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As if there isn’t enough to worry about with our children returning to school this fall, a new law in Virginia has many parents worried and upset. This law can give primary and secondary school students rap sheets for misconduct at school. Decades of research have shown such zero tolerance laws harm students. Despite this, Virginia passed a law in 2022 that requires that even small infractions be reported to law enforcement. The zero tolerance strategies in this law were used previously in Virginia but were legally abandoned in 2020 as ineffective at improving student safety and damaging to too many students and their families. Gone are the days when principals had discretion over whether to report a student’s conduct to the police. Now, school principals are required to report to the police acts that may qualify as misdemeanors, and penalties for not reporting those incidents are severe. School superintendents and principals who do not report potential misdemeanors are subject to demotion or dismissal. Previously principals had discretion to work with a child and their family as they felt best for the child, family and community, as the law required only felonies committed on school grounds to be reported to law enforcement. Zero tolerance laws similar to the one recently passed in Virginia gained popularity in the 1990’s when there was a perceived need to protect students from other violent students. In 1994, a federal law, the Improving America’s Schools Act, initiated the use of tough punishment for even low-level offenses. Since then, the impact of those laws have been studied and researchers have concluded that subjecting students to severe forms of discipline for misdemeanors is ineffective in stopping unwanted behavior and does little to enhance student safety. The strategy was denounced by psychologists, physicians, and teachers’ unions because severe discipline harms students socially and academically. Also, the policy was found to be disproportionately applied, with the greatest impact being on students who had disabilities, or were black or Latino. The damage to students does not stop with an arrest. Children who enter the legal system may graduate to more serious ‘crimes’ – in part from meeting other criminals as they navigate the legal system. The phenomenon associated with criminalizing children is referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2013 an alternative form of discipline was shown to be more effective. Schools initiated Restorative justice as an alternative to zero tolerance. It required students to repair the harm they caused with their action. Because this practice had such encouraging results, by 2014 states began to reexamine their discipline policies and many ended their damaging and ineffective discipline methods. However, Virginia continued to keep zero tolerance laws in effect. As a result, in 2015, Virginia had the dubious honor of being the top state in the nation for referring students to law enforcement at about three times the national rate. Black students and those with disabilities were referred at the highest rates. In 2016, Virginia Senator Jennifer McClellan introduced a bill that would give school administrators and resource officers more flexibility as to whether to involve police when school rules are violated. That bill didn’t pass, but in 2020, a similar bill by Senator McClellan was signed into law after passing with bipartisan support. That law prohibited schools from charging students with criminal disorderly conduct on public school property and restored the ability of school principals to practice discretion regarding contacting police. Under that law only felonies were required to be reported to law enforcement. Senator McClellan’s law was in effect only two years before the Virginia General Assembly reversed it, enacting the law that again criminalizes our children, as of July 1, 2022. Parents who believe in a fair and equitable society understand that children are not capable of recognizing “criminal” behavior in the same way as an adult. Neuroscience supports that adolescent developing brains do not have the same ability as adults to judge repercussions, risks, and consequences of their actions due to developmental limits and impulse control. Children will make mistakes and they need an opportunity to learn from those mistakes. Zero tolerance involves immediate punishment, even for minor offenses, which may create a situation where a child may never learn and never recover from the consequences of an impulsive ill-thought-out mistake. Understandably, parents are looking for guidance on how to prepare their child for this new law. On August 17, 2022, 4 Public Education appealed to the Virginia Board of Education to ameliorate the potential harm this law can cause students. Meanwhile, parents may want to be sure their children understand that the law has changed and that now students may be referred to law enforcement for small infractions and at a very young age. In addition, parents should insist that schools (administrators and law enforcement) never question students about violations without a parent's presence or permission. At the same time, Virginia law enforcement has the discretion to make informed decisions on how and to what extent it chooses to enforce laws when it comes to minors. We ask that law enforcement and the Commonwealth Attorney offices throughout the Commonwealth listen to our trained school professionals when making decisions about whether to criminalize our children.

For those worried that American public education is in crisis, stop for a moment and consider this: the international survey firm Ipsos finds that teachers are the fourth most trusted group in the US and possibly our most trusted public servants. You would not know that from the public discussions in American news and on social media that suggest that Americans have lost trust in public education and, more distressing for me as a teacher, in public school teachers. The evidence for this loss of trust takes the form of accusations that we “indoctrinate” and that we lack the requisite training and professionalism to teach effectively. More threatening is the legislation in several states - passed, pending, and defeated - that seeks to limit the ideas and materials that teachers can teach and students can study on the grounds that: 1- the instruction might make students uncomfortable; and 2- teachers cannot be trusted to teach it in age and pedagogically appropriate ways. I believe that cutting through the noise of accusations amplified in the media, requires regular, local, in-person communication by communities of parents, students, and educators. What follows are three possible actions. 1. What if PTSAs schedule into each monthly meeting a 20 minute dialog with small groups of teachers or organize regular “talk with teachers” events that occur as special events hosted by the PTSA? The dialog would follow a prescribed ethos and procedure constructed to ensure parties listen to understand the other side and speak to respond, not defend. Several constructive dialog formats exist with guidelines and opportunities to train in their use. I think it must be a dialog that invites multiple teachers to talk, though different events could invite different teachers. These dialogues would be separate from the role of a teacher representative to the PTSA who observes and reports. Teachers should have a choice to participate or not, so that it is perceived as an opportunity, not a duty. 2. Ask teachers in the school or department to organize a professional development program (PD) to share best practices about how they build trust and address concerns of parents. While teachers already share informally, an intentional workshop to share best practices is a form of PD that teachers might value, both for what they learn and the credit they can earn. Follow up PD can evaluate practices and consider adoption of what works. Teacher-directed PD has the additional benefit of building peer and institutional trust. 3. My last idea is to ask teachers, PTSAs and other groups to develop what they believe might work within their community to rebuild trust and try it with a commitment to figure out what works. Like in a classroom, engaging the stakeholders in conceiving the solution wins buy-in to support the solution. For teachers, I would encourage awarding PD credit. Trust is the glue of healthy societies, healthy relationships, and healthy schools, while apathy and accusation are powerful solvents. Schools are a ready-made place to build the social capital of trust. Trust-building is one of the first activities teachers engage in with their students, because effective learning requires that students trust their teachers as experts and guides. Trust maintenance continues throughout the year, because complacence weakens bonds of trust. Show trust in teachers by helping them rebuild trust lost during COVID rather than use threats and restrictions that question their professionalism and scare them away from being their professional best for our children. About the Author: Monte F. Bourjaily, IV teaches AP US History, AP US Government, and Law & Society in public school in Northern Virginia. He has written this essay in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this essay are his personal views and do not reflect the views of his employer.

Speech on comprehensive sex education given by Marianne Burke to the Fairfax County Public School Board, May 26, 2022. Text slightly changed to be more widely applied. Original speech is available upon request. After reviewing decades of research on the subject, adolescent psychologists have concluded that co-ed (comprehensive) sex education is beneficial to students. Nevertheless, the decision to separate students by gender in Family Life Education is often made by school systems without considering the trade-offs of doing so. This instruction separated by gender conveys to students that bodies that are different from their own should remain mysterious. The effect is to make students uncomfortable with and to stigmatize bodies that are different. When Family Life Education classes are separated by gender, students don’t have the guided experience of discussing potentially sensitive topics with peers whose bodies and gender differ from their own. This is a key skill they will need to go through life as they enter into relationships, including friendships, romantic partnerships, and parenting. With instructions integrated by gender, students can hear firsthand about the diversity of experiences individuals have. Otherwise, they can miss out on opportunities to build knowledge and develop empathy across differences. By denying our students these opportunities they may be less prepared for important interactions, Carry stereotypes into adulthood. Be limited in honest communication with potential romantic partners, which is a critical component of health. may come to believe that some topics should not be discussed with people who are different can miss out on critical information as they get older and are faced with issues such as consent, pregnancy prevention, and sexually transmitted infections, and May be forced to feel excluded because they have been placed in a space that does not reflect who they are. It is important that school boards in Virginia support comprehensive Family Life Education because our students deserve to reap the many benefits provided by comprehensive education. View the School Board meeting below. Marianne's remarks start at 1:01.

Network for Public Education's Statement on the Supreme Court's Decision in Carson v. Makin The ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Carson v. Makin forces taxpayers to fund religious education in states with school choice programs, a radical departure from American values and traditions. With this decision, the Court eradicated the separation between church and state when it comes to public funding for education, opening the door to future decisions that would further mandate the public funding of religious education. Prior to the ruling, states could fund religious education but were not obliged to do so. As Justice Breyer noted in his dissent, “What happens once “may” becomes “must”? Does that transformation mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?” The implications of the Court’s wrong-headed decision are enormous and will certainly be seized upon by radical school privatization advocates. Privatizers have focused on capturing state legislatures and securing judicial appointments to ensure their small minority can bend public policy against high-quality and popular public schools, and today’s ruling further undermines the ability of Americans to protect public education funding. Students, families, and taxpayers have regularly been saved from problematic, unaccountable, and fraudulent voucher programs through lawsuits citing state constitutional provisions that prohibit direct government aid to educational institutions affiliated with religious organizations. The U.S. Supreme Court has demolished those protections and this will lead to additional voucher programs that will siphon taxpayer dollars from public schools. Although this case focused on a voucher program, the ruling also opens the door to allow religious institutions to overtly run charter schools, which also have their own long history of fraud, low-quality staff, poor academic performance, and general mismanagement. Given that charters are run by private boards, similar to the boards that run private schools, this precedent paves the way for later decisions for religious charters. Perhaps most disturbing, some religious schools have a long history of engaging in reprehensible discrimination in both admissions and hiring and in many cases failing to provide adequate and science-based academic instruction. This decision will embolden the creation of more schools, that receive taxpayer funding, to engage in discriminatory practices in the name of religion. Commenting on the decision, NPE President, Diane Ravitch, stated, “Maine and Vermont should only include the option of public schools in their town tuitioning programs, thus limiting public funding to public schools. Other states that subsidize any private schools should stop doing so. The path on which SCOTUS has embarked will end in publicly funded schools for every religion, of which there are scores. It threatens the principle of the common school, supported by the public and open to all children.” Carson v. Makin highlights the depth of the current assault on our public schools by a highly motivated and organized radical minority. Even with today’s devastating ruling, their assault will continue to push for even more until all public schools are closed, and every student is left behind. We will continue our advocacy efforts on behalf of democratically governed public schools opened to all. Public funds are for public schools. Used with permission from Network for Public Education.

My Facebook feed is full of proud parents and high school seniors in full graduation regalia, celebrating this important life passage. School is (almost)out for summer! This year is an important one as schools, and their ceremonies, are finally back to normal. However, the political backlight on our schools is anything but normal. The pro-charter, anti-public schools forces are growing—not simply with conservatives, but in progressive circles as well. The Supreme Court is likely to render a disastrous opinion funneling public funds to private religious schools. The Youngkin Department of Education is laying the groundwork to claim public schools are failing and to present the solution of more charter and private school support. The Department uses flawed and downright-wrong-headed data to support its spurious claims. The drumbeat that our schools are failing grows louder, despite the clear facts to the contrary. Like their view on politicians, many parents seem to feel that their school is great, but that the others, in some far away place, and with different teachers, staff and leadership, are failing, or worse-corrupt. The best way to help our schools is to speak up. Of course, we hope to see school advocates at school board meetings, hearings and at political events. But the most effective thing any of us can do is to simply speak to our neighbors and friends. The opposition is gaining traction not because they are right, but because parents simply aren’t paying attention to the threat. Please make a commitment today, that over these lazy, lovely days of summer you will talk to just 8 friends (one a week) and let them know: Public education is under attack. When we take money from public schools to fund private ventures: the taxpayer has no accountability for how these funds are spent our children are not necessarily learning the lessons of how to thrive in a multi-cultural democracy money spent on private schools means much less money for busses, special education and other equity needs 4 Public Education welcomes all parents and community members who want to support public education as a cornerstone of our democracy. Send them here to sign up- sign up here. To all our graduates: Congratulations! Have a great summer all.

Our hearts go out to the families who lost family and loved ones in Uvalde and the other gun shootings over the last three decades. We suffer along with them, as we feel powerless to stop school gun violence that has occurred at more than 27 schools this year. With pain and fear in our hearts, parents sent our children back to school. We don’t know when or where gun violence will strike again on school property. We just know it will happen again. What can we do to stop this? The governor wants SROs in every school in Virginia. Despite emotional support for this, there is no evidence to support that SROs make schools safer, but evidence shows SROs target some students more than others, and are associated with a school to prison pipeline. Also, such a plan will take much needed funds from somewhere else–will education or mental health support be defunded as a result? Many suggest improved mental health support in schools and community, and better gun controls. Both of these have been proven effective. Many have suggested that teachers and counselors are key to solving this problem. There is strong evidence that comprehensive teams of trained teachers, staff, and mental health care professionals can keep all kids safe and reduce school shooter threat. Clearly, this is a complicated and devastating problem that requires an immediate solution. We agree with the experts in the field who called for action after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting that claimed 17 lives and injured 17 others: “Although security measures are important, a focus on simply preparing for shootings is insufficient. We need a change in mindset and policy from reaction to prevention. Prevention entails more than security measures and begins long before a gunman comes to school. We need a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence that is informed by scientific evidence and free from partisan politics.” The interdisciplinary group suggests proven actions to prevent gun violence at schools: Universal approaches promoting safety and well-being for everyone, including improvements in school climate to reduce bullying, discrimination, harassment, and assault; combined with bans on assault-style weapons/clips and products that modify semi-automatic firearms to enable them to function like automatic firearms. Practices for reducing risk and promoting protective factors for persons experiencing difficulties, including: staffing of coordinated school- and community-based mental health services for individuals with risk factors for violence, reform of school discipline, and universal background checks to screen out violent offenders. Interventions for individuals where violence is present or appears imminent, including threat assessment and communication program teams that include mental health and law enforcement partners; removal of legal barriers to sharing safety-related information among educational, mental health, and law enforcement agencies in cases where a person has threatened violence; and “red flag” laws. Our children are traumatized by school shootings and school shooting drills. Shouldn’t we do more to protect them, especially when we know how? If you would like to learn more about school safety, please review the following resources: Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff Is Harming Students He was a champion of police in schools. A year after George Floyd, he’s changed his mind Under D.C. mayor’s budget, school police program would remain intact despite strong calls for its elimination Some seek alternatives to police in schools The Presence of School Resource Officers (SROs) in America’s Schools Armored School Doors, Bulletproof Whiteboards And Secret Snipers: Billions Are Being Spent To Protect Children From School Shootings. Does Any Of It Work? Officers Had No Duty to Protect Students in Parkland Massacre, Judge Rules What Do We Know About The Effects Of School-Based Law Enforcement On School Safety? The School Shootings That Weren't Here's How To Prevent The Next School Shooting, Experts Say Call for Action from UVA after 2018 Marjory Stoneman mass shooting

Virginia needs business owners and entrepreneurs to maintain a growing dynamic economy. And we need an educated, talented workforce to work and drive the production of goods, services and innovation. And we need a growing population to fuel demand for goods and services and supply talented workers. CNBC finds that Virginia is NUMBER 1 in “Top States for Businesses”. In fact, Virginia has led all states for two years. CNBC includes a number of measures in determining its overall ranking. Notably, it includes: education (VA is number 2 in the US), workforce, (3), business friendliness (11), life health and inclusion (11), economy (13), access to capital (9), and other measures where Virginia is not even in the top third of states. The measures that push Virginia to the top spot are education and workforce. These two factors are interconnected: our well-educated kids stay here to get good jobs in our local businesses and governments because they are well-educated! And they stay here to start families and new businesses. When we tout our great “number one” position as “Top State for Business” we are relying primarily on these two factors. Anything that harms these two factors harms our overall rating. In other factors, VA is 24th in infrastructure, 26th in cost of doing business, 32 in cost of living. These mediocre ratings are dwarfed by our excellence in education and workforce. While it will be hard to improve these lower ranked factors meaningfully, it is easy to destroy the education and workforce ratings. Budget cuts, driving away teachers and school boards, etc., will undercut the existing quality of education that has VA poised to remain at or near the top. We understand that our inclusiveness draws workers and businesses from all over the country and from foreign lands. Our sense of welcoming, inclusiveness and tolerance is a hallmark of Fairfax County. Reducing, limiting or otherwise changing these policies will hurt us as an education system, constrain our diverse workforce and hurt our businesses. Forbes also has a ranking for “Best States for Business”. In 2019, VA was #4. “Labor supply” (3rd among states) again pushed VA to this high spot along with “Quality of Life” (1). This last measure includes low poverty, low crime, a strong net migration of population and mean temperature. So, again, labor supply means a growing and educated workforce which is great for business. So, why is our Governor seeking top spots in his education team from Wyoming? According to CNBC, Wyoming is ranked 36th overall. In education, WY is 15th in education (graded as a B-), and 34th in workforce (graded as D+). It is well known that many of the best and brightest of Wyoming young people leave the state for both education and jobs, hopefully to Virginia. Wyoming is losing population, jobs, average wages, etc. Low ranked education has something to do with this. Clearly, we do not want to replicate anything about Wyoming’s education, workforce training or economic opportunity in our great Commonwealth. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/13/americas-top-states-for-business.html https://www.forbes.com/best-states-for-business/list/ https://doe.state.wy.us/lmi/trends/0921/0921.pdf

For years charter proponents lamented the tight control local boards kept on their school dollars in Virginia towns and counties, and how hard the Virginia charter school market was to crack. But all that changed in November 2021 with the election of Glenn Youngkin. The dream of having a super-disruptor, a CEO of a mega leveraged buyout firm, stage the ultimate takeover of some of the very best school systems in the country looked like a sure bet. The plan was straight-forward. No more incrementalism. Attack on all fronts at once, in a concerted all-out blitzkrieg. Attack the organizational infrastructure Disrupt local school boards with screaming astro-turf groups and recall campaigns. Go after local superintendents, with threats of lawsuits. Marginalize the teacher training schools, in favor of business department education development. Drive those teachers in the field out by challenging “divisive concepts,” and by extending conditional employment to 5 years, and doing away with due process. Harden the schools with police in every building, by placing metal detectors at every door, and criminalizing elementary playground scuffles. Appoint highly partisan candidates to key positions in the state department of ed. Destroy the curriculum and standards through deconstructing the state school board and eliminating the resources provided by the state DOE. Challenge existing funding by cutting the educational budget. Attack with every kind of new school, private conversion scheme you can think of to siphon money from local public schools while creating the illusion of something new and shiny. 20 new business run governor’s schools, 20 or more new schools through regional charter boards, 20 new business owned university lab school, Eliminate requirements for charter applications, Expand tax breaks and grants to businesses to start and run their own state-paid-for training schools, Increase Dollar for dollar tax breaks for the wealthy giving to private schools. And cloak it all with massive media and micro-targeted public relations campaigns using carefully crafted messaging about how it is all for the parents and takes back control for individuals. So, what would the schools look like if the school choice lobby and Glenn Youngkin’s hostile takeover was accomplished? What is the school choice vision for the commonwealth’s children? 1. Any participation of women, blacks, or otherwise “different” people in the history of Virginia and its building will be disappeared - illegal to mention in a school room as divisive. That’s what the anti-CRT movement is about. History will only be about people who own property and have high status. The new 5 proposed Youngkin appointees to the state school board will be poised to usher in the new-old history of Virginia in June when the rewrite of the History Standards of Learning is scheduled to begin. 2. The schools will be more segregated - racially and economically. Because transportation is not provided for charter/privates only students with parents who can drive them to the “choice” schools will get to go to them. Students who are expensive to educate - those with special needs will be counseled out of the “choice” schools. The initially small, unregulated schools will be less resourced as management companies gather up tuition dollars. Though charter schools currently are not religious by federal policy, the school choice movement is litigating that in the courts, and vouchers/savings accounts can create school choice that increases more sectarian divisions. They will be more ideologically driven by private religious beliefs, and less open to scientific ideas. Parents will have little say when private charter management companies make decisions about their children with no appeal. 3. Poor families will be priced out of the market with their local schools being looted of the resources that enabled much needed services. The state currently only funds about $5.4K per student, the average cost of educating a student in VA whether in public or private schools is about $14K. The $9,000 difference is not likely to be affordable for working class families. 4. Choice schools will be unstable, as the 3-5 year MOUs expire and out of town school managers take the money and run. Even Nina Rees, the CEO of National Alliance for Public Charters acknowledges that charters are meant to be closed if they are not working, not improved. So, why should local parents be concerned, cautious, and leery of this complete overhaul of their top rated public schools, currently run by people who live down the street and in the neighborhood, and staffed by teachers, 62% of whom have master’s degrees or higher, trained at highly rated Virginia universities that others around the nation call “public Ivys?” The more pressing question is: Why would we even consider a change to charters?

Since Virginia’s infancy, African-Americans have advocated for, built, and championed public education for all Virginians. This support for public education by African-American government officials, educators, families and students has provided lessons learned, which are relevant in today’s quest for quality public education for all now and in the future. The first laws prohibiting education of black Virginians came as backlash to one of the most well-known slave revolts in America which took place in Virginia in Southampton County. Nathaniel (Nat) Turner was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people on August 21, 1831. In response in 1831, the Virginia General Assembly made it a criminal offense to receive a salary for teaching enslaved people and prohibited assembling classes of free blacks for the purpose of teaching them. In 1867, the US Congress required Virginia to write a new state Constitution. Virginia’s first post-Civil War Constitution was ratified in July 1869, and included an article for the state’s first system of public schools. During the post-Civil War state constitution convention, African American Convention delegate Thomas Bayne, who had escaped from slavery, introduced an amendment to the education clause requiring the schools to be “free to all classes, and no child, pupil or scholar shall be ejected from said schools on account of race, color, or any invidious distinction.” Another former enslaved person, African-American Constitution Convention delegate, Samuel F. Kelso introduced a resolution calling for free public education open to all on an equal basis under the new Virginia Constitution. Despite the sincere efforts of these government officials to provide for equal access to quality, equitable public education for all people, regardless of race, creed, color, or other discriminatory factors, segregationist elements within the Constitution Convention prevailed. So, the Virginia public education system legislation was enacted with the inherent flaw of segregation as part of the law of Virginia. Virginia’s public schools had been segregated racially since their inception in 1870. So, too, were the state’s public colleges and universities. With the passage of a new Virginia Constitution of 1902, large numbers of African Americans and working-class Whites were disenfranchised from their right to vote. This constitutional change provided fewer government officials to counter the attempts by secessionists and white racist officials to deny all Virginians their citizenship rights to quality public education and participation in the government process. The 1902 Constitution remained in effect until July 1, 1971, and did much to shape Virginia politics in the image of the old Confederacy by battling the civil rights movement, especially the federally mandated laws for public school desegregation. For many Virginians whose forebears may have arrived in the US in the post-Civil War and post-Civil Right eras, this history may not appear relevant to guaranteeing current rights to a quality public education. However, such an assumption only leads to a greater vulnerability for contemporary groups of Virginians, such as Asian-Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, and Hispanic Americans to be denied their rights to access a quality public education and to participate in the governmental process by voting. The means to accomplish these racist and segregationist goals for newer groups of Virginia citizens and residents have been previously established, vetted, and perfected through the laws and legislative enactment designed to suppress the rights of Whites, Indians (Native Americans), and African Americans. The Virginia Racial Integrity Laws (1924–1930) legislation was passed to protect “whiteness” against what many Virginians perceived to be the negative effects of race-mixing, including: The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 prohibited interracial marriage. It defined a white person as someone “who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian.” The Public Assemblages Act of 1926 required all public meeting spaces to be strictly segregated. A 1930 act defined a person to be “black” who had even a trace of African American ancestry. This way of defining whiteness as a kind of purity in bloodline became known as the “one drop rule.” These acts would remain in place until the Loving v Virginia Supreme Court case of 1967, but it took decades before the Virginia legislature condemned 1924 and 1930 laws in 2001. Across the 1950’s, and as late as the 1970’s, Virginia authorities staged organized resistance to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school integration busing case to insure African American students received an equal education to that provided to white students. While Senator Harry Byrd spear-headed those efforts, many policy makers participated in organized resistance to equal education for black Virginians. To counteract the inequality in the distribution of quality public education, local African American grass-roots activists and national organizations such as the NAACP began to form coalitions to counter the unjust legislation of segregationist government officials. An early rural branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 1915, the Town of Falls Church proposed an ordinance to segregate black and white residential sections. Local African Americans formed the Colored Citizens Protective League and fought this ordinance. In 1918, the League became the Falls Church and Vicinity Branch of the NAACP. This African American grass-roots activism is exemplified in the life’s work and accomplishment of pioneer Falls Church NAACP members and leaders EB Henderson and Mary Ellis Henderson. In 1951, African American students, led by sixteen-year-old Barbara Rose Johns, walked out of Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville to protest the school's poor condition. Students and NAACP attorneys Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson filed a lawsuit in federal court to demand integration, instead of “equal” schools. Their case became part of the landmark case, Brown vs. Board of Education. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954, that "separate, but equal" in public education is unconstitutional. Since the inception of the British colony of Virginia in 1607, and later as the 10th independent State to ratify the Constitution of the United States in 1788, Virginia has and continues to be the epicenter for the struggle in our Nation between the ideas and actions of Unionist and Secessionist ideologists. To their credit, Virginians were among the leaders of the American Revolution and of the events leading to it. Phrases like “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “Give me liberty or give me death” were coined here in Virginia, but the full accomplishment of those ideals have yet to be achieved. And there are those today who would still block the opportunity for equal access to education. Today’s quest for quality public education for all now and in the future follows in the footsteps of so many African American Virginians of the past. It is time now for contemporary Virginians to be the champions of equal education for all. See accompanying PDF for a full collection of materials on Virginia Black History of Education: Artwork: “The State Convention at Richmond, Va., in Session,” Remaking Virginia: Transformation Through Emancipation, accessed February 26, 2022, https://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/items/show/602.

Across America, a small minority of people seeking to undermine our schools point to individual books and declare unilaterally that they are inappropriate. All schools have clear rules for each book; where it is shelved, what ages can check it out, etc. There are also rules and processes for reviewing each book before it is purchased, and again if it is questioned. These processes usually entail a team of dedicated librarians and teachers fully involved in our kids’ lives and who understand what is age appropriate and what is not. They also know that challenging kids with different ideas at the right age is actually the best thing for our kids, and our society as a whole. Over and over in the last few months, a small number people are trying to undermine our schools and libraries by claiming that short scenes or graphics in books are pornographic or otherwise unfit for our kids to read. There is a growing use of book protests seeking to ban selected books. Some of these books are award-winning for their careful and sensitive portrayal of important issues. When a book is questioned, librarians and teachers review the targeted books, read them thoroughly, consider the age-appropriateness and make their fully informed professional decisions. Repeatedly, these professionals find that the books should go back to the shelves with the appropriate rules for our kids. We can point to the reviews of books in Fairfax County and also in Virginia Beach (two widely different parts of our state) that resulted in complete reinstatement of the challenged books. I fully support parents questioning what their kids learn and applaud parents who are fully involved in their children's education. That said, a small subset of people cannot set the rules for everyone and cannot prevent other kids or their parents from seeking a variety of ideas, concepts, and viewpoints. We need to support our public education teachers and other professionals as they work hard to provide our kids a variety of tools to understand the world around them. These book challenges, while appropriate enough for parents to start, are consistently overturned by our existing procedures and review protocols. The processes work to carefully protect both parents who want restrictions and those that want access for their kids. Learn more: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/education/fairfax-county-reinstating-banned-books/65-3b79bdaa-d1a0-4212-90ec-d8881e135dc8 https://www.pilotonline.com/news/education/vp-nw-virginia-beach-banned-books-20220212-ibj5flyrp5hwtfiidipylfgs74-story.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/30/us/book-banning-american-library-association-statement/index.html