Lynchburg City Schools is receiving recognition across the state for our twenty-first century initiatives to help students achieve academic success.
Assistant Superintendent of Operations and Administration Ben Copeland will be speaking on two topics related to Lynchburg City Schools’ achievements: the new Heritage High School project and school division’s partnerships with criminal justice leaders.
On November 16, 2017, Mr. Copeland will join Prince William County Schools and Moseley Architects to discuss “Challenges and Strategies of Same-Site Replacement Projects.” The new Heritage High School was successfully built on site while students still attended the old school. Mr. Copeland and his colleagues will provide their insights on how they did this successfully so as to give guidance to other school divisions considering similar projects. As our region becomes more developed, the opportunity for green field development for new school facilities is becoming rare. Many aging and existing schools are located within developed residential areas and have become centers of the communities in which these schools are located. Relocating these schools can be prohibitive due to a variety of factors including political, community, and financial. School divisions are routinely being faced with difficult political, financial, and functional decisions regarding the rehabilitation of aging schools and same-site replacement is becoming an increasingly viable, long-term solution.
On November 27, 2017, Mr. Copeland and Gary Fink from the Lynchburg Police Department, will be speaking at the 2017 Strengthening Connections Climate Forum. They will engage their audience with efforts that the LPD and LCS have made in developing partnerships between schools and police. They will focus on partnerships, communication, and leadership as interconnected elements to community success. Partnerships between law enforcement and schools are more important today than any time in the past. The national focus on the ‘school to prison pipeline’ and negative perceptions related to student behavior and school discipline, has a direct effect on school climate, student engagement and school safety. For Lynchburg it has been a 5 year journey to reach a level of impact and effectiveness that we feel is worth sharing. The presentation is a lessons learned approach that will highlight both good and bad examples of partnership, communication and leadership while celebrating the positive effects on the city schools and police department.