Richmond Public Schools
Encyclopedia
This school division
contains public schools serving 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
which is located in a different region northeast of the city.
. Interestingly, Powell's law firm had represented one of the defendant school districts in the case that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court under the "Brown" label. Powell did not take any part in his law firm's representation of that client school district. The lawsuit, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
, later became one of the five cases decided under the caption Brown v. Board of Education
before the Supreme Court of the United States
in 1954. The Richmond School Board had no authority at the time to force integration, however, as control over attendance policies had been transferred to the state government. Powell later became president of the American Bar Association
and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
.
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 .
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. Once the student does return to school, he/she will be assisted by the DPI Intake Counselors, who work with recovered students to help the student re-adjust to being in school. Upon his/her return, the student will also 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 .
School division
-Canada:In Canada the term is used to the area controlled by a school board and is used interchangeably with school district, including in the formal name of the board. For example, see List of Alberta school boards.-United States:...
contains public schools serving the independent city
Independent city
An independent city is a city that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity. These type of cities should not be confused with city-states , which are fully sovereign cities that are not part of any other sovereign state.-Historical precursors:In the Holy Roman Empire,...
of Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
. It is occasionally described locally as Richmond City Public Schools to emphasize its connection to the independent city rather than the Richmond-Petersburg
Richmond-Petersburg
The Greater Richmond Region is a region located in a central part of the state of Virginia in the United States. As of 2010, it had a population of 1,258,251, making it the 43rd largest MSA in the country...
region at large or the rural Richmond County
Richmond County, Virginia
Richmond County is a county located on the Northern Neck in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a state in the United States. As of 2010, the population was 9,254. Its county seat is Warsaw. The rural county should not be confused with the large city and state capital Richmond, Virginia, which is over...
which is located in a different region northeast of the city.
Elementary schools
- Bellevue Elementary School
- Blackwell Elementary School
- Broad Rock Elementary School
- George Washington Carver Elementary School
- John B. Cary Elementary School
- Chimborazo Elementary School
- Clark Springs Elementary School
- Fairfield Court Elementary School
- J. B. Fisher Elementary School
- William Fox Elementary School
- J. L. Francis Elementary School
- Ginter Park Elementary School
- E. S. H. Greene Elementary School
- Linwood Holton Elementary School
- Miles J. Jones Elementary School
- George Mason Elementary School
- Maymont Elementary School
- Mary Munford Elementary School
- Oak Grove Elementary School
- Overby-Sheppard Elementary School
- E. D. Redd Elementary School
- G. H. Reid Elementary School
- Southampton Elementary School
- J. E. B. Stuart Elementary School
- Summer Hill Elementary School
- Swansboro Elementary School
- Westover Hills Elementary School
- Woodville Elementary School
Middle schools
- Binford Middle School
- Thomas C. Boushall Middle School
- Lucille M. Brown Middle School
- Chandler Middle School
- Elkhardt Middle School
- Thomas H. Henderson Model Middle School
- Albert Hill Middle School
- Martin Luther King Jr. Middle SchoolMartin Luther King Jr. Middle SchoolMartin Luther King Jr. Middle School, part of the Richmond Public Schools system, is a middle school located in Richmond, Virginia, USA with roughly 800 students in grades 6 through 8.- Principals : *1964-1966 Dr. Arnold R. Henderson*1966-1975 Fred Swann...
- Fred D. Thompson Middle School
High schools
- Armstrong High SchoolArmstrong High School (Richmond, Virginia)Armstrong High School, part of the Richmond Public Schools system, is a high school located in Richmond, Virginia, with grades 9-12.Known at first as the Richmond Colored Normal School, Armstrong was the first public school in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, for African American...
- Huguenot High SchoolHuguenot High SchoolHuguenot High School, part of the Richmond Public Schools system, is a high school located in Richmond, Virginia, with grades 9-12.Huguenot High School was named in honor of the Huguenots, French Protestants who emigrated to the English Virginia Colony beginning in the early 18th century.-Land for...
- Thomas Jefferson High SchoolThomas Jefferson High School (Richmond, Virginia)The Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond, Virginia is a public high school. The Art Deco building, constructed in 1929 and opened in 1930, has been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was designed by architect Charles M. Robinson...
- John Marshall High School
- George Wythe High School
Alternative high schools
- Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts and TechnologyAppomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts And TechnologyThe Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts And Technology is a public regional magnet high school in downtown Petersburg, Virginia....
-- regional magnet schoolMagnet schoolIn education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
to which RPS contributes students, located in PetersburgPetersburg, VirginiaPetersburg is an independent city in Virginia, United States located on the Appomattox River and south of the state capital city of Richmond. The city's population was 32,420 as of 2010, predominantly of African-American ethnicity... - Franklin Military Academy
- Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International StudiesMaggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International StudiesThe Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies is a public regional magnet high school in Richmond, Virginia....
-- regional magnet schoolMagnet schoolIn education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
to which RPS contributes students, located in the Newtowne-West neighborhood of Richmond, adjacent to the Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVirginia Commonwealth UniversityVirginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...
campus. - Open High School
- Richmond Community High SchoolRichmond Community High SchoolRichmond Community High School is an alternative high school operated by the Richmond City Public Schools in Richmond, Virginia, USA. It was founded in 1977 as America's first full-time, four year, public high school for academically talented students primarily from minority and low-income...
Other schools
- 13 Acres
- Adult Career Development Center (ACDC)
- Amelia
- Educare
- Hospital Education
- Mathematics & Science Center
- Pre-School Development Center
- REAL School
- Richmond Detention Center
- Richmond Technical Center
- Virginia Treatment Center
History
From 1952 to 1961, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. was Chairman of the Richmond School Board. Powell presided over the school board at a time when the Commonwealth of Virginia was locked in a campaign of defiance against the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of EducationBrown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
. Interestingly, Powell's law firm had represented one of the defendant school districts in the case that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court under the "Brown" label. Powell did not take any part in his law firm's representation of that client school district. The lawsuit, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County was one of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1954, officially overturned racial segregation in U.S. public schools...
, later became one of the five cases decided under the caption Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
before the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in 1954. The Richmond School Board had no authority at the time to force integration, however, as control over attendance policies had been transferred to the state government. Powell later became president of the American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
.
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. Once the student does return to school, he/she will be assisted by the DPI Intake Counselors, who work with recovered students to help the student re-adjust to being in school. Upon his/her return, the student will also 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 .
Trivia
- Two of Richmond's public school facilities are physically located slightly outside the corporate limits of the independent cityIndependent cityAn independent city is a city that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity. These type of cities should not be confused with city-states , which are fully sovereign cities that are not part of any other sovereign state.-Historical precursors:In the Holy Roman Empire,...
in the East EndEast End (Richmond, Virginia)The East End of Richmond, Virginia is the quadrant of the City of Richmond, Virginia, and more loosely the Richmond metropolitan area, east of the downtown.-Geographic boundaries:...
. They are Armstrong High SchoolArmstrong High School (Richmond, Virginia)Armstrong High School, part of the Richmond Public Schools system, is a high school located in Richmond, Virginia, with grades 9-12.Known at first as the Richmond Colored Normal School, Armstrong was the first public school in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, for African American...
located in the former Kennedy High School complex, and Fairfield Court Elementary School. Each is located in a small portion of Henrico CountyHenrico County, VirginiaHenrico is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a state of the United States. As of 2010, Henrico was home to 306,935 people. It is located in the Richmond-Petersburg region and is a portion of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area...
adjacent to Interstate 64Interstate 64 in VirginiaIn the U.S. state of Virginia, Interstate 64 runs east–west through the middle of the state from West Virginia to the Hampton Roads region, a total of . It is notable for crossing the mouth of the harbor of Hampton Roads on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the first bridge-tunnel to...
which was isolated geographically from the rest of the county when the Interstate highway was built in the 1960s.