Mark Robinson ran for 180 yards and scored three touchdowns, Tyree Williams made four catches for 114 yards and a touchdown, and DeAngelo Wilson and Xavier Gary each caught a touchdown pass in a 52-0 drubbing of TJ. The Wildcats (1-1) host Benedictine (2-2) next Friday.

Friday’s Armstrong at Thomas Jefferson game has been rescheduled for today @3:30PM to get ahead of Tropical Storm Hanna.

Fall registration for the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities’ After School Programs will take place Sept. 2 through Sept. 5 from school closing to 5:30 p.m. each day. Registration is held in the school cafeterias of the 21 Richmond elementary schools where the program is offered.

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All of the East End schools met the adequate yearly progress (AYP) standards of No Child Left Behind this year, in contrast to 75% statewide and 85% across the city. [via]

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The Armstrong H.S. Wildcats 2008-2009 football season kicks off this Thursday with a home game against the John Marshall H.S. Justices. The Wildcats finished 2-9 last season.

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The 18th Annual Richmond City Back-to-School Parade, Rally and Talent Show will be held August 23. The parade kicks off at 10AM in Chimborazo Park and will end at the Richmond Coliseum. Beginning at noon, a free school supplies and lunch rally will be held until 2PM, followed by a talent show in Festival Park outside the Coliseum. For more details, call (804)780-7100.

I sat down on July 23rd with Don Coleman, candidate for the 7th District School Board seat, and Brandon Jaycox, Coleman’s campaign manager, for an interview at Buzzy’s.

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Keith West, the current 7th District school board representative (and who is not standing for re-election), is a new board member of the advocacy organization School Choice Virginia, joining representatives of “church schools, the Virginia Catholic Conference, home schoolers and the Family Foundation of Virginia“. SCV supports legislation that would offer tax credits to individuals and organizations that make contributions “for scholarships to allow students to transfer out of their school district to public, parochial or private schools”. The RTD supports the idea; here is a counter response by 4th district school board candidate Bert Berlin.

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9th Annual Back to School Supplies Drive - Saturday, Aug.9, 9AM @ Arthur Ashe Center; 18th Annual Back to School Rally - Saturday, Aug.23, 10AM @ Richmond Coliseum. [via]

Style Weekly has the story on how Samuel Best, Armstrong High School’s class of ‘08 valedictorian, may not be able to attend UVa because his parents make a little too much money to get much help but not enough to able to come up with even with the share required by student loans.

7th District School Board member Keith West will join mayoral candidate Paul Goldman at an 11AM press conference at Bellevue Elementary School to discuss “the need for a citywide school uniform policy”. The announcement quotes West as saying that “Goldman is the only candidate willing to challenge the failed status quo and call for a badly needed citywide School Uniform policy. He will be the Education Mayor.”

Following up on her 2007 novel My Mamma, My Teacha, Loretta Watson has reprinted There Is Hope, her 1996 book of poetry. For every copy sold, one dollar goes toward the Shirley Coleman – Loretta Watson Creighton Court Scholarship Fund and will help a child from Creighton Court pay for a portion of his/her college expenses.

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A shooting on the 2200 block of Fairfield Avenue just before 2:00PM has seriously injured a juvenile male. The young man, a 7th grade student at MLK Middle School, “has been taken to VCU Medical Center with life-threatening injuries”. Police are offering an instant $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. [via]

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The RTD has a list of people who have already submitted papers with the city’s office of the general registrar indicating that they will run for office this November. Candidates have until June 10th to file. So far, no challenger to McQuinn for her City Council seat, but 2 more names have popped up for the school board seat: Ronald L. Bond (who received just under 7% of the vote in the 2006 race), and Harry H. Bradley.

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The RTD has a piece on a celebration at the Science Museum of Virginia for the 8 RPS valedictorians and gives prominent space to Samuel Best, Armstrong HS valedictorian. His message to his 4 younger siblings:

“I tell them to try to exceed in everything,” he said. “I want them to be at the top.”

A neighborhood parent and I sat down with Carletta Wilson, candidate to be 7th District School Board representative, for about an hour at Buzzy’s on Tuesday evening. Wilson, well-informed and ready to discuss anything that we brought up, was patient as the parent & I jabbered back and forth and scattered questions at her.

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I sat down Saturday morning with Torey Edmonds, candidate to be 7th District School Board representative, at Buzzy’s, and in lieu of a proper interview, had a 2 1/2 hour conversation about the Richmond School system with Edmonds and a neighbor that had come out with her own questions. I was so engaged in the conversation that I didn’t really take any notes; any vagueness is probably my fault.

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Two of the four public hearings scheduled by the School Board to receive citizen’s input on the search for the next Superintendent of Richmond Public Schools remain. The next and closest will be this Wednesday from 6-8PM at Franklin Military School. Check out a presentation about the search. (PDF)

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The RTD’s A real space challenge presents overcrowded Woodville Elementary as an example of what can come of closing schools without building new ones. Woodville absorbed more than 100 children after Whitcomb Court Elementary School closed in 2006, and currently serves 573 students in a building with space for 530.