LoudounNow LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 3, No. 42 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
Is hemp Loudoun’s next cash crop?
September 6, 2018 ]
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Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Phillip Thompson and others hope the site of the former freight station along Harrison Street in Leesburg will become a memorial to the lynching that occurred there.
Douglas Graham/Loudoun Now
Students head to class at Broad Run High School in Ashburn. Just as Virginia begins to track schools’ absentee rates as part of state accreditation standards, Loudoun County has seen a slight rise in absenteeism.
‘We Can’t Do This Alone’
E
ven before Loudoun County students have two full weeks of classes under their belt, they’re being told just how important it is to attend school regularly. After seeing a small dip in attendance over the past few years—and a change in state accreditation standards that takes into account a school’s attendance rate— Loudoun County Public Schools is putting in more support to ensure students get to class every day and on time. The school system’s attendance rate was 95.84 percent last school year. That’s down slightly from two years earlier, when it was 96.21 percent. While Loudoun’s rate is still among the highest in the state, administrators want to be proactive to break down any barriers that stand in the way of students getting to class. When it comes to attendance rates, the
Navigating the Path to Student Wellness Saturday, Oct. 13 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Briar Woods High School, Ashburn A free mental health and wellness conference for parents, educators and community members. county’s new Assistant Superintendent of Pupil Services Asia Jones said, “Every tenth of a percentage point is important. … Student achievement and academic success is directly tied to quality and consistency of instruction.” To try to ensure that message hits home, the School Board adopted a proclamation at its Aug. 14 meeting recognizing September as Attendance Awareness Month.
BY KARA C. RODRIGUEZ
Board members stressed that missing two or three days of school a month, regardless of the reason, is considered “chronic absenteeism” and can lead to academic trouble and higher dropout rates. “This is an issue that needs to be talked about publicly,” School Board member Debbie Rose (Algonkian) said at the last board meeting. “Absenteeism is a problem and it affects your student academically. Please do get to school and get to school on time.” With the help of six attendance officers, the school system is implementing a threetiered approach to school attendance. Tier one is a proactive step to let every student and parent know from the first day of school the importance of attendance. This tier includes pointing families to the student handbook, which lists what absences that are considered unexcused and ex-
Memorials recognizing Loudouners’ roles and sacrifices in past wars line the county courthouse lawn, but there is a push to bring recognition to some of the county’s lesser-known darker days. Phillip Thompson, president of the Loudoun County chapter of the NAACP, is spearheading an effort to memorialize three lynchings of black men that occurred in Loudoun County. Thompson said his passion for the project came on the heels of the renewed debate about whether the Confederate soldier statue should be removed from the courthouse square. Then, another set of Ku Klux Klan recruitment fliers was scattered around Loudoun County neighborhoods. Once he saw the “60 Minutes” interview on the lynching memorial in Alabama at the National Museum for Peace and Justice—which documents lynchings in each county throughout the country—he went to see it for himself. He returned inspired to draw Loudouners’ attention to what occurred in their own backyard. “There’s 1,000 markers out here dealing with something Civil War-related,” he noted. “Why don’t we have historical
ABSENTEEISM >> 38
MEMORIALS >> 38
Loudoun Schools Respond to Rise in Absenteeism with a Call to Parents BY DANIELLE NADLER
Memorials Would Spur Reflections on Local Lynchings
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