Misplaced Pages

This article about school may require cleanup. Please review editing advice and help improve this article. (April 2022)

Richmond Public Schools is a public school district located in the independent city of Richmond, Virginia. It is occasionally described locally as Richmond City Public Schools to emphasize its connection to the independent city rather than the Richmond-Petersburg region at large or the rural Richmond County, Virginia.

Administration

Superintendent

The superintendent is Jason Kamras, who was also the 2005 United States National Teacher of the Year.

School board members

The school district is governed by an elected school board, with one member from each of nine districts. The current Members (2023) are:

Schools

High schools

Name	Address	Image
Armstrong High School	2300 Cool Lane, Richmond, Virginia 23223
Huguenot High School	7945 Forest Hill Avenue, Richmond, Virginia 23225
Thomas Jefferson High School	4100 W. Grace Street, Richmond, Virginia 23230
John Marshall High School	4225 Old Brook Road, Richmond, Virginia 23227
Open High School
Richmond Community High School	201 East Brookland Park Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia 23222
Richmond High School for the Arts	4314 Crutchfield Street, Richmond, Virginia 23225

Middle schools

Name	Address	Image
Albert Hill Middle School	3400 Patterson Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23221
Dogwood Middle School	1701 Floyd Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23220
Lucille M. Brown Middle School	6300 Jahnke Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23225
Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School	1000 Mosby St, Richmond, Virginia 23223
River City Middle School	6300 Hull Street Rd N, Richmond, Virginia 23224
Thomas C. Boushall Middle School	3400 Hopkins Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23234
Thomas H. Henderson Middle School	4319 Old Brook Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23227

Elementary schools

Name	Address	Image
Barack Obama Elementary School (formerly J. E. B. Stuart Elementary School)	3101 Fendall Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23222
Bellevue Elementary School	2301 E Grace St, Richmond, Virginia 23223
Broad Rock Elementary School	4615 Ferguson Ln, Richmond, Virginia 23234
Cardinal Elementary School	1745 Catalina Dr, Richmond, Virginia 23224
Chimborazo Elementary School	3000 E Marshall St, Richmond, Virginia 23223
Elizabeth D. Redd Elementary School	5601 Jahnke Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23225
Fairfield Court Elementary School	2510 Phaup St, Richmond, Virginia 23223
Frances W. McClenney Elementary School	3817 Chamberlayne Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23227
G.H. Reid Elementary School	1301 Whitehead Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23225
George W. Carver Elementary School	1110 W Leigh St, Richmond, Virginia 23220
Henry L. Marsh, III Elementary School	813 N 28th St, Richmond, Virginia 23223
J.B. Fisher Elementary School	3701 Garden Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23235
J.H. Blackwell Elementary School	300 E 15th St, Richmond, Virginia 23224
J.L. Francis Elementary School	5146 Snead Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23224
Lois Harrison-Jones Elementary School	3021 Maplewood Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23221
Linwood Holton Elementary School	1600 W Laburnum Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23227
Mary Munford Elementary School (formerly PBS Kids Mary Munford until 2013)	211 Westmoreland St, Richmond, Virginia 23226
Miles J. Jones Elementary School	200 Beaufont Hills Dr, Richmond, Virginia 23225
Oak Grove-Bellemeade Elementary School	2409 Webber Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23224
Overby-Sheppard Elementary School	2300 1st Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23222
Southampton Elementary School	3333 Cheverly Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23225
Swansboro Elementary School	3160 Midlothian Tpke, Richmond, Virginia 23224
Westover Hills Elementary School	1211 Jahnke Rd, Richmond, Virginia 23225
William Fox Elementary School	2300 Hanover Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23220
Woodville Elementary School	2000 N 28th St, Richmond, Virginia 23223

Specialty schools

• Amelia Street School
• Franklin Military Academy – first public military school in the nation, serves grades 6-12
• Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts
• Richmond Adult Technical Center
• Richmond Alternative School
• Richmond Career Education and Employment Academy
• Richmond Technical Center
• Richmond Virtual Academy
• Virgie Binford Education Center

Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies is a regional magnet school to which RPS contributes students, located directly between the Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Union University campuses.

History

Richmond did not have public schools during much of the 19th century, only private institutions funded by user fees or charities. From 1906 until 1962, the city of Richmond segregated its public schools by race, and schools serving African American Virginians received less funding and poorer facilities, which led in part to the U.S. Supreme Court's two decisions in Brown v. Board of Education in beginning in 1954. Defiance of those decisions by the Commonwealth of Virginia led to the Massive Resistance crisis in the state which lasted more than a decade. One of the people involved in eventual peaceful desegregation of Richmond's public schools was Eleanor P. Sheppard, who began her public involvement with the Parent-Teacher Association of her children's school in the Ginter Park neighborhood. In 1954, "Mrs. Sheppard" became the first woman elected to the Richmond City Council, and she became the city's first female mayor in 1962, and served in the Virginia General Assembly for a decade. The Richmond School Board acknowledged the crisis in part by naming an elementary school to honor her and one of the school district's first principals of African American descent, Overby-Sheppard Elementary School.

The Richmond school district partly resolved the Massive Resistance crisis in its jurisdiction by eliminating racial terminology from this school district's official reports in 1962. Another important person in resolving the crisis was Virginia native and Richmond lawyer Lewis F. Powell Jr., who served as Chairman of the Richmond School Board from 1952 until 1961. Powell did not take any part in his law firm's representation of Prince Edward County, Virginia in Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, which became one of the five cases decided under the caption Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The Richmond School Board also lacked authority at the time to force integration, since beginning in 1958, the state government assumed control over attendance policies. Powell later became president of the American Bar Association and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Academic struggles and improvements

In October 2009, the Richmond Times-Dispatch printed an editorial entitled "Dropping In," briefly outlining a program meant to reduce the number of high school dropouts in Richmond's public school system. In this article it was revealed that Richmond's dropout rate was "hovering around 15 percent". It was also stated on the Richmond Public Schools' website that the four-year-cohort dropout rate was 14.8 percent for the 2005-2009 cohort, declined from its 16.2 percent rate for 2004–2008.

While the percentage is declining, dropout and late graduation rates are still an issue. In October 2009 in a News Release about Richmond Public Schools, it is stated that "the latest data for students in the 2005-2009 cohort indicate that nearly 69 percent (68.7) of Richmond's students graduated on time." This is an increase from the 2004-2008 cohort rate of 65.8 percent and it is well below the state average of 83.2 percent.

Dropout Prevention Initiative

While high dropout rates in the school system are a problem, positive action is being taken, as of 2009. On October 21, 2009, the superintendent of Richmond City Public Schools, Yvonne W. Brandon, unveiled a plan called "Dropout Prevention Initiative" (DPI). The objective of this program is to continue to decrease the school system's dropout rate.

There are a few objectives to the DPI. The first is to find high school dropouts and convince them to return to high school to graduate through mentoring programs, Individual Learning Plans (ILP), and partnerships with others in the community. These "others" include higher education institutions, elected officials, as well faith-based and community-based organizations. One of the most appealing aspects of the DPI is that it requires no additional funding and is solely a redistribution of resources.

There is a district-wide mentoring program as a part of DPI that encourages Richmond Public Schools employees and students to serve as mentors once the recovered students return to school. There are also mentors provided by the higher educational institutions and the faith- and community-based organizations with which the DPI has partnerships.

A unique aspect of this program is that recovery specialists within the DPI literally walk door-to-door to the homes of students who have dropped out to talk with them about and encourage the possibility of returning to school. Students returning to school are assisted by the DPI Intake Counselors, who work with recovered students to help the student re-adjust to being in school and receive an ILP. The ILP is, as stated by the Richmond Public Schools website, "an online educational plan for students that helps pair students' career goals with academic and career and technical courses needed to accomplish their future interests".

The program also recognizes at-risk students and works on preventing student dropouts, rather than only trying to reverse it. Richmond Public Schools have implemented "Extensive Mandatory Professional Development" for staff on how to effectively identify and help at-risk students. There is also a new "Get In – Stay in" media campaign on the radio and television to help encourage attendance among students.

References

1. ^ "Search for Public School Districts – District Detail for RICHMOND CITY PBLC SCHS". National Center for Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
2. "Superintendent - Richmond Public Schools". www.rvaschools.net. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
3. "Tom Nash (Budget) • MuckRock". www.muckrock.com. p. 2. Retrieved September 5, 2020. School Board Members (group photo on page 2- bottom right)
4. "School Board Members - Richmond Public Schools". www.rvaschools.net. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
5. "Virginia School Drops Confederate General's Name in Favor of Obama's". Retrieved June 19, 2018.
6. "RPS History / Annexation of Schools". http. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
7. ^ Dropping In. (2009, October 23). Richmond Times Dispatch , pp. A-10.
8. "Fast Facts". www.richmond.k12.va.us.
9. "On Time Graduation" (PDF). www.richmond.k12.va.us.
10. ^ Slayton, J. (2009, October 22). Richmond targets school dropouts; Superintendent unveils plan to get students back into their classes. Richmond Times Dispatch , pp. B-02.
11. ^ "Index". www.richmond.k12.va.us.

External links

• Official website
• Richmond Public Schools website at the Wayback Machine (archive index)

Further reading

• Gabay, Barry (October 16, 2015). "SOCIOECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND THE GREATER RICHMOND SCHOOL DISTRICT: THE FEASIBILITY OF INTERDISTRICT CONSOLIDATION" (PDF). University of Richmond Law Review. 51: 397–438.

This article about a school in Virginia is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• School divisions in Virginia
• Education in Richmond, Virginia
• Virginia school stubs