Tom Brewster is stepping down as Pulaski County's schools superintendent, the school system announced Tuesday.

He is becoming an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Bluefield College and director of external affairs for Communities in Schools of Virginia, a news release from the school system said.

Brewster was named as Pulaski County's superintendent in 2012, capping a decade-long career in the county that included stints as coordinator of student services and assistant superintendent. Before that, he was a teacher and administrator in Tazewell County, and administrator and assistant professor at Concord College.

Hundreds sign petition in support of Landstown High principal who was put on leave
Virginian-Pilot
April 25, 2016

More than 1,400 people have signed an online petition in support of the Landstown High School principal who was put on leave without public explanation.

Brian Matney, who has been in charge there since 2011, abruptly went on leave two weeks ago. He said he is the subject of an administrative investigation, but that the division has not shared with him the nature of the allegations. 

2016 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools Program Announces 3 Honorees in Virginia

Charlottesville Tomorrow
April 22, 2016

U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. was joined by Managing Director of the White House Council of Environmental Quality Christy Goldfuss today to announce the 2016 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools, District Sustainability Awardees, and Postsecondary Sustainability Awardees on the Department’s YouTube channel. Across the country, 47 schools, 15 districts, and 11 postsecondary institutions are being honored for their innovative efforts to reduce environmental impact and utility costs, improve health and wellness, and ensure effective sustainability education.

In Virginia, St. Stephen's & St. Agnes Middle School in Alexandria; Charlottesville City Schools in Charlottesville; and Virginia Beach City Public Schools in Virginia Beach are among those being honored nationwide for their exemplary efforts to reduce environmental impact and utility costs, promote better health, and ensure effective environmental education, including civics and green career pathways.

Elmwood Park Board of Education member Gladys Gryskiewicz had come under pressure to step down after attention was drawn to the posts on her personal Facebook account.

Board President Jeanne Freitag confirmed the resignation, which was reported by New Jersey's Record newspaper on Friday.

Top business leaders, 27 governors, urge Congress to boost computer science education
Washington Post
April 26, 2016

Leaders of dozens of the nation’s top businesses — from Apple and Facebook to Target, Walmart and AT&T — are calling on Congress to help provide computer science education in all K-12 schools, arguing that the United States needs far more students who are literate in the technologies that are transforming nearly every industry.

They worry that the United States could lose its competitive edge without significant efforts to boost computer science among the nation’s youth. A bipartisan coalition of 27 governors has joined the effort, saying they see teaching coding and programming as a way to draw middle-class jobs to their states, and dozens of school system superintendents and nonprofit leaders say they see computer science courses as essential for giving children the skills they’ll need to be successful in the modern economy.

“Our schools should give all students the opportunity to understand how this technology works, to learn how to be creators, coders, and makers — not just consumers,” they wrote Tuesday in an open letter to lawmakers. “Instead, what is increasingly a basic skill is only available to the lucky few, leaving most students behind, particularly students of color and girls.”

Last week we noted that most of the public in Virginia (63%) would be willing to pay more in taxes to see funding increased for low-performing schools in high poverty areas.  Implicit in this response is that more funding will make a difference in educational outcomes.  As evidenced by certain local disagreements about whether or not to increase funding for schools, some feel that increased spending will have a significant impact while others may emphasize how the money is spent.  

This past week, NPR ran a story on exactly this question - " Can more money fix America's schools?"  (The story is part of a multi-week "School Money" series on education funding in the United States.  The first installment reviewed the ways education is funded across the nation and included this map showing cost of living adjusted per student spending for every school district relative to the national average.)
The article reviews the empirical research on both sides of the argument and concludes with these take aways:

" money can make a difference in the classroom. If:

Lost in all of this, of course, is perhaps the most important takeaway — a question that all educators, parents and policymakers should ask themselves before they spend a dime:

Takeaway #4: How do we define success?

Is it just about test scores?

Perceptions about whether schools have enough funding are meaningful to conversations about education quality because Virginians also see the amount of funding dedicated to public schools as affecting quality. More than seven-in-ten respondents (71%) said that the amount of funding affects quality a great deal or quite a lot, which is down 7% compared to responses last year.

Here a direct connection to public schools seems to make a difference in perceptions of the importance of funding. School employees/retirees (51%) and parents of public school students (55%) were more likely to say funding mattered a great deal when compared to non-employee/retiree (44%) and non-parent respondents (42%). Age also plays a role with those in age categories more likely to have children in school saying more often that funding matters a great deal. Fifty-three percent (53%) of those aged 35-44 and 50% of those aged 45-64 said funding mattered a great deal while those aged 18-34 (40%) and 65+ (40%) were less likely to say the same. Those with incomes of more than $100,000 (60%) were also more likely to say that funding had a great deal of impact on the quality of education, compared to respondents with income between $50,000 and $100,000 (37%) or income below $50,000 (40%).

(To read the full poll, visit our website.)

The basic obligation that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) imposes on states and local school districts is to provide “free, appropriate public education” (FAPE) to all children with disabilities in their jurisdiction. Since passage of the original version of the law in 1975, millions of children with disabling conditions have been brought into school and given educational opportunities. But issues still exist over the scope of schools’ obligations under IDEA to provide FAPE.

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Relevant Developments in Areas Other than FAPE
The resolution of O.S. and Endrew F. against the parents’ position is by no means the end of the story. There are provisions in the law governing special education other than the free, appropriate public education section, and in many instances parents have been successful in obtaining contested services for their children by invoking those parts of the law. Although “appropriate education” has not been redefined, children with disabilities may in some instances be entitled to quite extensive aids and services by virtue of other legal obligations. Three of particular importance are the least restrictive environment (LRE) requirement, the all areas of suspected disability provision, and the prohibition on disability discrimination in Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The least restrictive environment provision of IDEA is phrased in a unique manner. It states:

• To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities . . . are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

This language does not prohibit restrictive settings. What it does is ban removal of children from general education settings that include children without disabilities if supplemental aids and services could enable them to learn in those settings. A number of courts have recognized this language as a requirement to provide the aids and services that make less restrictive environments work; accordingly, children are entitled to the aids and services under this provision. Perhaps the most prominent such case is Oberti v. Board of Education, in which the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered inclusion of a child with Down Syndrome in a mainstream class, saying the key to resolving tensions between appropriate education and the least restrictive environment was proper use of supplemental aids and services. In that case, the services included an itinerant special education instructor, special education training for the general education teacher, modifications of the curriculum, parallel instruction, and part-time resource room services. The basis for the services was the LRE provision rather than the definition of appropriate education interpreted in Rowley and recent cases such as O.S., so Rowley was not the controlling authority.

As the O.S. court indicated, Congress amended the IEP provisions of IDEA in 1997, so that the statue now requires that children be assessed “in all areas of suspected disability” and that their IEPs contain goals and education and related services to meet “each of the child’s . . . educational needs that result from the child’s disability.” Courts have applied this language to require services in specific areas. Writing, occupational therapy, behavioral services, and transition have all been areas of individual need that courts have required school districts to address. In one noteworthy case, Dracut School Committee v. Bureau of Special Education Appeals, a district court found that a student’s IEP was deficient as to transition when it failed to address pragmatic language skills, vocational skills, and independent living skills, even though the student did well in mainstream high school courses and graduated in the top half of his class. The deficiency was that areas of need identified by the assessment were not all addressed. Again, this obligation was separate from the duty to provide appropriate education interpreted in Rowley. The court was not requiring anything more than adequate services, but they had to be provided in each area of need.

Finally, some, though by no means all, courts have placed duties on schools to afford education and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act even though the services the schools already provided were sufficient to meet IDEA’s appropriate education test under Rowley. The leading case is K.M. v. Tustin Unified School District, in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ADA may entitle children with hearing impairments to Communication Access Real Time word-for-word captioning (CART), even though the students did not prevail on a claim that the school violated IDEA standards for appropriate education in failing to provide CART. The court reasoned that the ADA Title II communications regulation requires state and local government agencies such as public schools to communicate as effectively with students with disabilities as they do with other students. This is different from IDEA, which does not demand equality of treatment. The children who brought the case had hearing impairments but with residual hearing and with other accommodations, they were successful in school. Nevertheless, they complained that they were unable to maximize their potential and claimed that the school had failed to use available means to communicate as effectively with them as it did with hearing students. The students lost on their IDEA claims, but the court overturned lower court rulings against the students on the ADA claim and remanded for application of the ADA effective-communications regulation.

Policy and practice implications
The upshot is that the Rowley standard for appropriate education is alive and well and residing comfortably in the part of the United States that includes Virginia and its neighbor states. O.S. reinforces the some-benefit standard’s relevance to educational decision-making today. At the same time, educators should be aware that they are subject to other obligations that may require them to provide special education and related services that a surface reading of Rowley and O.S. might lead them to think would not be demanded. Educators need to be attentive to the obligation to provide services to enable children to succeed in less restrictive settings, the requirement to assess in all areas of suspected disability and provide services in all areas of identified need, and the duty to provide accommodations under Section 504 and the ADA.