Good morning, RVA! It's 68 °F, and cooler temperatures are here! Today, you can expect highs in the mid 80s—which I don't know if I'd call "cool," but it's something.
Water cooler
Yesterday, the Virginia Department of Health and the Virginia Department of Education announced their mask guidance for the 2021-2022 school year. Here's the important bit: School divisions will be given "the ability to implement local mask policies based on community level conditions and public health recommendations." Basically, it's up to the individual school districts, which should sound familiar because it mirrors last year's guidance for returning to in-person school. VDH does, however, recommend that unvaccinated individuals remain masked (which, at this point, means allllll elementary school students), and also points to this CDC list of reasons why districts may want to require masks regardless of vaccination status. Richmond Public Schools, via the superintendent's email, has already announced that they'll "be maintaining [their] 100% mask-wearing policy for all students, staff, and visitors." I haven't yet seen announcements from Henrico or Chesterfield. If I were to prognosticate a little, I would guess that not every school district in the region will follow RPS's lead. I think we'll probably even have a majority of regional school districts only requiring masks for unvaccinated individuals, with vaccination status checks left up the honor system. We'll have to see how this plays out at some of these school districts in areas with lower vaccine uptake—especially as the Delta variant spreads and we learn more about it. Also, for context, via the VDH dashboard, the percentages of 12–15 year olds and 16–17 year olds vaccinated in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield respectively are: 33.4%, 42.0%; 47.5%, 63.1%; and 42.5%, 54.3%. This data would have looked nicer in a table.
Take a minutes and read this piece from Mark Robinson in the Richmond Times-Dispatch highlighting the nine winners of RRHA's Tomorrow's Promise scholarships. These nine students will each receive $4,000 dollars toward their college degrees, and, for at least one, they'll be the first person in their family to go to college!
Ian M. Stewart at VPM reports on a zoning update in Chesterfield—a chicken zoning update! Later this summer, the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors will vote on a change to the zoning code that allows backyard chickens, increasing the minimum area per chicken from five square feet to eight square feet. I know I'm all about denser development, but this kind of chicken-based sprawl seems OK.
It's Thursday, and that means I have missed most of a Richmond-based Duke's Mayonnaise week. Richmond BizSense's Noah Daboul has the details, and I have the sads. Sounds like a handful of local restaurants have put together some tomato- and mayo-based menu items, which are my favorite kind of menu items. Also, as part of this promotion, Duke's and Sauer will donate $10,000 to Shalom Farms, a local farm that works on improving food access.
This morning's longread
Life in the Stacks: A Love Letter to Browsing
Some of this piece is a little too "kids these days with their dang cellular telephones!," but I really vibe with the idea that we're losing something when we give up browsing and let the algorithm serve up whatever it thinks best.
The aisles of the Blockbuster were themed, though less aggressively, less knowingly than the rows that march relentlessly down the Netflix home page. A particular shelf didn’t remember if you had selected one of its videos before and thus didn’t try to push a similar title at you. The real-world tiles didn’t proactively rearrange themselves in anticipation of your unique wants. In lieu of tailored algorithms, there were a few shelves given over to staff recommendations. These challenged you to ignore the new-release walls, decorated by market forces, and defer to the taste of an authority (or, at least, a part-time employee majoring in film).
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