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School board votes to make good on scholarship mix-up

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A Virginia school system plans to make good on a mistaken pledge to give five high school students annual scholarships of $2,000 each.

Five seniors from the class of 2019 were nominated by their Norfolk schools for a statewide award that recognizes academically successful students who have financial barriers to attending college.

The nominees were supposed to go through a regional selection process, but were given certificates in May that congratulated them for “receiving” the award.

The Virginian-Pilot reports that the School Board decided this week to create a special scholarship to fix what board members said was their mistake. They voted to fund the $2,000 annual scholarship for all five students for the next four years. It will cost Norfolk Public Schools a total of $40,000.

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Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://pilotonline.com

Va. health dept. improves nursing home inspection backlog, reforms sanction criteria for facilities

Stories of neglect in care or unsanitary living situations have plagued several of Virginia’s nursing home facilities in recent years and data backs up a lapse in oversight by state agencies.  With reform efforts underway, the Virginia Department of Health officials said they aim to adopt sanction criteria by the end of the year to rein in bad actors and get troubled facilities back on track.  As of July, 58% of Virginia’s nursing homes were overdue for inspections and 68 of Virginia’s 289 nursing homes were found to have serious deficiencies, according to ProPublica. Several of the state’s flagged facilities with numerous deficiencies also had high staffing turnover rates.  The issue has been salient among various healthcare spaces, including VDH. 
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