https://tsaharrisonburg.substack.com/

TSA_Harrisonburg, Harrisonburg, VA (2026)

05/28/2026

Scheikl rejected as MTC speaker: City not consulted in removing former superintendent

By Deb and Joe Fitzgerald

After spending years helping lead one of the two school divisions that built and sustained the Massanutten Technical Center for more than 50 years, Oskar Scheikl said he was honored when MTC Director Kevin Hutton invited him in March to speak at Tuesday night’s graduation ceremony, a gesture he described in a Wednesday social media post as both meaningful and deeply appreciated.

On May 1, he was formally uninvited. The official reason, delivered by email, stated that the MTC director had “exceeded the scope of his authority” in extending the invitation. The joint MTC Board that governs the institution till June of 2027 was not consulted. Scheikl, reading between the lines, concluded the directive came from Rockingham County Public Schools leadership, in part because he now works part-time as a data systems coordinator for Harrisonburg City Public Schools.

That appears to be reason enough for a former county superintendent to be told he was no longer welcome to address students at a center he helped lead for years.

“That’s how petty the interactions have become,” Scheikl wrote.

This also fits a pattern observers have been documenting about city-county interactions for more than two years, a period that has seen a grinding accumulation of exclusions, large and small.

In March 2025, county board members voted down HCPS board member Dr. Andy Kohen, the most senior member of the MTC board, for MTC vice chair, with no explanation offered. They simply voted no and said nothing. Kohen is the only Jewish member of the board and has been openly supportive of LGBT students, a stance county board members do not share. (Link in comments.)

That same month, reports surfaced that Rockingham County was quietly exploring building a new MTC facility without formally notifying city officials, while simultaneously pushing to rewrite the governing agreement to give county members 80 percent of the vote, all based on budget numbers they had misstated in a press release. (Link in comments.)

The city’s school board rejected the county’s proposed changes, offered reasonable counter-proposals, and got nothing workable in return. (Link in comments.)

By June, Rockingham County was taking presentations on a $75 million new facility while city Superintendent Michael Richards wasn’t in the room. Richards wrote a letter calling it out directly: the process “lacked meaningful inclusion.” (Link in comments.)

By August, the city’s school board voted 5-0-1 to end a 55-year partnership. “The trust has been broken,” said board member Kaylene Seigle, the board’s only Republican, who abstained. “This is a sad day.” (Link in comments.)

The city is moving forward. A planning committee has been working on career and technical education alternatives, with a promising partnership with Blue Ridge Community College taking shape and the possibility that the city’s students may ultimately be better served and at lower cost. (Link in comments.)

But Scheikl’s removal as speaker is a reminder of how personal and how small this has gotten on one side of this dispute. A former county superintendent, now doing part-time work for the city, gets quietly disinvited from a ceremony at a school he helped lead. Not through a conversation, but through a bureaucratic boilerplate email invoking process. It’s the same energy that opposed a vice chair nomination without explanation, that excluded city officials from a $75 million planning process, that issued a press release with numbers everyone knew to be false.

At some point, a pattern of behavior stops requiring explanation of individual motives. It simply describes the situation.

The students who graduated Tuesday night didn’t need to hear from Oskar Scheikl to have a meaningful ceremony. But they deserved leaders who could put their pettiness aside long enough not to make the night about themselves.

05/27/2026

Council Meeting mostly reports; Homelessness, stormwater among topics of presentations.
By Deb and Joe Fitzgerald

The most consequential action by Harrisonburg City Council at its Tuesday meeting was final approval of the $407 million budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, but while important, it passed without comment.

Before approving the budget, the council held a public hearing on the tax rate for the coming fiscal year, unchanged at $1.01 per $100 of assessed value. But while the tax rate did not go up, assessments rose by 2.5 percent, bringing in an added $1.3 million at the same rate. No council member commented, and the rate was approved.

The council heard a presentation on homelessness in the Valley from Wi******er to Harrisonburg by HMIS administrator Kaitlin Heatwole, but only four of the 21 slides applied to Harrisonburg. The hour-long presentation, a general discussion of the causes and nature of homelessness, did not include discussion of any City Council action.

The four numbers about Harrisonburg were as follows: There are 191 homeless people in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, 162 in shelters and 29 unsheltered; the homeless population is a little less than 20 percent children; rates are disproportionately higher for the black and hispanic population; and 86 percent of the homeless are local.

That final number was presented to make the point that Harrisonburg’s homeless shelter has not drawn people from other localities, according to the presenter. The presentation was made by the Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority. For those interested in the topic, the video of the meeting is linked in the comments.

The council also heard the final recommendation by Kristin McCombe, CDBG Program Manager, for allocation of $555,000 in federal Community Development Block Grand funds for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Included in the allocation are $200,000 will go for sewer maintenance, $97,000 for administration, $111,000 for signage at the city’s schools, $70,000 to resurface a basketball court at Ralph Sampson Park, $34,000 for an ADA sidewalk at Morrison Park, and $30,000 for Meals on Wheels.

Council also approved a pro forma resolution allowing city staff to administer VDOT funding and grants.

The council heard a presentation from Jeremy Harold on a landscaping plan for downtown, drawn up with help from a grant from the Virginia Department of Forestry Urban & Community Forestry. Council took no action on the plan.

The council heard a presentation on the city’s Stormwater Improvement Plan. The project to reduce certain emissions into Blacks Run and Cooks Creek is expected to be more than halfway complete by the year 2073. (Repeating 2073 to clarify that it is not a typo.) The project includes 87 Best Management Plans for emission controls at various city facilities, including those on city schools. . Council voted to approve the improvement plan.

The council went into closed session after the open meeting to discuss litigation. A mediation session was scheduled for earlier in the day on the suit against the city by a firm hoping to build a rehab center, but there is no way to know if that was the topic of the closed session.

05/19/2026

School Board OK's placeholder budget: Final plan depends on General Assembly ending its delays

By Deb and Joe Fitzgerald

Harrisonburg’s School Board adopted a placeholder division budget while the Virginia General Assembly remains deadlocked on the state budget. The board wanted to guarantee a 12 percent raise for instructional assistants (IAs) rather than the flat 3 percent raise in the original placeholder presented by Superintendent Dr. Michael Richards, even with the uncertainty surrounding final state funding numbers. Staff provided that budget, which passed unanimously.

To make the math work, staff proposed a revised placeholder budget that includes the 12 percent IA raise but offsets it with a series of spending cuts and holds, including frozen new positions, a 5 percent reduction in school budgets, deferred maintenance and painting projects, and prepaying some software costs using expiring grant funds. Complicating the picture further is a projected small enrollment decline, with average daily membership (ADM) revised down from 6,350 to 6,250, a drop that reduces state basic aid by roughly $100,000. One silver lining: the incoming kindergarten class is expected to be larger than the existing 12th grade class. Total budget adjustments leave the division about $1.4 million short, to be filled in once the state acts, which the superintendent expects will happen by late June.

The board also discussed the city council HCPS appropriation, with Richards explaining that HCPS voluntarily reduced the division ask by $500,000 given that approximately $5.1 million in additional state funds are anticipated. There was discussion of a potential one-time infusion from CTE reserve funds (roughly $518,000 set aside from the former Massanutten Tech Center partnership) and the possibility of a future salary study, though neither is baked into this budget. The board voted unanimously to adopt the placeholder budget as presented, including salary scales reflecting the 12 percent IA raise and a new stipend for special education case managers, with the explicit understanding that the board will reconvene once final state numbers are known to restore cuts and lift holds. The superintendent also noted that Gov. Abigail Spanberger has directed a rerun of revenue projections, which Richards read as a positive signal that more education funding is coming.

The board and the superintendent expressed real frustration that the General Assembly isn’t even in session right now and there’s no evidence the House and Senate are actively negotiating finalized budget numbers. Board members noted that HCPS is required by law to have a budget in place by the end of May, while the state doesn’t face a budget deadline until the end of June, a structural mismatch that Richards suggested should be addressed in the division’s future legislative program.

Beyond the IA raises, the budget absorbed increased utility costs, stormwater management fees owed to the city, and significant technology cost increases, noting that laptop prices are up roughly 50 percent, with Chromebook increases also expected.

Chair Dr. Tim Howley noted that next year will be HCPS’s first year of collective bargaining, and Richards anticipates it will require a larger ask of the city than usual as contracts are negotiated.

Howley also mentioned he had already sent a letter to all HCPS employees on behalf of the board, explaining the budget process and acknowledging the difficult position the state’s delay has created. The board also discussed the possibility of passing a formal resolution to communicate with legislators, though no action was taken on that tonight.

05/14/2026

Planners draw a line on student housing
Commission denies JMU Foundation request for apartment complex
by Deb and Joe Fitzgerald

Harrisonburg’s Planning Commission Wednesday night rejected a proposed student housing complex at Port Road and Peach Grove Avenue, but approved a smaller development of 1- and 2-bedroom apartments on South Main Street abutting the Purcell Park neighborhood.

The longest discussion of the four-hour meeting concerned a student housing development proposed for a 15-acre parcel on Peach Grove Avenue. A developer and the JMU Real Estate Foundation wanted to build a 207-unit apartment complex with a mix of one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom units. The targeted area is behind and alongside Vito's, and across the street from Eagle Carpet.

The site has a complicated history, in that previous owners received approvals for large residential or mixed-use projects going back to 2019. However, those plans were either revised, never built, or allowed to expire. The current proposal would have included the various apartments along with sidewalks, bus shelter, bicycle parking, and street improvements.

Despite those offered improvements, city staff recommended denial, basically saying the city doesn’t need student housing at that location, a mile from campus, and that the city has more pressing housing needs, particularly for affordable and middle-income families.

Staff also noted that JMU's own strategic plan calls for housing more students on campus by 2040, which could leave this development poorly suited for other residents if student demand shifts. Weldon Cooper Center’s K-12 student generation model for Harrisonburg predicts that this development’s proposed 207 residential units will generate “25 to 116 students at full build-out.”

Also, while the new project is intended for student housing, empty apartments vacated by students coming to this new complex would produce 207 empty units elsewhere in the city. This is a well-established pipeline for “accidental” affordable housing in the city, most often for young growing families, likely to add more students to HCPS than the WC narrower statistical model predicts. It’s one of the few times planning staff have explicitly acknowledged the pipeline in their zoning recommendations.

Commissioners largely agreed with staff's assessment, raising a range of interconnected concerns: the near-impossibility of converting four-bedroom student units into viable workforce or family housing down the road; the suppressive effect that reporting four-bedroom units as one-bedroom units has on Section 8 housing voucher values for low-income residents; the project's car-centric site design (with significant parking fronting the street); inadequate pedestrian connections to adjacent commercial properties like the Food Lion; and the fact that JMU's own strategic plan calls for housing 60 percent of students on campus by 2040, raising questions about the long-term viability of this type of off-campus student housing.

The debate also touched on broader frustrations about Harrisonburg's housing path: a persistent shortage of workforce and affordable housing, one of the lowest homeownership rates in Virginia, and a development market that keeps delivering student-oriented four-bedroom units because that's what works financially. Multiple commissioners expressed that while the project itself wasn't poorly designed, approving it would mean adding hundreds of bedrooms and potentially 500–600 more vehicles to an already overwhelmed corridor, and questioned whether the community has reached a tipping point where student housing demand should no longer take precedence over workforce housing need.

Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend denial of the application. The proposal is scheduled to go before City Council on June 9, unless the applicant withdraws it.

Commissioners unanimously recommended approval of a proposed project South Main near the Purcell Park neighborhood. The owner of a 1.23-acre property at 1340 South Main Street (between Maryland and South Avenues, next to the old RiteAid/new Dollar Tree) is asking the city to update a set of previously approved development agreements and renew two special use permits that have since expired. The original approvals, granted back in 2017, envisioned a mixed-use building combining apartments and ground-floor commercial space.

The new proposal keeps that same basic concept but makes some updates: the maximum number of units would increase slightly from 22 to 26, the unit mix would expand to allow some two-bedroom apartments (up to six), and commercial space would be capped at 5,000 square feet on the first floor. The developer has also committed to fencing along neighboring residential property lines, landscaping along Edgelawn Drive, and upgrading a sidewalk ramp at the corner of South Main Street and East Weaver Avenue to meet accessibility standards. One notable change is that a previously planned entrance on South Main Street has been dropped because it no longer meets the city's updated road access requirements.

City staff recommended approval, finding that the updated proposal was consistent with the site's Mixed Use land use designation and didn't meaningfully increase intensity compared to what was approved in 2017. The discussion that followed was notably more measured than the Peach Grove Avenue debate, though neighbors showed up with real concerns, primarily about traffic on the already-substandard Edgelawn Drive, parking enforcement issues related to nearby student housing, and the general strain on a neighborhood that has been absorbing increasing density for years.

Commissioners were largely sympathetic to the neighborhood concerns but ultimately concluded that most of those problems exist independent of this development and won't be materially changed by approving or denying it. Several commissioners noted that the property is already zoned R-5C for high-density residential and designated Mixed Use in the Comprehensive Plan, which means a developer could move forward with significant residential development largely by right regardless of the commission's vote.

The more relevant question became whether the mix of commercial space on the ground floor, the building's orientation toward South Main Street rather than parking-forward, and the modest unit count (26 units, mostly one-bedroom) represented a reasonable and appropriate use. The consensus was that it did.
One commissioner noted that this site is actually more walkable and bikeable to JMU than the Peach Grove Avenue project the commission had just denied, and that the commercial component could add something useful to the neighborhood rather than just adding density. Commissioners encouraged the applicant to meet with neighbors before the City Council hearing to address specific concerns about issues such as dumpster placement, fencing, and traffic management, noting that some residents seemed open to the project if those details could be worked out.

In other items, residents of 1315 Carrera Lane, also in the Purcell Park neighborhood, are asking the city for a special use permit to operate a short-term rental (like an Airbnb) in the finished apartment above their garage. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to send a favorable recommendation to City Council on the special use permit.

Finally, the owner of 850 Canterbury Court, near Westover Park, asked the city to rezone their property from standard single-family residential (R-1) to a "small lot" residential designation (R-8C) because they want to expand their front porch. The existing covered porch is only six feet deep, and the owner wanted to extend it up to 12 feet to avoid unstable, rocky ground that has been causing issues with the current porch's foundation. However, a larger porch would extend closer to the street than R-1 zoning normally allows, so the rezoning is needed to make it work. To address any concerns about the property being redeveloped more intensively, the owner has formally committed that the lot will remain a single-family home.

The Planning Commission voted unanimously to send a favorable recommendation to City Council for a hearing on June 9th.

The Planning Commission also heard a staff presentation on the process for rewriting the city’s zoning ordinance, essentially the same presentation given to City Council the night before.

05/13/2026

Council splits on zoning rewrite process; Council disbands citizen committee; gives task to Planning Commission
by Joe and Deb Fitzgerald

Harrisonburg’s City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to move forward with a staff recommendation to rewrite the city’s zoning ordinance, with the split vote hinging on whether to keep or disband a citizens’ committee formed six years ago to advise on the rewrite.

The Community Development Department staff recommended disbanding the Ordinance Advisory Committee and handing its role to the Planning Commission, citing efficiency, as the Commission already meets regularly and has extra meeting slots available. Multiple council members pushed back on equity and transparency grounds, saying public input sessions at the end of a process aren't the same as having community voices embedded throughout.

The 3-2 vote was in favor of disbanding the diverse advisory committee and handing the job to the all-male Planning Commission, although diversity was not a major issue in the discussion. The committee has not met since 2024, and had never heard or been asked to comment on the suggested changes presented to Council Tuesday night. Effectively, the council appointed the committee to advise on the changes, and then Community Development barely used the committee. After not consulting the committee for two years, the staff asked the Council to disband it.

One of the authors of TSA, Deb, was appointed to the now disbanded committee as a former Chair of the City Planning Commission.

This project started with the 2018 Comprehensive Plan and officially kicked off in July 2020, right when COVID hit. A Housing Study came in early 2021 with general guidance on possible changes, and a partial draft went public in Summer 2021. Since then, staff have been doing a deep dive on what reforms are actually feasible, which led them to scale back their ambitions and focus on getting the basics right first

Staff looked at some bold options early on: Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) everywhere, eliminating parking requirements, by-right apartments on major corridors. But three concerns pulled them back:

*Infrastructure -- Growth shouldn't outrun the city's water supply or school capacity.
*Public input -- Aggressive by-right development would cut out the rezoning process, which is currently the main way residents weigh in on big projects.
*Affordability -- Too much upzoning could flip entire blocks of modest, affordable homes into expensive redevelopments.
The decision: fix the foundation now, save the bigger debates for Phase 2.

Proposed changes include:
Language and format: The ordinance has been patched so many times over the years it's become a maze. Staff are cleaning up definitions, standardizing terminology, and replacing long paragraph lists of permitted uses with simple use tables, effectively using a grid where you can quickly look up what's allowed in any district, and where any particular use is permitted citywide.

Residential districts: The current tangle of 9+ overlapping districts gets replaced with four that reflect what's actually on the ground:

-Apartment Communities: Garden-style apartment complexes; no major changes proposed yet. Off-campus student housing falls largely here, and that conversation is being saved for Phase 2.
-Townhouse Communities: Existing townhouse developments get their own district, plus a fix that eliminates the need for developers to come back to council twice for the same project.
-Traditional Neighborhoods: Older, mixed neighborhoods on grid streets. Single-family and duplexes by right; townhomes and apartments by special exception. Also gives currently nonconforming units a path to legal compliance.
-Single-Family Neighborhoods: Predominantly detached homes on winding streets. Single-family by right; duplexes by special exception. It appears that ADUs are coming regardless by July 1, 2027, because Virginia state law will require it.

Non-residential districts: B-2 gets split into Auto Urban Commercial (think East Market Street big-box corridor) and Neighborhood Commercial (smaller-scale, residential-compatible). Downtown B-1 becomes a Mixed Use district. A new Mixed Use Neighborhood category is created as a framework for future projects but won't be mapped anywhere yet. Industrial stays mostly the same, but homes sitting on industrially-zoned land that the Comprehensive Plan calls residential will be moved to appropriate residential districts.

All five members of City Council were generally supportive of moving forward with discussing the changes and developing a final amended ordinance by next year, seven years into the process. The sticking point was the objections of council members Laura Dent and Monica Robinson to disbanding the committee. Both said it would mean less public input into the zoning changes.

Vice Mayor Dany Fleming appeared to oppose and then support disbanding the committee, and suggested an undefined “engagement process.” Fleming had suggested a similar process about The Link last summer, but that wound up being conducted by The Link’s developer and was not a public process. City Manager Ande Banks indicated the staff could not come up with such a process by the May 26 meeting, which would delay any decision until June 9.

Fleming then made a motion to endorse the staff approach, disband the advisory committee, and require that staff present an input plan. However, he spoke so long in making the motion that Mayor Reed had to cut him off.

“You started talking. Stay with your motion. What was your motion?” she asked.

The discussion then went on for several minutes, with Fleming either amending or replacing his original motion, leaving council members trying to figure out what motion was before them and what they were voting on. The motion passed 3-2, with Robinson and Dent voting no.

This was the second meeting in a row that the council did not begin streaming the meeting on time. Two weeks ago public hearings on The Link and the city budget were not streamed, with the system finally coming on three hours into the discussion of The Link. The delay this week was because a closed session before the regular meeting ran long, delaying the start by more than 20 minutes.

The stated reason for the closed session was litigation. The city has been ordered by a federal court to enter into mediation on May 26 over a proposed rehab center on Maryland Avenue, with a city representative present authorized to make final decisions. It is only speculation whether that was the reason for the closed session. The city may be getting sued over something else as well.

Also Tuesday, the council took the first vote on the city budget, which is couched as an appropriation ordinance. Dent, voting on her sixth budget, had to ask what an appropriation ordinance was. Council must take a second vote on the budget before July 1.

The council also approved a change in encroachment rules downtown, which mostly affect sidewalk tables outside restaurants and cafes, and planters outside businesses. In the future, encroachments will be approved by Community Development instead of having to come before City Council.

A light moment in the meeting, although perhaps not to the participants, came when council member Nasser Alsaadun asked what age customers would be permitted in a proposed arcade, tavern, and beer canning facility at 140 East Wolfe Street. The applicants thought he had asked about the ages of the games in the arcade, causing several moments of confusion. The question was clarified and answered, but only after another council member tried to explain that they would be games similar to Pac-Man.

The East Wolfe Street special use permit, for the storefront next to the Friendly City Food Co-op, will allow the applicant to convert the space from a former retail store into a tavern and arcade, where customers can eat, drink, and play games. In addition, they want to install a small beer canning line in the back of the building. The beer itself would be brewed at their other location (Restless Moons Brewing on West Wolfe Street), then transported to this site for packaging. Some of the packaged beer would be sold on-site, while some would be sent back to the original brewery.

The canning operation was one of three zoning issues approved by the council, with all three detailed more fully in the comment in the first link. The other approvals, detailed in the link, were for a short-term rental above Ruby's Arcade downtown, and revisions to the master plan for the long-stalled Collicello North development.

05/06/2026

HCPS defers budget vote for two weeks: Localities still waiting on final state spending plan

By Deb and Joe Fitzgerald

Harrisonburg’s School Board delayed passing a budget at its Tuesday meeting, with board Chair Dr. Tim Howley saying it was unfair to expect localities to meet budget deadlines when the General Assembly has not met theirs.

The last agenda item from Tuesday’s meeting was expected to be a vote on the budget, first presented to the Board on March 3, more than two months ago. Executive Director for Finance Daniel Kirwan reported again that the General Assembly has missed its deadline and no budget resolution is expected until June, leaving every school division uncertain as to the level of state funding expected next year.

Superintendent Michael Richards proposed to adopt the budget as is and then plan to amend the budget in June, after Richmond comes to agreement on funding levels. The primary impasse is a disagreement over tax exemptions for data centers, despite Democratic current control of the House of Delegates, the State Senate, and the governor’s mansion.

Dr. Andy Kohen made a motion to pass the budget, with the caveat that when additional state funding becomes known and available, those extra funds will go to increases in salaries for Instructional Assistants (IA’S). Other board members spoke of their unwillingness to pass a budget without a larger pay increase for IA’s. After discussion, Dr. Kohen withdrew his motion and the vote will be postponed for 2 more weeks until their May 19th work session, hoping for more information.

School Board action may complicate upcoming budget votes for the Harrisonburg City Council, who must by city code adopt a balanced budget no later than 30 days prior to the start of the fiscal year. The City of Harrisonburg operates on a fiscal year from July 1 to June 30.

This means the city budget is legally required to be approved on or before May 31 of each year. The HCPS budget is part of the overall city budget. City Council meets on May 12th and May 26th.

The rest of the meeting was filled with recognitions, awards, and detailed information items and reports.

The evening kicked off the expected year-end recognitions and awards, including high school debate teams, the VA Math League, HHS creative writing students, and musicians from both HHS and RHS.

Next on the agenda was an update from the Gifted Education Advisory Committee (GEAC), provided by Dr. Jeremy Aldrich, Gifted Director, and GEAC chair parent Nathan Brustein,Three related documents were presented together to the board; together they cover program data, progress on prior recommendations, and new recommendations for 2026–27.

HCPS gifted education is showing real gains in SOL performance and in clustering of gifted students together in classes. Year-over-year SOL Pass Advanced rates improved significantly for gifted students: 54% Pass Advanced English (up from 36% in Spring 2024), and 57% Pass Advanced Math (up from 43% in Spring 2024.) The gifted Talent Development pipeline is a promising equity tool with good results this year. Persistent challenges remain: underrepresentation of Hispanic and English Learner students in gifted identification, a near-complete absence of gifted-endorsed classroom teachers, no high school Advanced Learning Specialists despite a multi-year commitment to hire them, and limited collaborative planning time between classroom teachers and gifted specialists.

Recommendations for 2026 include:
#1: Middle School Intervention Grouping: Each middle school should consolidate all gifted and talent development students into a single dedicated intervention group, or provide written justification for why that model isn’t feasible.

#2: Instructional Coaches & Differentiation: Since dedicated planning time with Advanced Learning Specialists remains scarce, the GEAC wants to explore whether instructional coaches can play a larger role in supporting gifted differentiation.

#3: High School Advanced Learning Specialists: The GEAC is renewing its call for a dedicated ALS at each high school. Priority focus areas include: AP course availability and scheduling, hybrid/shared course offerings between Rocktown and Harrisonburg High Schools, expanded online course access, clear advanced math pathways, and building community among gifted students through recognition programs and honor societies. The GEAC notes these are priorities regardless of whether the ALS position gets filled.

Next up was Brian Nussbaum, secondary mathematics coordinator, with an update on VA-ADMIN (Advancing Development through a Mathematics Innovation Network), a VDOE grant-funded project led by Harrisonburg City Public Schools, alongside Virginia Beach and Prince William County. The central premise is that a high-quality math curriculum on the shelf isn’t enough; teachers and administrators need professional learning and practical tools to ensure that good materials actually translate into good teaching. The project has drawn significant statewide interest, with 45 school divisions expressing interest, 32 superintendents submitting letters of support, and representation from 7 of Virginia’s 8 VDOE regions. HCPS isn’t a participant here, but leading it, which positions Harrisonburg as a statewide model for math instruction improvement.

The project rolls out in three phases: onboarding this spring, an online evidence-based instruction course in summer 2026, and three statewide summits in fall 2026 focused on data analysis, action planning, and sharing results. The four pillars of the work are SOL resource alignment, open-source professional learning tools for administrators, curriculum implementation evaluation protocols, and building a lasting community of practice across Virginia. Importantly, all resources produced will remain free and publicly available to every school division in the Commonwealth after the grant ends.

Major goals of the project include developing support for SOL alignment across various adopted publisher resources, developing open source professional learning systems and ensuring they remain accessible post-grant. Also planned are methods for equipping administrators to be instructional experts, creating a community of practice where leaders across the Commonwealth can learn from and support one another.

Closing out the updates was an update from Amy Sabarre, HCPS K-12 STEM Education and HCPS Governor’s STEM Academy Director / Middle School Science Coordinator on the STEM Academy for 2026.

The Governor’s STEM Academy accepted 86 students for the 2026–27 school year and secured a strong collection of grants and donations totaling roughly $27,000 in cash funding plus $8,000 in in-kind support. On the broader statewide front, HCPS serves as the Lead Hub for the Virginia STEM Ecosystem, a Governor’s STEM Advisory Board initiative that secured a $142,000 grant to build regional collaboration across Virginia.

Harrisonburg anchors Regions 5, 6, and 7, while Newport News leads Regions 1, 2, and 8, and Arlington leads Region 4. Each hub has tailored programming, such as career labs, teacher credentialing, career exploration fairs, and STEM summits, with shared resources, pooled equipment, and joint grant initiatives connecting all three. The ecosystem tracks progress through a unified data dashboard measuring student participation, educator training, industry partnerships, and program completion. The overarching goals are workforce development, equitable educational access, and regional economic innovation through PK–12 STEM programming.

The Board also reviewed a series of policies:

-- New Policy 461: Student-Athlete Extreme Heat Safety and Protection, Policy 461 is a new policy designed to protect student-athletes during outdoor practices and games in dangerous heat conditions.

-- Policy 409: Parental Involvement in Education, affirms that parents and guardians have a fundamental right to be involved in their child’s education. This one was deferred to check on the legal difference between guardians and custodial parents, a distinction that matters in a few places in the policy.

-- Policy 719: Vocational Education, a policy to ensure that HCPS prepares students for life after graduation, whether that means college, a career, the military, or starting a business. Starting in middle school, students get exposure to career exploration, and by high school, that grows into structured programs that connect academic learning with real-world job skills based on actual labor market demands. Every student’s Academic and Career Plan includes information on top professions in Virginia, the skills those jobs require, and relevant higher education programs. The school also notifies high school students and families annually about postsecondary education data and the option to earn a nationally recognized career readiness certificate through a local high school, community college, or workforce center.

On the partnership side, the policy allows HCPS to collaborate with local businesses, community colleges, and other higher education institutions to open up real pathways for students. Through High School to Work Partnerships, students can gain workplace experience while still in school. Through College and Career Access Pathways Partnerships , which HCPS can enter into with institutions like Blue Ridge Community College, students may earn college credit, industry credentials, certifications, or licenses alongside their high school diploma. The policy also supports pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs that count toward both high school and college credit. The overall goal is to make sure every student leaves with something marketable in hand. Passed unanimously on 1st reading.

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