Richmond School Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon unveiled yesterday a plan she hopes will further decrease the school system’s dropout rate, which most recently went from 16.2 percent to 14.8 percent. The school system’s Dropout Prevention Initiative aims to get dropouts back into the classroom to graduate. “We are looking at why students are dropping out and developing ways to re-engage those students who have become disengaged,“ she said. “The plan is not just about getting them in, but getting them to become motivated to stay in.“

Richmond City Councilman Douglas G. Conner Jr. said he’s tired of retraining students from the Richmond Technical Center when they’re hired to work at his auto-body shop. He said his experiences—combined with Richmond Public Schools’ 66 percent graduation rate—show the need to overhaul career and technical education. He’s pursuing ideas for an overhaul through a set of city-sponsored trips, traveling last month to Pittsburgh and next month to Lexington, Mass., to tour their successful tech centers.

A report released yesterday by Richmond’s auditor shows that Richmond Public Schools’ grants administration department suffered from no comprehensive monitoring, weak payment controls, poor record keeping and a lack of aggression in pursuing funding. In a 32-page report that covers a yearlong period through June 30, 2007, Richmond auditor Umesh Dalal identified a theft of nearly $15,000, misappropriation of an additional $10,000, a $32,000 overpayment and nearly $500,000 worth of contracts that weren’t properly bid.

More than a dozen of the area’s top educators and business and civic leaders met yesterday to begin work on a new approach to education in central Virginia: collaboration. The members of the “Bridging Richmond” partnership pledged to work together to assimilate a wide variety of programs—dealing with academics, social issues and health concerns, among other things—already in place.

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.“

The Richmond School Board made a mistake—an odd one at that—when it imposed a gag order on itself. But to its credit, the board quickly reversed the decision. Gag order might be too strong a term for the policy, which was part of a broader 20-point communications and government plan approved in March, and which asked board members to “maintain fidelity . . . when communicating with the media.“ A charitable reading might take that to mean staying on message or not bad-mouthing other parts of the school system, as opposed to refusing to say anything at all. But even such a limited reading would be too much of a bad thing. School Board members’ first duty is to their constituents, not to the school administration.

Richmond’s school system places too much power with its superintendent and lacks a strategic plan, according to a staffing audit released yesterday. The audit includes 28 recommendations to improve operations and efficiency. If implemented, the measures could lead to more than $920,000 in savings over five years, according to the audit.

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.

Yvonne Brandon accepted one of the toughest jobs in town when she took over earlier this year as superintendent of Richmond’s public school system. Improving urban education is one of the most complex—and persistent—challenges facing the country, and Richmond is no exception. The city’s public schools have made meaningful progress in recent years. But the remaining problems are huge.

Richmond school officials say today they’ll recommend moving Community High School from its West End campus to the Chandler Middle School building in North Richmond.

Yet another report has issued forth detailing poor management in city government. This one - an audit of operational performance in the Richmond Public Schools - finds that 42 percent of computer equipment that exists on paper cannot be found. It also faults the system for other oversights, such as a lack of risk-assessment and disaster-recovery procedures.

Could hard times bring Richmond and its neighbors together? Mayor Dwight C. Jones would like to think so. Jones, who became mayor Jan. 1, told regional political and business leaders yesterday that localities need to cooperate now more than ever. “They say behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining, and in the midst of this economic downturn, it just might be that we’ll be forced to work together,“ the mayor told a crowd of about 275 people at the annual meeting of Venture Richmond at the Jefferson Hotel.

Never has a group struggled so mightily to make such an obvious choice. This was no time to bring in an outsider to navigate the steep learning curve that can be Richmond’s educational, political and—perhaps most challenging of all—community culture. With a flat-lining economy and a School Board with five new members, the Richmond school district needed a stabilizing force.

A few years ago a trend arose. When stories reported progress in Richmond’s schools, Yvonne Brandon’s name seemed to appear. A veteran of the system, Brandon worked through good times and bad. She rose through the ranks to become deputy superintendent, and became interim superintendent when Deborah Jewell-Sherman retired. Yesterday the Richmond School Board announced its selection of Brandon for the full-time job. We second the motion.

The search for a new superintendent for Richmond Public Schools spanned the country, then ended yesterday where it officially started in August: with Yvonne W. Brandon. With Mayor Dwight C. Jones and a long list of other past and present school leaders in attendance, the School Board removed “interim” from Brandon’s title on a 9-0 vote and awarded her a 3½-year contract to lead the system. She will be paid about $170,000 a year. Other details of the contract were not immediately available.