County police led dog-sniffing dogs through WAHS and Henley on Wednesday, searching for drugs and weapons, WINA reports. (Gun-sniffing dogs?) They found nothing. Isn’t it creepy that kids lose all rights to privacy when they enter their schools?
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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If you discovered that your kids had brought drugs and/or guns into your home, would you hire guards? Would you bring in the drug-sniffing dogs? I don’t think so. Here’s what you’d do: You have a good, long look at what you were doing wrong as a family, and set about to fix it.
Let’s do this with our high schools. Want to know what’s wrong with them? So glad you asked: They are too damned big. These gargantuan schools bring out the worst in everyone: students, teachers, administrators.
It’s time for a revolution in high-school education. Build small, neighborhood schools. A high school should be no larger than an elementary school.
Why do we think that adolescents need LESS attention from teachers when they reach adolescence?
No wonder they end up feeling abandoned – their divorced parents want them to hurry up and grow up so they can devote more time to the new spouse, and their educators want to warehouse them in mammoth schools, giving them minimal contact with, and influence from, caring adults.
I’m sick of hearing politicians yammering about “smaller class size.” It never happens, and anyway, that’s not going to happen until you build smaller schools.
Revolution, anyone?
I disagree strongly with your comparison regarding dealing with drugs/weapons at home and school. A drug dog search (I’m not sure about a weapon dog, perhaps it was a bomb dog), is relatively unintrusive. The dog walks by all the lockers (not by the individual students), and there is a physical search of locker the dog deems suspicious.
Is there any real harm in that? What should a school locker be used for? To hold your books, sporting equipment, and coats. If they find a student carrying drugs in a school (AND leaving them in their locker), this deserves to be punished. Schools should be absent of drugs or weapons, especially when the price of doing so is so nonintrusive.
I understand your rant regarding the size of schools. I just don’t think the size has a causal relationship with the effect. Many schools have been getting larger, but there have been large high schools since the 50’s. The problems that are emerging now are not a function of some activity in the school, rather it’s a social change.
To resolve that end, schools should resume their original function: pure education. They should do this in an environment free from drugs and weapons. They should teach students who want to learn, and not be afraid (or punished) for failing students who are not. It shouldn’t be easy for an average person to get through high school by just going through the motions, but at 99% of the public education facilities, it is. Expect more from students, not less.
The system isn’t broke, it’s just gone down the wrong path.