Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Page 4 of 9

County Considering Consolidating Three Schools

The Albemarle County School Board is trying to decide whether they should shut down Red Hill, Scottsville, and Yancey elementary schools, Brandon Shulleeta writes in today’s Daily Progress. All three are in need of some significant infrastructure repair, and it’s not obvious whether they should each be renovated, or if they should be shut down and replaced with a single school big enough to accommodate the 525 students. The board’s waiting for a recommendation from superintendent Pam Moran, which is expected next week. There’s a hearing later this month, and a decision is planned for October 22.

Though this might be an infrastructure consideration, inevitably it’s got lots more rolled up in it—how big schools should be, the racial diversity of the schools, how far kids have to ride on the bus, etc. The cheapest option will likely prove to be consolidating the three, but that’s not necessarily the option that will lead to the best education for future students. Expect a ruckus.

A Look Back at the UVA Baby Switch

It’s been over a decade since the UVA baby switch. (New to town? See Time’s 1999 story. The whole thing is too complicated—and bizarre—to explain here.) The UK’s Daily Telegraph has done a followup story on the two girls, who are now fourteen years old. Callie Conley and her (adoptive) mother, Paula Johnson, are both interviewed by the newspaper, while Rebecca Chittum and her (adoptive) grand/mother, Rosa Chittum, characteristically demur, so this is all from Conley’s perspective. For more, see Mike Allen’s 2008 look back on the decade anniversary of the whole affair in the Roanoke Times.

Plan 9, But Not the Record Store

Some local folks are remaking the legendarily-awful Plan 9 from Outer Space. (Via)  #

Gray Television’s 5th Anniversary in C’ville

It’s been five years since Gray Television launched CBS-19 and ABC-16 here in Charlottesville. (Here’s the original cvillenews.com story.) If asked, I would have guessed it’d been, like, a week and a half. We were all relatively fresh off the C-Ville Weekly / Hook split then, seeing some of the results of competition in our weeklies, and I think hopes were high that the new stations would have a similarly beneficial on the staid NBC-29. Five years later, I’d be curious to hear what folks think about CBS-19, ABC-16, and Fox-27, especially their news coverage, and how they’ve affected NBC-29 and the overall news coverage in town. I can’t get local TV stations—there’s a mountain between me and town—so I’ve never actually seen any of their broadcasts, only online excerpts.

Quest’s Prison Books Program OKd Again

The state prison system is once again allowing Books Behind Bars to operate. The Rutherford Institute got involved, which probably helped.  #