Category: Children and Families
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Does Virginia Beach School Board Care About Girls’ Sports?
by Kerry Dougherty If you live in Virginia Beach, I have some questions for you: Did you sit at home while the Bathrobe Brigade on the School Board fought to keep schools closed, long after we knew kids weren’t at risk from Covid-19? Did you watch on public access TV as the hysterical hypochondriacs of…
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Primary Care for Underserved Virginians
by James C. Sherlock It is an old story for Virginia: shortages of primary care providers in inner cities and rural areas. Perhaps the best article I have ever seen on the unique value of primary care and payment reforms to reflect its value was published in 2021 in the Harvard Business Review. I recommend…
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Virginia Democrats – “Progressive for Who?”
by James C. Sherlock “Progressive for who?” That question was asked by Al Sharpton directly to a gathering of his supporters at a conference hosted by his National Action Network while flanked by Lori Lightfoot, Eric Adams and two other big city Democratic mayors. “Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing…
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School Closures Resulted In Spike In Suicide Attempts Among Kids
by Kerry Dougherty How is it that those of us without fancy degrees from prestigious universities or medical training intuitively KNEW that the Covid-19 lockdowns and school closures would have a profoundly negative effect upon kids? I watched one of my nieces, who graduated from high school in 2021, spend her junior year at home,…
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Virginia Democrats in the House of Representatives Vote Against Their Own Daughters
by James C. Sherlock Every Virginia Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives voted against a bill to amend Title IX to prohibit biological boys and men from competing against biological girls and women in K-12 and college sports. Voting nay: Donald Beyer, Gerald Connolly, Jennifer McClellan, Bobby Scott, Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton.…
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Fourth Circuit Gives Standing to Parents Suing Loudoun County Schools over First Amendment Violations
by James C. Sherlock In a win for freedom of speech, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond overturned a finding by a federal district judge that Loudoun parents did not have standing to sue the School Board for infringement of First Amendment rights. The parents alleged a bias reporting…
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Washington State Appears Set to Legalize No Notification of Parents for Youth Gender Transition
by James C. Sherlock In another flashing sign of the apocalypse, Democrats in the Washington State legislature want the state to become a destination for runaway youth seeking gender transition as minors. They proudly point to a newly passed law as their party’s response to other states passing laws to prohibit transgender medical services to…
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Unaffordable Housing, Redux
by Joe Fitzgerald Proposed housing construction in the city of Harrisonburg could add about 1,200 students to the Harrisonburg City Public Schools, with housing already under construction in Rockingham County possibly adding 400 more. A quarter of the 1,600 potential students could be absorbed by the opening of Rocktown High School, leaving the city to…
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Increasing Teacher Vacancy Rates
by Matt Hurt The teacher vacancy rate in the Commonwealth has become such a problem that the Virginia Department of Education created a database to track this problem. The Staffing and Vacancy Report found on the Education Workforce Data & Reports page of the VDOE website displays unfilled Virginia educator positions at the state, region,…
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Assault and Battery in Schools – Virginia Law and School Division Policies Make “Marks” of Principals
by James C. Sherlock This is addressed directly to Virginia public school principals. You are compliant with current Virginia law whether you report assault and battery to police or do not. Bad law makes for bad policy. Depending upon your school division, your requirements may vary. A lot. In gambling, and this issue is a…
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School Bullying and Victimization Data: Just the Facts
by Dr. Kathleen Smith Earlier this week on Bacon’s Rebellion, James Bacon posted “The Fruit of School Disciplinary ‘Reform.’” Regarding the matter of bullying, I am adding a few additional statistics from the Youth and Juvenile Justice System 2022 National Report from the National Center for Juvenile Justice. The abstract embedded in the report includes the…
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Changes to the Virginia Law Requiring Schools to Report Incidents to the Police Makes them Far More Dangerous
I wrote originally about the 2020 changes to the school incidents reporting law. I have removed the content of this column in order to reconcile issues with the current reporting law, including 2022 changes, with the Department of Education. I will repost it when those issues are resolved.
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Five Questions: An Interview with Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears
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by Shaun Kenney Last week, The Republican Standard had the opportunity to follow Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears as she toured the Richmond Slave Trail — which included not only the site of the notorious Lumpkins Slave Jail but also the site where Gabriel Prosser was executed and presumably buried in 1800. Winsome Earle-Sears brought a…
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Gun Owner Whose Son Shot His Teacher Will Get Her Day In Court
by Kerry Dougherty Four words came to mind when news broke yesterday that a Newport News grand jury had indicted the mother of a 6-year-old school shooter: what took so long? It’s been 13 weeks since a FIRST GRADER brought a handgun to school in his backpack and used it to shoot his teacher in…
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A Killer Strategy
by James C. Sherlock Democrats in Virginia and nationally plan to ride abortion to victory in elections as far as the eye can see. The herald of this strategy was a piece in New York Magazine by Rebecca Traister. It was titled, unsubtly, “Abortion Wins Elections.” She is probably right, if her positions are presented…