Category: Harrisonburg Issues
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Council approves spending remaining ARPA money on parks and rec-heavy spending plan
The Harrisonburg City Council ultimately decided Tuesday to allot the remaining $11 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds on a spending plan that prioritized parks and recreation.
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Without a permanent low-barrier shelter, here’s how organizations are helping people experiencing homelessness this winter
As the weather has gotten colder, groups that work with Harrisonburg’s homeless population have had to get creative, especially during a period in which the city doesn’t have a permanent shelter for the first time in two years.
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Community Perspective: It Costs Me (Us) So Little
It costs me so little to say he, instead of she; to say they or them, or y’all, instead of boys and girls. It costs me so little to say, “I’m sorry. Yes, I can call you Max instead of Alexandra.” It costs me so little to be empathetic and curious about the lives of others whose bodies don’t feel like the right home for their spirit or their gender assignment; for their unique expression of the masculine and/or feminine. It costs me so little to know and remember these expressions, and it costs me so little to say yes to policies that support gender non-conforming people in our schools, and to say no to the ones whose mission is to control, rather than to support.
Judge’s ruling says plaintiffs failed to show that school policies about student names and pronouns violated parents’ rights
In an apparent win for the Harrisonburg School Board, Rockingham County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Baugher denied a motion for a temporary injunction on the district’s policies and approaches related to students’ gender identities and pronouns.
‘Their actions are hurting us’: How HHS students have turned up their advocacy against critics
Ellie Tjaden, Lee Jenkins and Finn Maddox, students at Harrisonburg High School and members of the Gay-Straight Alliance, have weathered COVID shutdowns, masking and remote learning as part of their high school experience. But they have also experienced another strange phenomenon.
New director of Massanutten Regional Library likes what he sees
Since beginning his new job on Nov. 7, Zachary Elder has checked out an audio book to help pass the time on an eight-hour car ride, picked out a printed guidebook on the 50 best day hikes in the Shenandoah Valley and started taking a course to improve his Microsoft Excel skills – all from his new place of employment
Harrisonburg’s Election 2022: Why turnout among certain voters might have lagged
Voter turnout in this month’s general election was lower than the last midterm in 2018, but to Mark Finks, Harrisonburg’s registrar, turnout matched expectations. Finks said there was an uptick in young voters locally, but their turnout rates still appear lower than what was seen nationally.
December 7, 2022
Residents and teachers vent to school board about controversial issues and educators being stretched too thin
More than two hours of public comments dominated Tuesday’s Harrisonburg school board meeting as about 20 speakers voiced opinions on several different issues. The jumbling of topics — where one person would talk about working conditions at elementary schools while the next speaker addressed higher suicide rates among LGBTQ+ students followed by another person playing a gospel song to punctuate her point — gave the meeting, at times, the feel of a local political fever dream.