After lawmakers uncovered millions in speed camera revenue across Virginia, a proposal to tighten regulations on the devices has hit a legislative roadblock. The General Assembly now waits to see whether a pared-down version of the plan will survive without triggering an expansion of automated enforcement.
The holdup follows the failure of House Bill 2041 — sponsored by Del. Holly Seibold, D-Fairfax — along with two related Senate Bills, in the Senate Transportation Committee on Thursday. The 6-9 vote came amid a shake-up in the upper chamber’s leadership, with Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, replacing Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, as committee chair.
For Seibold, the outcome was frustrating, especially after making multiple concessions to local governments and camera vendors. Seibold said she even included language from Senate Bill 1209, sponsored by Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, requiring more regulations around operating speed cameras.
“I did act in best faith. I tried to give them everything they wanted, but clearly, they were working in the opposite direction of this bill all along,” Seibold said.
Her push for reform is deeply personal. Seibold said she introduced the bill in memory of three Fairfax teenagers struck by a student driver going 81 mph in a 35 mph zone in 2022. Two of them, 15-year-old Leeyan Yan and 14-year-old Ada Martinez Nolasco, lost their lives.
“I don’t care about local governments making money off these devices,” Seibold said. “Local governments have many opportunities to make money, how to drive revenue, increase taxes. This is not a tool to make money. This is a tool to save lives.”
Del. Holly Seibold shows some of the changes made to her proposed speed camera legislation. (Nathaniel Cline/Virginia Mercury)
HB 2041 would have required stricter approval for speed cameras, barred vendors from profiting off citations, ensured due process protections, and restricted revenue use to pedestrian safety improvements.
Seibold is now closely watching Senate Bill 1233, sponsored by Sen. Angelia Williams Graves, D-Norfolk, which carries the same language as her bill and awaits consideration in the House.
House Transportation Committee Chair Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax, noted that both bills were merged on Thursday in an agreement between her and the then-Senate committee chair, Boysko. Lawmakers will now meet in a conference to negotiate final language for the Seibold-Williams Graves bill.
Delaney hopes that the legislation will advance to a conference committee, ensuring the language from Seibold’s proposal “stays alive.” The measure has already cleared the Senate. It would allow law enforcement to install monitoring systems in school crossing zones, highway work zones, and high-risk intersections to record pedestrian crossing and stop sign violations.
Still, Delaney said she was frustrated by the Senate Transportation Committee’s rejection of Seibold’s version of the bill.
“I’m disappointed by the Senate’s actions, because we had an opportunity to really make a statement against the policing for profit scheme that many localities seem to have in place right now,” Delaney said.
Before the committee voted on Seibold’s bill, lawmakers conformed a third proposal — Senate Bill 776, introduced by Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax — to the Seibold-Williams Graves package. But the procedural move left Seibold unable to fully explain the bill’s language or clarify where revenue from citations would be directed.
Surovell’s bill, which sought to expand speed cameras to roads in National Parks, passed in the Senate but ultimately failed in the House.
The committee’s decision reflects a broader sentiment among lawmakers: focus on tightening oversight of speed cameras rather than expanding their use.
“We all, I believe, are in agreement that these speed safety cameras have a role in helping to provide for better pedestrian safety and there are towns and localities who want to do this,” said Vice Chair David Reid, D-Loudoun, to The Mercury. “But we also have to recognize that we’ve got to have the right type of guardrails to prevent abuse.”
For now, speed camera reform remains in limbo, as lawmakers debate how far the regulations should go.
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
www.youtube.com – NBC4 Washington – 2025-03-21 19:52:33
SUMMARY: DC’s African American Civil War Museum, previously housed in an old gymnasium, will reopen in a new permanent location in the historic Grimke School building in July. The museum, overseen by Frank Smith, tells the stories of African American soldiers in the Civil War, with 200,000 names engraved on the memorial wall, including 150,000 who were once enslaved. The new museum will feature exhibits like the Michelle Obama exhibit, which highlights her ancestor’s role in the war, and the “Storming of Fort Wagner.” Smith is passionate about preserving this history amid efforts to erase African American accomplishments from military records.
A memorial and museum in D.C. dedicated to telling the history of Black Americans who served in the Civil War is opening a permanent home after 25 years. News4’s Mark Segraves reports.
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www.thecentersquare.com – By Shirleen Guerra | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-21 12:21:00
(The Center Square) — President Donald Trump issued orders to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and transfer responsibilities back to the states; Gov. Glenn Youngkin responded, “Virginia is ready.”
Youngkin’s backing of Trump’s executive order aligns with a broader effort to shift Virginia’s education policies to state control. One clear example of the commonwealth exercising that control is its recent move to ban artificial food dyes in all public school meals.
Thisbillis identical to SB 1289, a decision made entirely at the state level without federal influence.
The new law, which will take effect in 2027, prohibits public schools from serving meals with seven types of artificial dyes, including Red 40 and Yellow 5, both of which are linked to hyperactivity and behavioral issues in children.
“If we wouldn’t put it on our faces, we shouldn’t put in the stomachs of our children,” said Sen. Emily Jordan, who patroned the bill.
Virginia will be the second state in the nation to sign this into law.
The food dye ban is more than just a health initiative; it’s a case study of how Virginia can now set its education policies without federal intervention.
“Virginia is ready to take full responsibility for K-12 education. We have implemented a high-expectations agenda that sets rigorous standards, holds schools accountable for results and prioritizes resources to the students and schools that need the most support,” Youngkin said in a statement.
“We welcome the federal government’s shift of responsibility to the states—and we are grateful that President Trump’s executive order does just that. The EO also makes it clear that there will be no discrimination in the classrooms. We will continue to ensure that every student graduates career-, college-, or military-ready.”
The shift of responsibility aligns with a broader movement in Virginia to reshape education policy. Youngkin has long had high expectations for education across the commonwealth, expanding lab schools, increasing school choice options, raising academic standards and investing $7 billion in new education funding since the pandemic.
With Virginia poised to take complete control of its education system, the upcoming governor’s race will determine how that shift unfolds. At a bill signingceremony, Youngkin addressed the law’s importance, saying, “These harmful chemicals that are injected into our food cause problems,” said Youngkin at a bill signing ceremony.
Youngkin noted this is one of the most significant bills signed under his administration and emphasized that it reinforced a core principle, “Yes, parents matter.” The governor sees this as a chance to increase school choice and state-driven reforms.
Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger for governor has warned of a potential funding shortfall. Meanwhile, Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears praised the executive order as a ‘game-changer.’
As Virginians head to the polls, education remains one of the top defining issues in the race—one that will determine whether Youngkin’s vision of state-led education reform continues or is reversed.
Groups of Virginia education leaders want answers about why Indigenous Peoples’ Day was removed from state standards dictating what students should learn about American history since the Board of Education adopted the revised standards two years ago.
While the holiday was omitted during the revision process, it was put back in before the final adoption of the standards in 2023. This week, some education leaders noticed that Indigenous Peoples Day was missing in the online versions of the standards for the state’s youngest schoolchildren.
“What else is in the standards (that) has been changed or removed?” asked Chris Jones, executive director for the Virginia Association for Teaching, Learning and Leading (VATLL), an education advocacy group. He said the holiday’s removal has led leaders to suspect changes could have also been made to the instructional guides meant to help teachers implement the history standards into their lessons, which could be the reason some of the guides have still not been released, after a two-year delay.
“But because we don’t know, and nothing is really being communicated publicly, we’re of course left to make assumptions,” Jones said.
Indigenous Peoples Day’s addition and subtraction
Some educators and advocates noticed the holiday was missing recently by comparing the history and social science standards approved by the Board of Education two years ago to the online versions for Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd-grade history courses.
In each of the three grade levels, the standards state that students would be required to apply history and social science skills to explain how communities honor state and national traditions and recognize designated Virginia holidays, including, “Columbus Day (also known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day).”
However, the online versions excluded the mention of Indigenous Peoples Day, which was made a state holiday in 2019, to recognize the histories and cultures of Indigenous people. It’s also an alternative to Columbus Day, named after the 15th century explorer of the Americas who paved the way for the colonization and decimation of Indigenous communities.
The holiday was also removed from the standards during the process before the board placed it back in.
A VDOE spokesperson confirmed Thursday afternoon, after the agency was contacted about the holiday missing from the online versions of some standards, that the “oversight” has been corrected.
“[The department] has reviewed the footage of the Board of Education work session discussion on April 19, 2023 and Board approval of Item G on April 20, 2023 and it seems to have been an oversight by the Department to not include “Indigenous People’s Day” as a parenthetical notation next to Columbus Day,” the spokesperson wrote to the Mercury. “To align with board action, we have made the correction which is now reflected online throughout the 2023 history SOL documents.”
Still, some education advocates view the change as a “violation” of the public input process to revise the state’s history and social science standards, which set student learning expectations and are assessed through Standards of Learning tests. State law requires the standards be reviewed every seven years.
The initial omission of the Indigenous Peoples Day perplexed some educators.
“It’s interesting because all of us felt like we remembered seeing, ‘also known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ in there, and it being a significant part of the discussion, and so when they came out, there was a little bit of confusion,” said Danyael Graham, president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium.
Long-delayed instructional guides prompt more concerns
Graham said the organization, made up of history educators, is also concerned about the lack of direction for implementing the standards, especially for smaller districts going through textbook adoptions, and the delay of providing instructional guides for teachers.
Instructional guides, according to the education department, provide educators guidance on implementing the recently adopted 2023 History and Social Science Standards of Learning and transition away from the 2015 history standards, the most recent version before the 2023 update.
Jones wrote a letter on Feb. 13 to the Board of Education on behalf of VATLL’s policy team requesting the release of the instructional guides.
He wrote that if schools do not perform adequately on the SOL test next year, the department’s “dereliction of duty, and not the work of Virginia’s teachers, will be the key source of underperformance.”
In response, Lisa Coons, then-superintendent of public instruction, notified Jones that several guides have already been published: Grade 5 United States History to 1865, Grade 6 United States History: 1865 to the present, Grade 7 Civics and Economics and Grade 12 Virginia and United States Government.
Coons wrote that the remaining history instructional guides have been undergoing “copy edits” and were planned to be released the week of February 24.
However, as of Wednesday afternoon, the agency had not published all of the remaining guidelines.
Coons also resigned on March 19, with questions remaining about her decision. Emily Anne Gullickson, former chief deputy secretary of education, replaced Coons as the acting state superintendent.
Jones said Coons’ resignation “absolutely” elevated the concern that the guidelines will be even further delayed.
“Right now, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that the people should know,” Jones said. “We’ve started pulling at the thread with the instructional guides, but this idea of removing something from the standards, I think that’s ‘wow.’”
On Friday, more than a dozen educational organizations — including the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium, Virginia Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators and VATLL — plan to submit a letter to the Virginia Board of Education requesting an implementation delay of the 2023 revised History and Social Science Standards of Learning for one year.
A VDOE spokesperson said producing high-quality history instructional guides for teachers is a “top priority” and agency staff will be providing an update to the Board of Education at its work session on March 26, which will include a release timeline.
The spokesperson added that the department has been reviewing the instructional guides and all corresponding linked resources to ensure compliance with recent federal executive actions.
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