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Richmond Students Take Part In Worldwide Walkout Demanding Action On Climate Change

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Last Friday afternoon, students from several Richmond schools marched down Broad St to Capitol Square, as part of the Youth Strike 4 Climate worldwide protest.

An estimated 1.4 million students in 123 countries played hooky this past Friday, demanding public action for global warming, which included about 50 kids from local Richmond schools.

At 12:30 p.m., students both from Richmond middle and high schools marched from Abner Clay Park down Broad Street to the Bell Tower in Capitol Square, joining a worldwide coordinated school walkout called Youth Strike 4 Climate.

“I want to address the issue that climate change is a real thing,” said Lola Brozna, 14, an eighth grade student at Albert Hill Middle School. “We need to take charge, because it’s our future. We’re getting all this education, but we might not even be able to use it.”

Students chanted phrases such as, “People not power,” and, “Don’t use oil, keep it in the soil.” Other adult members of the community marched to show their support as well, including local teachers and environmental advocates.

Many grade school students in the movement believe older generations have failed to properly address climate change, nor have they taken any appropriate measures to advocate for clean energy and global environmental policy plans. Students like Brozna fear the projected lifespan of humans moving forward, and worry it may cause a massive loss of life.

“The planet is dying, and there is this overwhelming scientific consensus that if we don’t really swiftly transition to renewable energy, we’re going to die,” said Barry O’Keefe, a VCU Arts teacher who helped organize the Richmond strike. “It’s not only figuratively but literally true that children are our future. Kids are going to inherit the world in no time. I’m personally really inspired by the youth taking political power into their own hands, because if they successfully do it, I think we’re going to be okay.”

The movement was first inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s weekly protests in her hometown of Stockholm. She has since gone on to deliver a TED Talk, an address to the United Nations, and spoke at the World Economic Forum at Davos.

“You say you love your children above all else,” Thunberg said in her address to the United Nations last December. “And yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”

The United States named their own version of this movement the Youth Climate Strike; the movement is run entirely by middle and high school students ranging from ages 12 to 17. They cite demands including a “Green New Deal,” halting fossil fuel infrastructure projects, and better education in schools on global climate change.

“By 2050, the world will look super different,” said 16-year-old Amaya Matthews, a student at Douglas Freeman High School, referring to projected ocean levels rising. “I just want the world to look better, not worse.”

The next global walkout is scheduled for May 3.

Photos by John Donegan

Upbeat Superintendent Offers Plan to Improve Richmond Schools

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Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras delivered an optimistic message in his first State of the Schools address — even though the district has the worst graduation rate in Virginia and more than half of its schools lack accreditation.

“I wasn’t sure where to begin tonight because it’s been such a quiet year at RPS,” Kamras said Tuesday, laughing as a picture of a nearly two-foot-tall stack of newspapers showed on the stage’s screen. “How many times did we grace the front page? Well … there you go,” Kamras told more than 200 people in the auditorium of Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.  

Jokes aside, Kamras celebrated the steps RPS has taken in the last year to improve several issues plaguing the district. These efforts included renovating bathrooms in deteriorating buildings, working to correct student transcripts, improving chronic student absenteeism (down 2 percent from last school year), engaging in advocacy measures and increasing teachers’ salaries by 2 percent.  

“Perhaps most powerful of all, we renamed J.E.B. Stuart Elementary to Barack Obama Elementary,” Kamras said. “School names are just symbols, but symbols matter, especially when it comes to Richmond’s history, and present, on race.”

Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras

Despite the progress made, Kamras said the district still has work to do. Fewer than half of RPS schools are accredited, and Kamras said the city’s graduation rate is the lowest in Virginia.

“There is absolutely nothing broken about our students … We [the adults] are on the hook for those statistics, not them,” Kamras said.

Dreams 4 RPS is the five-year strategic plan born from 170 community meetings and input from over 3,000 participants. “This isn’t my plan. It’s not the board’s plan … It’s our plan because it reflects the hopes and dreams of everyone in the RPS family,” Kamras said.

Dreams 4 RPS  features five priority areas: teaching and learning, staff, school culture, family and community, and infrastructure. Each priority is divided into action steps, 40 total,  that outline specific goals like hiring more male teachers of color and introducing hands-on and engaging curriculum.

“We can’t expect greatness from our students if we don’t ask greatness of them, and we’re going to raise the bar and ask greatness of our students a whole lot more in the coming years,” Kamras said.

The plan also explains the need for increased trauma-informed care. Kamras said 20 RPS students were shot and six were killed in the past 12 months. “Most teachers were never trained to help young people deal with those kinds of tragedies,” Kamras said. He said providing that kind of training is necessary for both student and staff support.

The fully implemented plan will cost $150 million over the next five years, which covers training programs, building improvements, school resources, salaries and more. Kamras said though RPS can and should act more wisely with finances, “We must continue to advocate for more.”

In December, RPS organized the March for More, and last month, the district participated in another march called Red for Ed. Kamras said continued pressure on the General Assembly is necessary to increase school funding.

With a strategic plan in place and problems to solve, Kamras is upbeat as he looks to the future.

“If I were to sum up the state of our schools in one word, I would say we are ‘rising,’” he said.  “We are rising together, and nothing can stop us.”

In Unique and Destructive Weather, Richmond-Area Schools Work to Adapt

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When Ashley Walton started her fifth year working at Highland Springs High School, at the semester’s start, she was in high spirits. She’d been impressed by the efforts of new principal Ken White to raise morale, and looked forward to interacting with an energized faculty and student body in her role as an instructional assistant. A few months into the semester, Hurricane Florence left public schools throughout Henrico County to serve as shelters for nearly three hours, on September 17. Walton is still confident in Highland Springs’ future.

“That was interesting, especially with the population I work with, because they’re not used to major changes,” Walton said, “They’re used to getting out of school at four o’clock. It was a strange adjustment, but I will say that everyone in the building handled it extremely well.”

Walton’s experience is one of many, in a school region learning to adapt to the new challenges created by the effects of climate change. The havoc caused by Florence in Richmond was only a prelude to the fall semester, which saw schools from preschool to college-level contend with intense bouts of weather. Almost a month after Florence passed, Tropical Storm Michael resulted in an abbreviated day on October 12 for many high schools and colleges — and a completely canceled day the following week for some, including Highland Springs.

But through it all, Walton remains positive: She credits Highland Spring’s administration for their work to reorganize class schedules when forecasts predict dangerous conditions. These efforts ensure that closures won’t cause students and teachers to lag behind in their instruction.

Similar measures seem to be in place for the Richmond Public School (RPS) system, according to Communications Director Kenita Bowers.

“Our facility services team routinely monitors weather forecasts to ensure that they prepare and protect buildings across the school district. At the first notification that a storm is approaching, a storm team is activated and on alert,” Bowers said. “Once the storm passes, property and building assessments are made, and necessary repairs are implemented immediately, to prevent delay of the students returning to school.”

For Amelia County Public Schools, the effects brought about by Tropical Storm Michael proved to be longer-lasting than most — and meant that schools had to resume normal schedules, despite multiple roads in the area being severely damaged or blocked.

While the extent of damage done to all of Richmond’s schools is difficult to estimate, Bowers notes that hurricanes aren’t always required to create problems: The weather that comes with the fall season can exacerbate already weak and old infrastructure.

“As a school district with so many aging facilities and budgetary constraints, extreme shifts in temperatures can be challenging to contend with,” Bowers said. “At times, when the temperatures shift unexpectedly, it can have a negative impact on school operations; so school leaders always do their best to accommodate the needs of students, to the best of their ability.

“It is also important to note that RPS currently only has 5 HVAC technicians that are assigned to 44 buildings, which makes it difficult to maintain and ensure that equipment is managed appropriately.”

The state of Richmond’s schools will likely continue to be a frequent topic in the political sphere, as the city prepares to seek more RPS funding from the General Assembly in 2019. For now, though, the semester continues. Those on the ground floor for any future forecasts — students, faculty and administrators — are seemingly prepared to take these incidents in stride.

“I definitely think everything’s looking good so far,” Bowers said. “Luckily, these things are happening in the beginning of the year. I know for my students, change can be difficult, but I think that they are handling it as well as they can.” 

Virginia schools now required to test for lead in water

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With the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, safe drinking water is a high priority nationwide, especially for children. Beginning July 1, schools in Virginia will be required to test their potable water for lead.

Senate Bill 1359, which Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed into law on March 20, seeks to ensure that local school boards test the drinking water in schools and that it meets federal guidelines. The Food and Drug Administration recommends that the level of lead not exceed 15 parts per billion.
Del. Kaye Kory of Falls Church is especially concerned about the water in older school buildings that may have lead pipes.

“The water that comes to the school from the water supplier can be fine, and still, because of the pipes inside the school, there will be lead in the water that children drink,” said Kory, who co-sponsored the bill. (The chief patron was Sen. Jeremy McPike of Woodbridge.)

The new law requires testing in all schools but puts an emphasis on schools built before 1986. Each school board must decide how to implement the law. Currently, schools are not required to test for lead.

Testing could be especially important for older school districts in lower-income areas with a deteriorating infrastructure, Kory said.

Testing for lead is complex: The tests must be conducted multiple times and at multiple locations, such as drinking fountains and faucets. If tests find high levels of lead, the school may have to replace pipes and take other actions, including providing bottled water for students and teachers. The problem cannot be fixed overnight.

Kory believes the new law is a step in the right direction to make sure the next generation of Virginians grows up healthy.

As seen in Flint, lead can be harmful to the human body, especially in children. Low levels of lead do not affect the body immediately, but prolonged exposure can damage the nervous system and cause other problems, including learning disabilities and hearing impairment.

Flint pipe

Dr. Rutherfoord Rose, a toxicologist and professor of medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, said lead poses a particular problem for young children whose nervous system is still developing.

“The critical point of lead exposure, even though you don’t want it in anybody, is really before they get to school,” Rose said. Most cases of lead poisoning come not from drinking water but from products that contain concentrated levels of lead, such as paint.

Whether the risk is marginal or not, parents are still concerned about lead exposure in their child’s school. Parents naturally want their children to have safe drinking water.

Thomas Amrhein’s 6-year-old daughter attends kindergarten at R.C. Longan Elementary School in Henrico County’s West End. Amrhein is glad for the new law requiring water testing.

“I think it’s urgently important since the problem has been uncovered,” Amrhein said. He said he is happy the testing is being done because the safety of children in public schools is crucial.
If the tests find lead in the drinking water at R.C. Longan, Amrhein is confident that the school will take immediate action to resolve the issue. “I believe they would rectify it in a timely manner.”

Words and body phots by Ben Burstein VCU Capital News Service
Top photo credit: Jeffrey Turner, Flickr