Category Archives: schools

RPS Student Walkout Protest Planned For Monday

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From WRIC television news story:

Students at Open High School are spearheading plans to walk out of class at 2 p.m. on Monday, with students at every high school making plans to participate. The coordinated efforts come as a show of opposition to the potential closing of several Richmond Public Schools.

“We need better,” said Open High School junior Chris Bolling. “We know that we deserve better.”

Bolling and his classmates are ready to fight for the future of Richmond’s Public Schools.

This is not the first time that Open High students have lead this sort of protest. In 2014, Open High students marched on City Hall to bring attention to misplaced public priorities and dilapidated school conditions in other Richmond public schools’ buildings.

GRC Update Update

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Paraphrased from neighbors who were able to attend yesterday’s meeting about the update to the Gladding Residential Center at Laurel and W Main:

Meeting with VCU yesterday and these facts came up- the new high rise first year housing building will be 12 stories tall, taller than both the Altria Theatre and the VCU School of Engineering.
VCU has posted on their web page drawings of the proposed dorm here:
http://www.housing.vcu.edu/grc-project/
Meeting attendees expressed concerns about how the sunlight in Monroe Park will be affected during certain times of year.
As of now, the private company leasing the property and building/managing the dorm WILL be responsible for taxes to the city but that issue still needs to be followed.
Nothing official yet but VCU is looking at disallowing the first year students living in the center from having cars as of the 2017 academic year.
To many peoples’ relief, the historic Branch Bath building will be retained and incorporated into the new building design.
There are concerns about the future of the rest of the lot. Residents do not want just a surface parking lot at this location or, on the other end of the scale, a building over four or five stories. It is important for the University to respect the scale of the adjacent Oregon Hill Historic District.
It’s important that VCU reiterate and hold previous promises that it will not expand into the south side of Cary Street or any further into the Oregon Hill Historic District.

In Monroe Park Saturday

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VCU holds its 2016 Intercultural Festival. With the tagline “Uniquely United”, the ICF happens April 2nd from 1-6pm in Monroe Park.

Join us for live entertainment, cultural activities, and food from around the world!

Also in Monroe Park, at 2pm, the group ASWAN is holding a third community forum on the south edge of the park.

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For more information, a recap of forum #2, printable flyers, and more, check out ASWAN’s website:
http://www.aswan-rva.org/2016/03/31/weekend-of-32-community-forum-art-making-meeting/

Urban Wildlife Camera Project

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From Science in the Park webpage:

In the spring of 2014, we set out to catalog the biodiversity, or the number of different species, found within the James River Park System. Healthy and diverse habitats support healthy and diverse groups of plants and animals, but the animals in our park can be elusive and often go unseen. To catch them on video, we set out special “game cameras” that record a video when triggered remotely by motion or temperature. Scientists use these cameras to track and monitor wildlife or to record how a species behaves, and our animal friends did not disappoint! For almost a year, we recorded hundreds, if not thousands, of videos that reveal the animals that call our park home — some common and others that may surprise you …!

If you enjoy these photos and videos, you may want to join the Urban Wildlife_JRPS FaceBook page to stay updated with the latest…

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VCU-Community Meeting on the Gladding Residence Center Capital Project On April 5th

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From VCU Division of Community Engagement:

Tuesday, April 5
West Grace Street Student Housing – South
835 W. Grace St., Room 1004a
5:30 – 6:30 PM

VCU invites its neighbors to a meeting on April 5 to discuss VCU’s current capital project, Gladding Residence Center, located at 711 W. Main St. This project is part of VCU’s Housing Master Plan and is a public-private partnership between VCU and American Campus Communities. An article on the project appeared in the RTD on February 29.

This will be VCU’s fifth meeting with community members since May 2015. Project designs have evolved, thanks in large part to the community’s feedback. Thank you for your continued participation.

If you plan to attend, kindly RSVP at http://goo.gl/forms/4R8WiUcPVE

Civic Leaders and their Neighborhoods At U of R

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From the University of Richmond’s Center for Civic Engagement:

CCE Brown Bag: Civic Leaders and their Neighborhoods Friday, Feb. 12, 12:30-1:25 p.m., Weinstein Hall Brown Alley Room 313
Join us for this week’s Brown Bag discussion on “Civic Leaders and their Neighborhoods” with Ryan Rinn, executive director, Storefront for Community Design; Jo White, chapter commander, Alliance of Guardian Angels; and Maura Meinhardt, citizen leader, Oregon Hill neighborhood. Please note: this week’s Brown Bag discussion will be in the Weinstein Hall Brown Alley Room 313 (not THC 305).
http://engage.richmond.edu/events/brown-bag/index.html

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Profile On New Binford Principal

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The Times Dispatch has a good profile on Melissa Rickey, the new principal at Binford Middle School, Oregon Hill’s public middle school.

Excerpt:

Rickey was hired in May to lead the turnaround of Richmond’s Binford Middle School.
The once-popular school in the Fan District struggled academically for years and, after its enrollment dipped to barely 200 students last year — about 40 percent of building capacity — city school leaders debated whether they wanted to keep it open.
Instead of closing the school, Superintendent Dana T. Bedden and his staff proposed using it as the home for two new-to-Richmond academic programs, the College Board’s Springboard program and their own arts-integrated curriculum.
Then they hired Rickey from Chesterfield County, where she had been a teacher and an administrator, to make it all work.