🧑‍🔬 Good morning, RVA: New school mask policies, updating Chamberlayne, and explaining lab schools

Good morning, RVA! It’s 66 °F and windy. Temperatures fall from now straight through until tomorrow morning, which is kind of weird. Over the weekend, you can expect cooler but still decent temperatures, and if you’re lucky enough to have Monday off, it looks like the best day out of the next few. Enjoy!
 

Water cooler

RPS Superintendent Kamras shared the District’s updated masking plan last night and it makes a lot of sense to me (given the new, shortsighted legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor). Here’s the gist: Starting March 1st, all adults—staff, parents, and visitors—must still wear masks; families must email a specific email address requesting that their student not wear a mask (no reason need be provided); and masks must still be worn on the bus (because that’s a federal law). If caregivers have not taken that proactive step to opt-out of the mask mandate, their children will be required to wear a mask. That’s probably the best we can manage, and, at least in Richmond’s schools, will probably mean the majority of students remain masked for the rest of the coming school year. Also, because Kamras’s administration almost always approaches tough moments with empathy: “No student will be separated, singled out, our disparaged in any way if their parent/caregiver elects to have them not wear a mask.” Out in the County, Henrico County Public Schools have decided on a less strict policy: “The division strongly recommends universal mask use indoors by students during times of high community transmission; however, school leaders understand that some parents/guardians will opt their children out.” Like RPS, staff and visitors, for now, must continue to wear masks inside HCPS schools. I feel the strongest desire, and I know you feel it too, to check back at the end of March and see how these two differing mask policies impacted the spread of COVID-19 in schools. But! I think there may be too many variables involved to really learn anything useful—the current and steady decline in case rates across Virginia, differing vaccination uptake rates between Richmond and Henrico, and the political makeup of the individual schools just to name a few.
 

Wyatt Gordon put together a good thread on Twitter about the transformation of the industrial area along Chamberlayne near Virginia Union University into a dense residential neighborhood. There’s lots to love going on in this area—spurred by the VUU/Chamberlayne Neighborhood Plan (one of my favorite small area plans)—but lots of work left to do to make it a hospitable place for humans. Most of that work involves narrowing Chamberlayne Avenue, prioritizing bus traffic, and creating safe ways for folks of all ages and abilities to cross the street. That’s such a low bar, but it really underscores how the City needs to level up the public infrastructure quickly to support all of the private development already going on in the area.
 

Lab School, Charter School, what’s the difference? Megan Pauly and Ben Paviour at VPM have a great explainer on Virginia’s history with lab schools, the current Governor’s push to defund public schools via his All Charter Schools All The Time plan, and how the existing lab school legislation is maybe a place to meet in the middle. Sen. McClellan is deeply involved in the ongoing discussions, so that makes me feel better about potential outcomes.
 

RVAHub points me to Longoven’s interesting fundraising idea for Fox Elementary and other RPS elementary schools. I like the the thought put into this and the acknowledgement that Fox is not the only elementary school that could use a fundraiser. In fact, I would say Fox is a uniquely resourced RPS community, and we need more ideas like this that address the needs of schools across the city.
 

Logistical note! Monday is Presidents' Day, or, if you’re the Commonwealth of Virginia, “George Washington Day.” This means I’ll be taking the day off, sleeping in, sitting quietly, maybe taking a nap, who knows! I’ll show back up in your inboxes on Tuesday. Have a great weekend!
 

This morning’s longread

Songs for a South underwater

Flooding along the Mississippi River in the spring of 1927 inspired a whole mini genre of Blues: flood records. This piece in Scalawag is fascinating and comes with a playlist that you should definitely listen to while reading!
 

When the reporting of truth is suppressed, as it was with the second Moton report, Black creators have turned to art to document their experiences and those of their community. Amplified and refracted through the artist’s lens, these works transmitted the gravity of the cultural trauma over the airways to Black audiences who hungered for them, and who represented a burgeoning profitable market for the music industry. These songs' commercial success is a testament to their appeal: Listeners could hear their own experiences sung back to them, as well as be entertained. And as the march of history drummed steadily onward, the songs only increased in poignancy, adding new layers of meaning—even as they became increasingly detached in the public imagination from their historical basis.
 

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Picture of the Day

You springin' already?