ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ/VASS Release) - Dr. Verletta B. White, Superintendent of Roanoke City Public Schools, was named Virginia Superintendent of the Year at the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) Annual Awards Luncheon Monday in Roanoke. VASS officers and the presidents of several major state education organizations participated in the selection process, according to VASS.

Richmond Public Schools must live with the $21 million increase from city taxpayers, and retired city employees, for now, will not get an anticipated 5 percent bonus. Also, there will be no new funding to aid the city in battling climate change. However, the Richmond Ambulance Author-

STAUNTON - Robo-Dog is coming to Staunton High School. Staunton City Schools was one of 16 divisions to receive grant money to upgrade equipment for CTE (career and technical education) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs. Virginia's Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons made the announcement Wednesday.

Terlene Terry-Todd is a master teaching artist from the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts. The woman better known as Ms. T took up residence at Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary School and had the children transform into exotic animals to engage their imaginations while cleverly teaching them about reading, counting and the environment.

Despite disparities in student performance, a majority of Virginia voters say they believe the state's public schools provide equal opportunities for students across racial and income groups, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.

Culpeper County Public Schools recently announced an expansion of its School Bus Safety program, which seeks to prevent illegal passing of school buses. Since it began the program in 2018, the school system has partnered with BusPatrol, a safety technology company based in Lorton, to install stop arm cameras on its buses.

For the first time since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, schools in Virginia will be graded on whether students are coming to school. In Virginia, chronically absent students are defined as those who miss 10 percent or more of the school year, which typically measures out to missing 18 or more days.

The Halifax County School Board chewed on the topics of school lunches and ramping up safety measures at their recent meeting. Halifax County Public Schools Finance Director Dr. Karen Bucklew highlighted the positive changes in school lunches this year before the school trustees voted to renew HCPS' contract with their food service management company Sodexo Operations for one year.

SOL testing kicks off for Fredericksburg City Public Schools this week, and students in grades 3 through 8 had an extra chance to prep for the state assessments with division teachers over the weekend. The Fredericksburg Alliance for Student Achievement, or FASA, hosted the second of two free test prep sessions at the Mayfield Community Center from 9 to 11 a.m.

The ACLU is calling the removal of 14 books from Spotsylvania public school libraries "unconstitutional." In an April 21 letter to the School Board, Matthew Callahan, ACLU of Virginia's senior supervising attorney, urged the division to "reject the superintendent's misguided and unconstitutional proposal to adopt a policy requiring the automatic removal of challenged books."