do.

The Senator will not, however, be able to propose new legislation until January of 2020 when the next General Assembly session begins — and his ability to propose legislation depends on his first winning re-election in November. Meanwhile, Richmond’s school board plans to vote on rezoning by the end of this year.

Richmond’s School Board has worked to include the community throughout the rezoning process, holding community meetings several times a month all across the city since August and utilizing an online feedback form for taking public comments.

With Richmond Public Schools enrollment expected to increase 6.6 percent within a decade, the plan to rezone is an effort to alleviate overcrowding at schools. It is also meant to remedy educational and fiscal disparities between city school districts due to the breakdown of racial diversity. RPS employed consulting company Cropper GIS to craft the rezoning proposals, and the first two of the four options were announced in July. Almost all of the proposals involve some pairing of local elementary schools.

The negative responses from parents in Fox Elementary’s district in particular led Richmond City Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras to characterize some of the backlash as “Massive Resistance 2.0” in a Twitter post. However, more recent responses on the RPS feedback form have seen an increase in support. Still, the issue remains divisive in Richmond — and with his petition, Sturtevant has taken a definitive stance on one side of the divide.

Some see the petition’s rhetoric as ironic, since Sturtevant’s own stint on the Richmond School Board, which lasted from 2012 until 2016, is associated with the controversial 2013 rezoning plan that resulted in the closure of Clark Springs Elementary, which had the effect of increasing de facto segregation within Richmond’s school system.

After the closing, former Clark Springs students were rezoned for Cary, making that school less than 25 percent white. Students from the Museum district, predominantly an affluent, white community, had formerly attended Cary Elementary prior to the new zoning, but in the 2013 plan, those students were rezoned for Fox. This raised white enrollment at Fox from 65 percent to over 75 of the student body, according to data from a 2016 University of Richmond study.

The Richmond School Board in 2013. Sturtevant is in the middle of the back row. Photo via Glen Sturtevant/Facebook

The UR study found that white-black segregation in Richmond elementary schools rose from a rate of 65 percent to 70 percent under the new zones created in 2013; it called the plan “a rapid, politically charged and resegregative school closure and elementary school rezoning process.” And a 2013 Style Weekly article reported that Sturtevant, along with another school board member, Kim Gray, privately asked Matthew Cropper of Cropper GIS to draft a third rezoning proposal over one weekend in May, right before the board was due to vote. This was the plan that was ultimately adopted — the plan that increased de facto segregation in Richmond City Public Schools.

Sturtevant was sued in 2013 by Kimberly Johnson Jones, a parent in the district that accused him and other school board members of conducting private dealings that resulted in an unfair protection of white enrollment. The case was eventually dismissed when Jones moved out of the district, but significant evidence had been presented. Court documents indicate that Sturtevant sent private emails disclosing details of his plan to his allies on the board, leaving four other members in the dark. Evidence was also entered indicating that Sturtevant and Gray had private phone calls with Cropper leading up to the creation of the final proposal.

Ghazala Hashmi, who is running against Sturtevant in the upcoming state Senatorial election this November, is quick to point out this history. She asserted that the petition is simply a stunt that Sturtevant is using to divert attention from his complicated past as a school board member, as well as his Republican-aligned voting record in the Senate, which she claims has undermined funding for public education. “He’s trying to hamstring local school board members from doing their jobs,” said Hashmi. “As a Richmond-area educator of 25 years and a mom who sent both of her daughters to public school here, this issue is deeply personal to me. I am committed to ensuring that all of our schools have robust and equitable funding so that every child is afforded the same opportunities, regardless of their zip code.”

With many public officials on record expressing distaste for Sturtevant’s petition, the rezoning discussion is clearly going to remain a pertinent talking point leading up to the Senatorial election on November 5. Hashmi has strong words for the incumbent. “If he wants to do the job of a school board member, he should go back to running for school board. As a Senator I will do what Sturtevant has not: stand up for teachers, students, and Central Virginia families by prioritizing and expanding funding for public schools.”

Top Photo via Mary Munford Elementary School/Facebook

Not In My Schoolyard

|

Topics: , , , , , , , ,

A recent “pairing” proposal to help integrate two Richmond city schools has run into a backlash that, in some eyes, harks back to the bad old days of Massive Resistance.

The Richmond Public School System’s solution to improve diversity has frustrated some residents to the point that they are threatening to leave the district. And some see the situation as a direct call back to the city’s mid-20th century struggles to integrate, which eventually led to the Supreme Court.

It all began when RPS employed the services of Cropper GIS, a company that works on demographic and facility planning for K-12 school systems, in order to alleviate overcrowding due to projections of a 6.6 percent increase in overall RPS enrollment within the next 10 years. The Richmond City School Board also hoped to place more students into new school buildings, and to increase student body diversity.

Cropper GIS proposed two possible solutions to take effect during the 2020-2021 school year, which would impact around 10 percent of students currently enrolled in RPS schools. One would move around 1200 students to different schools, mostly in the East End, with the goal of putting more students into George Mason Elementary, which will open in fall 2020.

The other option would impact less than half the number of students, and would involve the pairing of four elementary schools. Fairfield Court Elementary and Woodville Elementary would be paired, as would William Fox Elementary and John B. Cary Elementary.

“Pairing” is a process that involves combining student bodies, then putting fewer grades into each school within the pair. In the case of Fox and Cary, their respective school districts would be combined, with all students from the combined district attending Fox for kindergarten through second grade, and Cary for third through fifth grade.

When the pairing of Fox and Cary was announced, several parents within the Fox district spoke up in opposition to it, and that opposition has created tension throughout the Richmond public school community.

Both Cropper GIS and RPS were open about the fact that the pairing plan was introduced in order to improve the diversity of both schools. At the moment, students enrolled at Fox are 60 percent white, while Cary’s enrollment is 83 percent black. If the proposal goes into effect, these divergent numbers would stabilize, with Cary having a population of 52 percent black and 42 percent white, and Fox having a population of 44 percent black and 47 percent white.

Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras (Photo via rvaschools.net)

Richmond Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras expressed support for the proposals to diversify the school systems. “Anywhere we have an opportunity to create a more diverse, more integrated school environments is a great thing, and I want to work with [parents] to figure that out,” Kamras said in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

However, several parents with children currently enrolled at William Fox Elementary have expressed their apprehension at the pairing on the Richmond Public Schools feedback form; responses to this form were obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch through a FOIA request.

“My youngest daughter would enter Kindergarten the same year that her older sister would be bussed over to Cary Elementary,” said one parent. “Our girls would never go to elementary school together and I would have two children at two different elementary schools.”

Other parents voice their concern regarding the developmental impact that switching schools halfway through elementary school would have on their children.

“Developmentally, this is a delicate time for children and they need the stability of their friends and resources they have come to be comfortable with,” said a parent from William Fox Elementary. Of course, friends who are in the same grade would be changing schools at the same time.

Several parents from Fox also claimed that they moved to the district specifically so their children could attend William Fox Elementary. They claimed that if the pairing of Fox and Cary went into effect they would either move out of the city, or enroll their children in private schools. 

“If option 2 is passed I know that I, along with many other neighbors, would carefully weigh the decision of whether to send my children to private school or to move out of the district for a better elementary school option for our family,” said a Fox parent. 

William Fox Elementary (Photo via rvaschools.net)

This is not the first time Fox and Cary have been at the center of an integration debacle. In 2013, the school district voted to move students from Clark Springs Elementary, a majority-black school, into the Cary district. Then, students from the majority white section of the Cary district were transferred to Fox. This reshuffling in 2013 increased the racial polarity of the schools.

That decision actually resulted in a lawsuit by Kimberly Johnson, who was then the parent of an RPS student. The lawsuit alleged that the 2013 redistricting was discriminatory, but it was ultimately dismissed due to the fact that Johnson had moved to Henrico County and no longer had a child attending RPS schools.

Witnessing the response to the pairing proposal, Kamras commented on Twitter about the ways those responses mirrored things white parents had said about public schools during Virginia’s attempts to integrate 50 years earlier.

“Re Fox-Cary pairing: The loudest feedback sounds eerily like Massive Resistance 2.0,” Kamras tweeted on July 17. “BUT I’ve also received a lot of feedback from families of all backgrounds who welcome the idea. In fact, I believe they’re the majority. I encourage them to share their perspective publicly.”

Kamras’s reference to Massive Resistance referred to an organized campaign in response to the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board Of Education decision, which desegregated public schools throughout the country. Begun by Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, the Massive Resistance campaign lasted nearly two decades, and saw some public school districts close for as many as five years in an effort to block white and black students from attending the same schools.

The threats of parents to move out of the city is reminiscent of the late 60s and early 70s, when Massive Resistance had been ended by a 1968 Supreme Court decision and Richmond Public Schools began a court-ordered citywide busing program in order to integrate student populations within different schools.

This decision brought about strong opposition from white families. Ultimately, in the 1973 Bradley v. Board Of Education decision, the Supreme Court ruled that inter-district busing had to be limited to one school district, meaning that students who lived in surrounding counties could not be bused into Richmond, or vice versa. This decision spurred an increase in “white flight” to the surrounding counties and to more expensive private schools, leading to de facto segregation in which black students in the Richmond metropolitan area made up the vast majority of students at city schools, while white students were the majority in private schools and the surrounding counties.

However, almost 50 years later, these trends have swung the other way — between 2005 and 2013, Richmond’s white population increased by 30 percent, according to StatChat. At this point, Richmond’s white population is growing at a faster rate than the city’s black population — and gentrification is at the root of this growth.

Massive Resistance protesters in Norfolk (via Virginia Museum Of History and Culture)

Kamras’s tweet struck a chord with many Richmond residence witnessing the tensions over the school systems proposal.

“We love Fox, but more importantly we love RPS,” one resident tweeted in response to Kamras’s tweet. “Any change will involve growing pains, but also a great opportunity for growth. We support rezoning that makes ALL RPS schools more equitable.” 

Some residents with students attending Fox recognized the weight of what the school board is trying to achieve, and voiced their support.

“Currently zoned in Fox with a toddler. We support all efforts that dismantle segregation, exclusion of Black families, and entrenched privilege for white families,” a supporter of the pairing proposal tweeted. 

The proposal has also sparked the interest of residents outside of Fox and Cary, who are calling for similar changes in their neighborhood.

“I’m a Northside parent affected by rezoning,” tweeted a parent. “My neighbors would love to see a plan similar to Fox/Cary pairing in our district that could unite our 3 elem. schools & promote path to middle & HS. We’re concerned current plans don’t go far enough to create integration & equity.”

In an effort to increase dialogue around the controversial pairing proposal, RPS held a public meeting at Fox Elementary last Thursday. Around 75 people came to offer feedback on the subject. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, one Fox Elementary parent expressed concerns about RPS’s ability to create diversity within the city’s student bodies.

“Most people in this community are committed to the ideal of diversity,” said the parent. “I think there’s concern about how capable the School Board is and [Richmond Public Schools] is in actually implementing that in a thoughtful way.”

Richmond School Board member Scott Barlow told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the board could vote on the plan as early as November, though that would ultimately depend on feedback they receive from the public. Another public meeting on the subject will take place at Fox Elementary on Tuesday, August 13 at 530 PM.

Additional reporting by Marilyn Drew Necci. Top Photo via rvaschools.net.

Former School Board Member Calls for Boycott of Restaurants Fighting Proposed Meals Tax Hike

|

Topics: , , , , , ,

*This story has been updated to note that Menz-Erb has withdrawn her candidacy for the Education Compact Team this afternoon. 

Former 3rd District School Board member and Education Compact team-nominee, Cindy Menz-Erb has launched an email campaign asking people to avoid restaurants who don’t support Mayor Stoney’s proposal to raise the meals tax. In an email that was forwarded to RVA Mag, Menz-Erb, encouraged people to, “Only patronize restaurants who support the meals tax. There will be signs for restaurants to display soon but in the meantime, just ask if they support it.”

The Mayor has proposed increasing the city’s meals tax to 7.5 percent to help rehabilitate and renovate Richmond Public Schools, which would produce approximately $9.1 million a year and allow the city to borrow $150 million in new capital funding over the next five years. However, the issue has been contentious for the Richmond restaurant community, who were subject to a previous tax increase in 2003. If passed, the total tax would increase to 12.8 percent, which has led local restaurateurs and restaurant groups to form a new lobby group called the Richmond Restaurant Alliance, in partnership with the Virginia Restaurant, Travel and Lodging Association.

Menz-Erb, originally from New York, was an interim School Board member in 2017 before losing the seat in the open election to Kenya Gibson last November. Since then, she has been nominated to serve on the Education Compact Team pending a confirmation vote by City Council. The council is a volunteer board made up of members of City Council and the school board along with citizens nominated by the mayor, all tasked to help Richmond Public Schools reach “achievement to levels matching or exceeding statewide benchmarks,” and “implementing a concerted strategy to reduce child poverty by 50 percent by 2030 while mitigating the impact of poverty on learning.”

The email, which was circulated at 3 pm Wednesday, has led to a significant outcry among the restaurant community and other City Council members. In a post to Facebook, 5th District City Councilman, Parker Camp Agelasto said he emailed Stoney the following: “Cindy Menz-Erb has significantly misstepped in sending this email,” he said in the post. “This is not becoming for someone that you have nominated for the Education Compact Team.” He concluded with the following, “I particularly find her suggestion that supporters of the meals tax only patron those restaurants in support shows bad judgment. Too bad. I hope you will take proactive steps in fixing this problem as this email is out publically and there are many angry people…this is an issue.”

In response to the controversy surrounding this email, Stoney released a statement via Facebook at 9 am that said, “I do NOT support penalizing anyone, or any business, for their beliefs. In fact – I feel the exact opposite.” The statement goes on to say that he believes there is the opportunity to support the restaurant community and public schools at the same time and that public debate is healthy. ‘As this debate moves forward, I plan to visit restaurants on all sides of this issue, to thank them for what they do for our city, and to learn how, I, as Mayor, can do more to help them grow and thrive in Richmond. I hope everyone who sees this will do the same. ”

Menz-Erb withdrew her candidacy this afternoon. She apologized for her words and said she didn’t intend to promote a boycott.

“That was not my intent, and I apologize for the wording of my statement. We want all of our restaurants to be successful for the benefit of our schools,” she said in a statement she sent to the Times-Dispatch.

The issue surrounding the meals tax will likely remain contentious with proponents and opponents on both sides making their voice heard. Speaking to RVA Mag about the issue of public officials making statements such as this, Agelasto said, “Before yesterday, I [was positive on her appointment], she was an enthusiastic volunteer and school board member, but after what she did yesterday, that’s not the approach I want on a board that’s supposed to be collaborative.” He added that the city needs people to eat at local restaurants to support the meals tax that is already in place, “I’m against any boycott at all.”

RVA Mag reached out to Menz-Erb for comment, but she has yet to respond.

Photo by Stop the RVA Meal Tax