Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia are changing the schedules for the county's elementary, middle and high schools by the start of the next school year. The introduction of a staggered schedule is aimed at getting more students to class on time.

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - During a school board meeting Monday night, Richmond Public Schools presented a problem they've been seeing throughout their school district - chronic absenteeism. According to a presentation, nearly 28% of Richmond students are "chronically absent," meaning they've missed seven or more days of school at this point in the year.

by: Amelia Heymann Posted: / Updated: HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) - Mu Zhen Yong, a fifth-grader from Nuckols Farm Elementary School, won Henrico County Public Schools' Division-wide Spelling Bee on Tuesday. The annual spelling bee has students from both elementary and middle schools compete against each other for the title.

As the Chesterfield County School Board prepares to decide Thursday whether to continue requiring students to wear masks in schools, the district has been reporting record levels of COVID-19 cases among students and staff. As of Wednesday, the Chesterfield County Public School COVID dashboard reported 1,160 cases among students and staff for the past seven days.

William Monroe High School sophomores Thomas Traber, Akhil Marri, Mushtaq Faiz, Amy Genz and freshman Aidan Miller brought home the second-place trophy in the Dec. 11 regional robotics qualifier competition held at Deep Run High School in Glen Allen. The judges also awarded Monroe Robotics first place for the Innovate Award-sponsored by Raytheon Technologies-and second place for the Design Award.

Schools in Arlington received the authorization needed from Virginia to participate in the health department's "Test to Stay" program, Superintendent Francisco Durán wrote in a letter to the school community. The aim of test-to-stay policies is to allow close contacts of students infected with the coronavirus to remain in classrooms if they test negative.

(WJHL) - As the Omicron variant has caused COVID-19 cases to surge, school districts in Tennessee and Virginia are preparing to mitigate the spread with fewer tools to do so than in previous surges. News Channel 11 spoke to leaders of three Tri-Cities districts and asked what they have available to combat Omicron.

For years, the Fauquier County School Board has been trying to increase teacher salaries in general and address pay scale compression issues in particular. Superintendent of Schools David Jeck said at the Jan. 12 School Board Summit that getting all staff compensation to between 90% and 100% of market averages has been the goal.

Abingdon Elementary School librarian Michelle Davis has started a "book tree" at her school to increase access to books for students during the pandemic. At the start of the 2020-2021 school year, Davis noticed that a lot of families were overwhelmed by the pandemic, not always having time to drop by the library to check out a book for their students.

BRISTOL, Va. (WJHL) - Bristol Virginia Public Schools (BVPS) has launched a program that provides students with at-home COVID-19 tests to help avoid possible quarantines. A post from BVPS states the "Test to Stay" option is completely voluntary. A student who would typically have to quarantine after being deemed a close contact to a positive [...]