n LEESBURG
4 | n LOUDOUN
VOL. 8, NO. 42
6 | n EDUCATION
7 | n PUBLIC SAFETY
9| n LEGAL NOTICES
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SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
Administrators Work to Curb Absenteeism 67 Schools on Watch Lists BY ALEXIS GUSTIN
agustin@loudounnow.com
Loudoun County Public Schools is updating its student attendance policy to address chronic absenteeism—defined as missing 10% or more of the school year—after changes to the state’s school accreditation. The change has left school divisions scrambling to update policies and get the word out to parents that attendance matters in a post-pandemic world. During an Aug. 17 meeting of the School Board’s Student Services Committee, Director of Student Mental Health Services Jennifer Evans said 19% of division students are chronically absent, up six percentage points from the 2021-2022 school year. The state uses three levels in its evaluation of chronic absenteeism and accreditation. Evans said the division has 58 schools considered level two, and nine are in the highest level, with 25% of students missing 10% or more of the school year. That’s almost 70% of Loudoun’s 98 public schools. Level two schools require a local school division-level action plan, while level three schools require an action plan overseen by the Virginia Department of ABESNTEEISM continues on page 32
Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Thomas Reid holds the deed to family land going back to the founding of Howardsville in 1874.
A Howardsville Family’s Home is Reclaimed BY RENSS GREENE
rgreene@loudounnow.com
On Friday afternoon, Thomas Reid finally got the deed to the log cabin where he was born 78 years ago, and the family land going back to the founding of Howardsville by people who had just escaped slavery. The property on Greengarden Road—
where the very first Black families of Howardsville bought property shortly after the end of the Civil War—had seen its residents once again fall through the cracks. Howardsville is on land where people were once held in slavery, and where, after slavery was abolished, they bought land from their former enslavers. “There are 14 lots here, and eight of those lots are still either owned or lived on
by the heirs, the family members of those original owners,” said Kim Hart, who helped Reid win that deed. “Which is just incredible, that through all these years, all through Jim Crow, and all of those terrible things that happened, that those families made it and are still here.” HOWARDSVILLE HOME continues on page 33
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