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"Board members are all 'sworn to secrecy,' which he does not like because 'it makes us all look like we’re not all that sharp.' ”
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For years, Fairfax County Public Schools reported to the federal government that not a single student was physically restrained or trapped in an isolating space. But documents obtained by WAMU reveal hundreds of cases where children, some as young as 6 years old, were restrained or put in seclusion multiple times. In some cases, a single child was confined to a room almost 100 times in a school year. When asked why Fairfax school officials reported zero cases in 2009, 2013 and 2015, despite documentation showing otherwise, a spokesperson replied there was no requirement for the district to report the data to the state. Fairfax County Public Schools also said there was “internal miscommunication about data reported to [Office of Civil Rights] which has been corrected” and “data that was being reported had not been properly reviewed,” in a statement after repeated inquiries from WAMU.
WAMU
Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Chairman Gray Blanton said over the phone Thursday that the board should receive a private financial consultant’s final report regarding EDA finances this morning. The county in September hired a private financial consultant on behalf of the EDA to look into the organization’s finances after it surfaced that the town was owed at least $291,000 by the EDA stemming from overpayments related to debt service. Blanton said that he has been told the report is “an inch thick” and the board will review it during a closed session today. He said the meeting could last between three to four hours because there is a lot of “evidence” involved. He said board members are all “sworn to secrecy,” which he does not like because “it makes us all look like we’re not all that sharp.” Blanton said findings of the report would be made public Tuesday or Wednesday, at which time he said the media “will have a lot to write about.”
The Northern Virginia Daily
Days after Portsmouth Police Chief Tonya Chapman suddenly resigned, a clear picture of what happened has yet to emerge. The absence of answers from city officials or the ex-chief left speculation and rumor, and at least two organizations have raised questions about the circumstances of Chapman’s abrupt departure. Asked why Chapman resigned, a police department spokesman referred The Virginian-Pilot to the city’s Human Resources department, whose director did not respond to emailed questions. Through a department spokesman, Chapman declined an interview request earlier this week. Since then, The Pilot has not been able to reach her for comment. Mayor John Rowe said members of the City Council got the same call from the city manager earlier this week, saying that she’d accepted Chapman’s resignation. Rowe said he didn’t know why Chapman left and referred The Pilot to a section of the city charter that states council members do not take part in the appointment or removal of city officers and employees. “We just don’t get involved,” Rowe said. Asked for his thoughts on Chapman’s tenure in Portsmouth, Rowe suggested The Pilot speak with the city manager.
The Virginian-Pilot
Lauded Virginia Tech water researcher Marc Edwards cannot silence critics with a federal defamation lawsuit — in part because the criticism of Edwards was so overblown, a judge ruled this week. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski dismissed the engineering professor’s lawsuit against three critics of his years of work in Flint, Michigan, where Edwards and a team of students in 2015 helped expose lead contamination in the city’s water supply. In a 115-page opinion filed Wednesday, Urbanski wrote that Edwards’ lawsuit failed to state a valid claim against three critics. Much of the judge’s opinion was a dissection of a critical letter posted online that Edwards said was sent to Tech President Tim Sands and an array of agencies that funded his work. No reasonable reader of the letter, Urbanski wrote, would think it was factual. And as commentary on a public controversy, it was clearly allowed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The Roanoke Times
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