The City of Richmond, in partnership with Richmond Public Schools (RPS) and the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation, highlighted the poverty reduction initiative RVA Future Centers today at the Armstrong High School Future Center. RVA Future Centers have launched in all five comprehensive city high schools this semester. Future Centers are dedicated classroom spaces within each school building that are resource hubs for connecting high school students and their families to college and career planning resources. Each Future Center is staffed by a full-time site coordinator, who develops and implements a school-specific plan to engage all students in developing a personal plan for life after high school, starting in their ninth grade year. Future Center staff work closely with RPS guidance staff and community organizations providing college and career planning assistance such as GRASP. “Access to opportunity makes all the difference in a young person’s life. Making sure as many...

~Respondents consistent about dire need to tell the city’s whole story~   In September of 2015, the City of Richmond launched a community conversation about the future of the Lumpkin’s Jail site. Spearheaded by Mayor Dwight C. Jones and the Richmond City Council Slave Trail Commission, the public conversation has reached more than 1,000 individuals through public meetings, classroom visits, in-person engagements, social media and direct outreach. Additional public meetings are upcoming as the discussion continues. However, a preliminary report is now available detailing the work of the consultant team thus far, and sharing preliminary information that the process has yielded. “While we know the importance of the Lumpkin’s Jail site to our city’s history, it’s another thing to understand how best to transform that importance to an active site that represents the priorities of the broader community,” said Mayor Jones. “I believe the methodology we have employed is yielding the diver...