TIGERS’ PERFECT SEASON: The Brentsville girls basketball team keep winning. Sports, Page 8
December 26, 2018 | Vol. 17, No. 52 | www.PrinceWilliamTimes.com | 50¢ Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
Task force recommends fixes for old schools By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
mance tour in the Deep South in 1962 accompanied by his white, wise-cracking, Bronx-born Italian-American driver, Tony “Lip” Vallelonga. The two used the real-life Green Book, subtitled “The Negro Traveler’s Guide to Travel and Vacations,” to find restaurants, lodgings and businesses that served African-Americans.
They’ll never get indoor swimming pools or floor-to-ceiling windows. But making Prince William’s oldest middle and high schools more “equitable” with the county’s latest models is possible but would come with a hefty price tag. That was the message Don Richardson delivered to the school board earlier this month after wrapping up two years of work as head of the school division’s “infrastructure task force.” The school board assembled the group in 2016 in response to parents and community members who noted significant differences between the county’s older and newer schools, -such as Patriot High School, which was built in 2011, and Colgan, which opened in 2016 -- and those built 40 years ago or more. The school board tasked the group with assessing how the older schools fell short of the county’s current facilities standards. The group was also asked to prioritize upgrades that might make older schools more conducive to learning and teaching. Richardson is a former school board member who represented the Gainesville District. The group spent the first year assessing the county’s 60 elementary schools. This past year, they toured the county’s older middle and high schools, 14 of which were built between 1963 and 1981. Richardson delivered the group’s recommendations to the school board Dec. 12. The group gave the highest-priority rankings to safety and security improvements, followed by those that would “enhance instructional performance” for the most students, Richardson said. Accordingly, their top recommendation was to complete safety and security improvements to the schools within the next two years. Due to concerns about making sensitive specifics public, the recommended
See GREEN BOOK, page 4
See TASK FORCE, page 3
From the pages of the ‘Green Book’ PHOTOS BY VICKY MOON
Robert Walker, 85, maintains his father’s barber business now at 23 S. 3rd St., which was listed in the Green Book. At right, copy of the 1954 Green Book.
Movie spotlights businesses in the segregated South By Vicky Moon
Contributing Writer
Robert Walker runs a Warrenton barber shop his father, George B. Walker, opened in 1938. In their earlier years, some men would drive all the way from Manassas to get a cut and a shave. They came mostly after work, “because there was no place for them to get a haircut,” he said. The shop
was open until 7 p.m. and remains so now to accommodate commuters. Back in 1954, Walker’s Barber Shop was one of a handful of businesses in Northern Virginia listed in the “Green Book,” now a hit movie with Golden Globe and Oscar-buzz. “Green Book” is a true story of Dr. Don Shirley, an eccentric and talented black concert pianist based in New York City who set out on a perforINSIDE Calendar.............................................12 Classified............................................13 Lifestyle..............................................10 Obituaries...........................................12
Opinion.................................................6 Puzzle Page..........................................7 Real Estate..........................................11 Sports...................................................8
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