RICHMOND, Va. -- As low SOL scores loom over Richmond Public Schools during its first week back to class, a group of advocates declared an "educational crisis" in the city.
Several community groups, including Richmond Crusade for Voters, Richmond NAACP, Richmond For All and Richmond Democracy Center, joined forces Wednesday to express concerns over RPS' poor performance on this past year's standardized tests. More specifically, advocates pointed to achievement gaps facing low-income minority children when it comes to reading and math proficiency.
“Our schools have produced generations of poorly educated people in our city that don't place a premium on education," said Garry Callis, Sr. with Richmond Crusade for Voters. "The system has failed them."
During the 2021-2022 school year, data from the Virginia Department of Education revealed that 85% of white students passed reading and 77% passed math.
But for Black students, pass rates sat at 45% in reading and 31% in math. For Hispanic students, 38% passed reading and 36% passed math.
"This is not an indictment against our courageous teachers," Callis said. "Rather to shed light on the miseducation of Black, Brown, and poor people that has been going on for years."
Meanwhile the district's overall graduation rate this past year was 79%.
“That means that we're graduating a large number of students that can't read, write, or perform rudimentary math," Callis said. "Basically, Richmond Public Schools are putting out people that cannot take care of themselves, that now they're making a low wage income, if they are working at all, or they've subjected themselves to crime and all the ways to make ends meet."
“Without education, we are looking at one of the most grimmest futures for our youth that we can imagine," said Frank Moseley with the Richmond Democracy Center. "If we think crime and poverty are an issue now, it's not going to get better unless we start doing something proactively to make that change."
In an effort to bring forward solutions, community leaders announced multiple demands and requests from RPS leaders:
- Creative intervention plans for each school "that allow the RPS academic support team to work with teachers and administrators to create intervention plans specific to each school, almost like having each school having their own IEP, specific to their population, their demographics, and the academic outcomes based on the scores," Callis said.
- Audits of attendance, staffing, and funds that have been used for academic support
- Allowing future graduates to spend two years at Richmond Technical Center to hone skills before entering the workforce
- Have RPS and city government create initiatives to hire RPS graduates as staff members in schools and city hall
- Changes to the curriculum and implementation of course materials to give teachers more freedom in the classroom
- Accountability from "ineffective RPS leadership"
Former council member Marty Jewell criticized Superintendent Jason Kamras for "not producing positive results" and claimed his leadership has led to a "sad state of affairs" for RPS. He also weighed in on recent dysfunction among school board members.
"We've got a school board that is at odds with each other fractionally, minority antagonistic to the majority," Jewell said. "It's always a five-four vote, and so that's got to get cleaned up."
School board governance has been a heated issue for many in the RPS community over the past several weeks. Leading up to last Tuesday's emergency school board meeting to address low SOL scores and potential personnel changes, Mayor Levar Stoney took aim at the school board majority on social media for not addressing pandemic learning loss in the way he best saw fit.
Mayor Stoney also penned an opinion piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch after the meeting, which did not lead to any actions being taken, slamming the board for wasting teachers', families', and the administration's time.
In contrast to community partners criticizing Kamras, the mayor wrote that the superintendent's biggest barrier to success is the school board.
"The body voted against his recommendation to move to a year-round academic calendar, cut his budget request, blocked his hiring of a chief wellness officer, chased out his chief operating officer, and forced him to ignore city-based resources and hire a school construction team from scratch," Stoney wrote in the RTD.
"The mayor should respect the democratically elected school board and focus on providing the funds necessary to support the students in the classroom," Jewell said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, other representatives of the board have weighed in on governance challenges in the past week.
"I believe the governance team (nine board members and Kamras) are working as a democratic body as many entities will do that involve governance of an organization. We are not here to notarize Mr. Kamras' agenda. We are here to address student achievement by implementing our policies. My goal is not to focus on the politics of the school board, but rather on the heavy and oftentimes complicated performance of the role. When school board members do not agree with Mr. Kamras those persons are created to be adversaries and they are not," said School Board Chair Dr. Shonda Harris-Muhammed the day after the emergency meeting.
Also following the meeting, 4th District Representative Jonathan Young called the board "embarrassing" after the board failed to adopt a motion that would've changed the curriculum by the end of the 2022-2023 school year. He shamed members who "want to defend the status quo." He added, "God help them."
9th District Representative Nicole Jones publicly suggested during the emergency meeting that board majority members Harris-Muhammed, Young, Mariah White, Stephanie Rizzi, and Kenya Gibson keep minority members out of the loop on board business by communicating in private group chats and emails.
And 1st District School Board Representative Liz Doerr addressed governance issues in a recent newsletter to her constituents, "Personally, I’m committed to following the RPS Governance Norms (developed and approved by this board) as well as state/local policies. This includes not voting on resolutions made the night of, asking for a fiscal/legal review of major policies, accepting the will of the majority of the board even when I disagree, avoiding last-minute changes to the agenda, and focusing the conversation on student success and not whatever whirlwind of the day has surfaced via social media."
Now community members decry, "enough is enough."
“Right now, we have a system where no one’s been held accountable, and when nobody’s been held accountable, you have the blame game," Callis said.
In response to Wednesday's press conference, Harris-Muhammed said a "lack of accountability" is prevalent in the "public's view."
"Furthermore, accountability involves a tiered level approach: 1) Description of tasks, 2) Timeline of completion, 3) Monitoring of the tasks, and 4) Application of SMART goals. The school board's role is to evaluate the four bullets on a continuous basis regardless of how anyone feels about the division leadership," Harris-Muhammed said.
She added, "Accountability is our job. This is not a personalized fairy tale. It is a business educating our most valuable and precious gems, our children, which is happening in real-time. I believe with external partners who have demonstrated their cohesiveness and the ability to support our schools, we will with their support, make a difference and apply positive results of the accreditation detail reports that have been recently released."
While a spokesperson for the superintendent declined to comment for this story, Kamras has defended the current curriculum. During last week's presentation to the board on SOL scores, he highlighted data showing test scores declines by subgroups, including Black and economically disadvantaged students, were less than state average declines in almost subject.
RPS students also saw significant improvement in Virginia Growth Assessments between fall 2021 and spring 2022. Scores were up 12 points in reading and 27 points in math in that time period.
“It is a well documented, well-researched fact that putting rigorous material in front of children is one of the best levers towards closing gaps in achievement by race, economic background and ability status," Kamras said last week.
