Good morning, RVA! It's 27 °F, and, by now, you know the routine: Chilly mornings, clear skies, and afternoons with highs in the mid 50s at some point. Warmer temperatures do move in tomorrow, though, and will start to disrupt our current run of extremely stable weather.
Water cooler
Unfortunately, trying to fire the RPS superintendent has become one of Richmond’s top hobbies—like starting a brewery, having opinions on grocery stores, or complaining about the long-dead 6th Street Market Place. I honestly thought we’d reached a more stable situation with RPS leadership—and, in some ways, we have—but, yesterday, I got a press release from the Richmond Crusade for Voters calling for “the release of Jason Kamras from Richmond Public Schools.” You can probably find the full text if you look hard enough, but I’m not going to link to it. Ignoring the reality of the last four years and never once mentioning COVID-19 or its impact, the release mostly points out ways in which the District didn’t hit some of the goals set forth in its 5-year strategic plan. I don’t think that’s fair. I wouldn’t even have mentioned RCV’s release except, later in the day, City Council’s Education and Human Services committee (made up of Councilmembers Lynch, Newbille, Robertson, and Addison) sent out this statement:
“We echo the sentiments of our colleague, School Board Chair Rizzi and agree that the issues that ail Richmond Public Schools do not lay on any one person’s feet. We recognize the tremendous challenges that public education systems face everyday, particularly in a post-pandemic era. In a city that has seen an increase in families experiencing homelessness, continued gaps in our mental health system and an ever-widening wealth disparity. These challenges are intertwined with classroom management issues, teacher retention rates, academic, and absenteeism outcomes.
These are not easy problems to solve, and it is often our most vulnerable community members, our children, who pay the highest price for what adults, on every level of policy making, fail to fix. This is why we remain committed to advocating for increased funding and better policies at the state and federal level. Further, we remain steadfast in our mission to collaborate with our School Board Colleagues, the Superintendent, city administration and our stakeholders to make continuous strides towards improving our school district and the lives of RPS families and students across the city.”
Fascinating/ugh. First, I’m exhausted by even thinking about how we’re, yet again, inches away from another Save the Superintendent campaign, like “Better with Bedden” or “Keep Kamras.” Second, I’m worried about how—by design, I assume—these sorts of shenanigans distract away from the actual work our elected officials should be focused on. Third, at some point—and, again, I assume by design—Kamras is just gonna up and quit. Why would he want to continue working in this sort of environment? And, regardless of your feelings about this particular superintendent, why would a single qualified individual want to take his place? I mean, the pitch isn’t great: “Come to Richmond! It’s a toxic work environment and, in a few years, we’ll most likely harass you enough that you’ll want to quit!”
Anyway, I can’t find School Board Chair Rizzi’s original comments, so if anyone has them, please send them along.
Also RPS-related, but way less dramatic and, honestly, more interesting, this week’s RPS Legislative Advocacy Update has the two data points out of the House and Senate budgets I was looking for: “In the House budget, RPS can expect approximately $10.4 million more than anticipated from the Governor’s proposed budget. In the Senate budget, we would expect approximately $14.3 million more than anticipated from the Governor’s budget.” Either would represent a nontrivial amount of additional funding, and would account for a little less than a third of the entire budget increase RPS is reaching for this year.
For many years now, the James River Association has installed green infrastructure at libraries all across town. Since 2019, they’ve greened-up Broad Rock, East End, North Avenue, West End, Westover Hills, and, now, this week they kick off the process at Ginter Park—my very own neighborhood library! If you too are in the neighborhood, you can register for a public meeting tonight at 6:00 PM or you can hop right over to this google form and give them your feedback directly. Maybe a hot take: I would not be sad to see the big rose bushes out front go away. As a person who once had roses that got Rose Rosette Disease, now I get the shivers just thinking about it. Witches broom, barf.
Also tonight, from 5:30–7:00 PM, University of Richmond will host Dr. Joy Harden Bradford and Dr. Sesha Joi Moon for a talk titled “protecting your peace as a change agent.” The former is the host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, and the latter you may know as the Chief Diversity Officer with the U.S. House of Representatives and one of the people behind the local JXN Project. The event is free, but you’ll want to register over on the Eventbrite.
This morning's longread
Tools of the Trade
This is exactly the kind of longread I love: Someone in a field not at all related to anything I do, explaining how they get their work done and the tools they use to do it. With an infinite amount of longreads to choose from about AI or social media or the fall of democracy, pictures of trowels is an excellent change of pace.
Today we want to tell you not about tools found in archaeological contexts but rather about the tools archaeologists use to excavate sites. Well, about a few of those tools, anyway. A few years ago, I tweeted a series of photos for a “31 Days of Archaeology” Twitter event, in which participants posted archaeology-themed photos in response to a series of prompts. One of the prompts was “Tools of the Trade”. On that day, I posted a photo of the contents of my tool bag. My Twitter followers later expressed some interest in seeing that tweet turned into a blog post, so I have now expanded that tweet into this post. Come join my exploration of the objects in the first photo!
If you’d like to suggest a longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
Picture of the Day
A lovely handmade sign I found hanging on a tree in the forest.
