The tough economy is likely to mean a tough budget for Henrico County schools next year, administrators told the School Board at a work session yesterday. The 2010-2011 budget year probably will be the most difficult in 50 years, Superintendent Patrick Russo said, based on his conversations with Henrico County Manager Virgil R. Hazelett.

Jeans
Sneakers unless the job requires it
Flip-flops
Facial jewelry, including tongue studs
Display of offensive or distracting tattoos

Henrico County teachers may have to watch what they wear to work this fall. After adopting a countywide dress code for students last month, the School Board now is turning its attention to staff. Athletic shoes, flip-flops, jeans, tattoos and facial jewelry would be taboo for teachers in most cases under a draft policy to be discussed today at a School Board work session at the Glen Echo Building, 3810 Nine Mile Road.

Asign posted outside a local nightclub lists a ban on plain T-shirts, do-rags and sagging pants and requires collard shirts. It’s doubtful the establishment is asking its customers to wear green leafy vegetables. But this is just one example of the occasional absurdity surrounding dress-code enforcement. Which brings us to the Henrico County School Board’s new countywide school dress code.

WEEK’S END We applaud yesterday’s decision to withdraw a proposal to drop the third-grade SOL test in history and social science. An editorial in tomorrow’s Commentary will discuss the issue in depth.  The Cavaliers did not take the crown, but the University of Virginia’s baseball team won cheers as it advanced to the College World Series.

hats or head coverings of any kind inside school buildings unless required for religious or medical reasons;
do-rags, bandanas, head scarves, hair picks, wave caps, large combs, brushes or rollers anywhere on school grounds during regular school hours;
dresses, skirts, shorts or athletic shorts higher than 4 inches above the knee;
torn, ripped or slashed clothing that reveals undergarments or parts of the body required to be covered, such as the midriff;

What kids wear to school in Henrico County has gone from a school-by-school decision to a countywide policy. Two pages of dress code were adopted by the Henrico School Board yesterday as part of revisions to the Code of Student Conduct, which goes out to students and parents at the beginning of each school year. The revised code also includes more-detailed regulations on laptop policies, cell-phone use and transportation.

We have applauded the openness of Henrico’s school redistricting process. The School Board has studied an original plan, a second plan, and a third plan. It posted revisions to No. 3 last Friday and invited online comment. The deadline for entries expired yesterday. The board will vote tomorrow. A full public hearing is in order but apparently will not occur.

When it comes to sex education, saying no simply isn’t enough anymore for some Henrico County students. Henrico’s Student Congress—a body consisting of 150 representatives from nine high schools—thinks schools need to offer more information relevant to today’s teens in required family-life classes. The nine high schools enroll about 14,700 students.

Henrico’s Board of Supervisors and School Board have had snippy moments. Chesterfield’s Board of Supervisors and School Board have had such moments as well. Difficult economic times complicate intra-government relations and exacerbate tensions inherent in Virginia’s approach to elected school boards. In the commonwealth, elected school boards set educational policy and propose budgets but boards of supervisors have the final say on taxes and spending. We always have believed that jurisdictions with elected school boards should shift the responsibility for setting spending priorities, and for raising revenue, from supervisors (or council members) to members of school boards.

Many residents of eastern Henrico County don’t care where the funds come from to build a new school. What they care about is that students aren’t going to classes in trailers, don’t have to wait in long cafeteria lines and have facilities on par with other parts of the county. About 75 residents attended a public hearing about the proposed Henrico budget last night at a Board of Supervisors meeting. Many wore buttons reading “Eastern Henrico Schools Now.“

The gloves come off in Henrico Henrico County is accustomed to flush times, not tough times. Henrico, for as long as anyone can remember, has been synonymous with excellent schools, well-managed government and satisfied residents, give or take occasional grumbling from its eastern precincts. As county governments go, Henrico has been the proverbial well-oiled machine.

Henrico boards in dispute Supervisors say no to $94 million in school capital improvements Traditionally, the Henrico County School Board submits its budget and capital-improvement plan to the Board of Supervisors, which approves funding, and everyone leaves happy. Not this year. The supervisors, at the recommendation of County Manager Virgil R. Hazelett, readily agreed yesterday to fund the schools’ $518.4 million operating budget request.

Redistricting a hot topic Committee whose meetings have drawn hundreds will issue its final plans in April Three community input sessions last week did not draw the huge crowds that similar meetings did in January, but Henrico County residents still are fired up about the largest school-redistricting project in county history. Next month, a 70-member volunteer committee and an outside consultant will present recommendations to the School Board to redraw boundary lines. Two sets of proposals and feeder patterns were presented to the public to accommodate a new middle school and high school that are opening in 2010.

While other area school systems are slashing positions, Henrico County plans to add personnel for the 2009-10 school year. During the School Board’s first discussion of its proposed $518.4 million budget yesterday, members suggested adding about a half dozen more positions in addition to 31 new positions already included in the proposed budget.