With as much as $175 million potentially burning a hole in its collective pocket, the Richmond School Board voted 6-1 last night to include seven schools in the first phase of its construction plan, with a new Huguenot High School at the top of the list. The city has not built a new school in more than a decade. The School Board will present to the City Council a plan that includes the new high school, a new Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in the East End, and new Broad Rock and Oak Grove elementary schools in South Richmond. Also on the list are secondary priorities including replacements for Elkhardt Middle and E.H.S. Greene Elementary, both in South Richmond, and George Mason Elementary in North Side.

Are children in the Chimborazo neighborhood more at risk with or without their community center? That’s a source of debate since the evening of May 13, when 20-year-old Thomas H. Scott Jr. was shot four times in the back and killed on a playground just outside Chimborazo Elementary School. The school at North 31st and East Marshall streets was functioning at the time as a community center run by the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. The center closed after the shooting and has not reopened.

Richmond traces its roots to the 1600s when, shortly after the landing at Jamestown, Christopher Newport explored the falls of the James. William Byrd is credited with founding the settlement that grew into the Richmond of today. The first debate regarding school buildings probably occurred between Richmond’s 1742 incorporation as a town and its 1782 incorporation as a city.

Year opened
1880s
1886: Carver Elementary

1910s
1911: William Fox Elementary
1911: Open High (opened as Grace Arents)
1913: Bellevue Elementary
1913: Oak Grove Elementary
1914: Swansboro Elementary (opened as
Franklin School)
1915: Binford Middle
1916: Ginter Park Elementary
1918: Bellemeade Elementary (now an annex of
Oak Grove Elementary)
1919: Summer Hill Elementary

1920s
1922: George Mason Elementary
1922: J.E.B. Stuart Elementary
1923: Adult Career Development Center (opened as
Armstrong High)
1925: Richmond Community High (opened as
Northside Junior High; later operated as
Chandler Middle)
1926: Albert Hill Middle
1929: Franklin Military (opened as East End
Junior High)

1930s
1930: Thomas Jefferson High
1937: Broad Rock Elementary

1940s
1941: Elkhardt Middle

1950s
1951: Mary Munford Elementary
1951: E.D. Redd Elementary
1953: Mary Scott Elementary (now an annex of
Ginter Park Elementary)
1954: John B. Cary Elementary
1954: Westover Hills Elementary
1954: Woodville Elementary
1957: Maymont Elementary
1958: Fairfield Court Elementary
1958: G.H. Reid Elementary
1959: Southampton Elementary

1960s
1960: Huguenot High
1960: John Marshall High
1960 :George Wythe High
1961: Amelia Street
1964: Martin Luther King Middle
1965: Ruffin Road Elementary (now an annex of
Summer Hill Elementary)
1965: Thompson Middle
1966: J.B. Fisher Elementary
1966: Richmond Technical Center South
1967: Clark Springs Elementary
1968: Armstrong High (opened as Kennedy)
1968: Chimborazo Elementary
1968: J.L. Francis Elementary

1970s
1971: Richmond Technical Center North
1973: Henderson Middle
1977: Overby-Sheppard Elementary

1980s
1986: T.C. Boushall Middle

1990s
1998: Lucille Brown Middle School
1999: Blackwell Elementary
1999: Linwood Holton Elementary
1999: Miles Jones Elementary

Picture a petite round-faced woman swathed in a colorful Yoruban costume. She sings in a Chaka Khan-style voice as she leads kente-clad children swaying and stomping with abandon as other children pound African rhythms on the conga drums. That’s how Joan Andrews Richardson taught music, dance, heritage and self-worth in the Richmond school system for 33 years, before dying of cancer June 25 in a Richmond hospital.

Frances Tsepho Gow Williams recalled growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, seeing the Indian Ocean from a cable car atop Table Mountain and walking with penguins on the beach. Born in Johannesburg to African Methodist Episcopal missionaries, she was the only child of a man who would become the first African elected a bishop in his denomination and his wife, who hailed from Richmond.

A Richmond school employee was overpaid by about $2,000 based on records falsified by his supervisor, with whom he had a personal relationship and later married, according to a report released yesterday by the city auditor. In a letter dated Monday, the auditor, Umesh Dalal, told School Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon that his investigation found “a conflict of interest, falsification of records and abuse of [Richmond Public Schools’] resources.“

Field day will go on, but the summer won’t be the same at George Mason Elementary School in Richmond after an early-morning fire destroyed the playground. The fire, called in at about 3:30 a.m. yesterday, engulfed most of the metal structure, burning away the blue-and-red plastic coating and melting the sliding boards into pools of yellow, mulch-infused muck. The one-alarm fire was quickly extinguished, but the $70,000 playground is a complete loss.

Among the 59 families in Hanover County’s Royal Glen neighborhood, 13 had kindergartners starting school this year. When one of those 13, Reese Klauer, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in January, the community galvanized around her. Neighbors built a wheelchair ramp for her house, because surgery to remove the tumor left her temporarily unable to walk.

Five male students were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct yesterday after a cafeteria fight that led authorities to lock down George Wythe High School, Richmond police said. Four of the five were juveniles and one was 18, a police spokeswoman said. Police received the call at about 11:30 a.m. There were no injuries, the spokeswoman said.

A stroll through the parking lot tells the story. On race weekends, the cars at Richmond International Raceway boast license plates not only from Virginia but from states near and far. A tag check suggests Canadian fans also attend. A report that RIR annually pumps $467 million into the local economy does not surprise. 

A staffing audit of the Richmond city school system released today says the superintendent has too much power, too many people report to her and she oversees a system that’s lacking strategic plan. The report, completed by MGT of America Inc., was detailed this morning at the Richmond Audit Committee meeting. The report also says the district is full of hard-working employees, but that it lacks sufficient systems to handle training and to gauge performance.

Richmond School Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon says each of the challenges facing her school district is an opportunity for success. “We’re not totally pleased with everything we’ve done,“ she said.

Several recent items of local interest caught our attention:

Chandler Middle School, once a barometer for Richmond’s changing times, has outlived its usefulness. This is not a conclusion I’ve reached lightly. Chandler, originally known as Northside Junior High, has played a seminal role in local public education.