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WOODBRIDGE, Va. — This month, the planetarium at C.D. Hylton high school in Woodbridge will host exclusive presentations as a part of the facility’s annual Halloween and Christmas events. The planetarium is the only educational facility of its kind in Prince William County. It is operated by a projection system capable of producing high-quality laser light shows, equipped with special effects and audio stimulation.

But what many people don’t know is the guy behind the program, Anthony Kilgore. With less than 500 active planetariums in the United States, Kilgore’s role as director is one-of-a-kind.

“Being a planetarium director is not something you go to college to do, you kind of fall into it,” said Kilgore. “The learning curve was steep and it still is. I’m learning new things every day. As an astronomy teacher, I know the content, but to make things happen on the dome, every day is a challenge.”

“The planetarium is a great resource to the county and Mr. Kilgore does a fantastic job of running it,” says Kurt Knight, earth science teacher at Hylton High School. “When I’ve taken my own students there it’s been an incredibly positive experience and they absolutely loved it.”

Kilgore obtained a bachelor’s degree in secondary education at Youngstown State University in 2002 and graduated from Virginia Tech in 2009 with a master’s degree in science curriculum and instruction. He has served as a high school teacher in Northern Virginia for 12 years, 6 of those years at C.D. Hylton High School.

Since 2008, Kilgore simultaneously operated the planetarium and taught astronomy and earth science at Hylton High School. Last year, he was designated as the sole operator of the planetarium .

Ever since he first became a teacher, Kilgore says he has advocated educational learning through out-of-classroom experience.

“You can learn about something all day long, but it’s a whole other thing to experience it,” he says. “When the planetarium first opened up, I thought, ‘what a great opportunity for me to be that guy to create that experience for other students’ and It’s been a pretty wild ride ever since.”

History and operation

The planetarium was originally built in 1991 as part of the high school’s educational programming. The original projector featured a round, tin ball with tiny holes on the exterior and light bulb in the center and could project stars on the ceiling through the small openings. Kilgore said he contributed to the planning to upgrade the planetarium’s technology. Today, Kilgore describes the dome as a giant iPad, capable of producing a real-life experience that was not possible before.

“When people would come to the planetarium before, it was originally built so that I could reproduce the night sky and talk about it and that was the extent of it,” says Kilgore. “Whereas now, because it is digital, I can land you on the planets, I can take you into deep space, I even do an underwater show and because it’s a dome, it’s happening 360 degrees all around you.”

The planetarium seats 65 people and serves about 600 students each week during the school year. Kilgore says the planetarium is attractive to schools and teachers across Prince William County because of the ability to create educational programs pertaining to different curriculums.

For instance, Kilgore says, third graders learn about the relationships between the earth, moon and sun. With the digital planetarium, Kilgore is able to recreate the seasons, tides, rotation, revolution, and moon phases on the dome. Whereas before the planetarium was limited to recreating the night sky, a subject that isn’t the focus of most curriculums, now the shows are able to include content for specific grade levels.

“When the fourth graders come, their curriculum is the solar system, so I actually take them and land them on every single planet,” he says. “Now I’m able to recreate specific things for specific grade levels and that’s really exciting to teachers in the county. They want their students to come and have the experience because it’s backing up their learning about a particular subject matter.”

Challenges

 

But with any great invention, there are bound to be challenges. Kilgore says that the cost of buying a digital program to use with a specific grade level racks up a cost of about $20,000. When the high school got the digital upgrade to the planetarium, it was able to remain sustainable with the help of a $250,000 dollar check from area philanthropists, the Hylton family. Now, the funding is dependent on the income made off evening public shows.

Kilgore says that more often than not, many Prince William County residents are still unaware that the planetarium even exists. He says one of his greatest challenges has been advertising.

With the help of different publications, for the past two years, Kilgore says he was able to sell out every single seat for each Christmas show.

“That was so big for us financially, because then we were able to get new shows for our students,” he says. “Our tickets are a fundraiser for the planetarium because those funds go towards buying the new digital programming.”

“The Prince William County school system owns the planetarium, so they give the planetarium a budget every year and that budget takes care of the annual maintenance contract to maintain the technology, and that’s as far as it goes. That’s where the element of advertising comes in,” he says. Kilgore says now that he has the system, the challenge is obtaining all the professionally programming that goes into it. He jokingly compares the situation to receiving a game system without games to play.

“Imagine that you’re in middle or high school and mom and dad just bought you a brand new Nintendo PlayStation for Christmas, but they didn’t buy you any games. You have this brand new system hooked up to the TV and the controller and you’re sitting there going ‘well now what?’”

Planetarium Shows

Ultimately, Kilgore hosts about 50 different types of shows at the planetarium and is not limited to students. He says the planetarium has been booked for birthday parties, anniversaries, Bar Mitzvahs, summer camps and on Sept. 27, he held his second wedding proposal ever.

Kilgore says that the manufacturer of the planetarium first provided him with a 2-week training program to cover the basics of operating the facility. He also attends conferences to get insight on what other directors are doing.

Starting on Friday, Oct. 11, Kilgore will be hosting three public Halloween laser shows that will be presented each Friday night beginning at 6 p.m. Similarly, on Friday, Dec. 6, the evening Christmas shows will begin. Often times, other planetarium directors are surprised to learn about the specialty programs, says Kilgore.

These aren’t your typical lightshows.

“My 9 o’clock version of fright lights is loud and has costume characters, stage effects, and haze machines. It is like a haunted planetarium show,” he says. “For the Christmas shows, I actually make it snow. I try to add elements of a 3D or 4D experience so that it’s not just stars on a ceiling.”

In the spring, Kilgore conducts a series of shows called “Science After Dark,” which will start on Jan. 31st and run every Friday night into early March. Kilgore says one of the exciting elements about these shows is that each is choreographed to a different kind of music.

“These are not star shows, these are not education shows that you would typically think of at a planetarium show, these are laser shows,” he says. “We have a state of the art laser system that is called SkyLase and I actually explain how laser light work and how the color of light work with the human eye.”

What’s in store for the future?

Kilgore says he plans on installing clickers into the arm rests so that he will be able to engage the audience in the presentation even further. Additionally, he says the next step will be obtaining 4D cinema seats.

“My next big financial challenge is to get the 4D seats to interact with the audience. For instance, if I was doing a shuttle launch, the seats would rumble,” he says.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at the main office or the evening of at the planetarium. Tickets go for $10 and all members of the public are invited.

You can view the event schedule as well as learn more about the planetarium by visiting hyltonplanetarium.com. If you have any questions regarding the planetarium, Kilgore recommends calling the school’s main office at 703-580-4000 or sending him an e-mail at: [email protected].

 

2013 Public Show (Halloween Special) Schedule

Tickets go on sale October 1st, 2013

Friday, October 11th, 2013

6 p.m. – Fright Light

7:30 p.m. – Laser Metallica

9 p.m. – Fright Light (Louder & Scary)

Friday, October 18th, 2013

6 p.m. – Fright Light

7:30 p.m. – Laser Metallica

9 p.m. – Fright Light (Louder & Scary)

Friday, October 25th, 2013

6 p.m. – Fright Light

7:30 p.m. – Laser Metallica

9 p.m. – Fright Light (Louder & Scary)

2013 Public Show (Christmas special) Schedule

Tickets go on sale December 1st, 2013

Friday, December 6th, 2013

6 p.m. – Laser Holidays

 

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- The College Board reports that high school seniors in Prince William County have improved their SAT scores by eight points from last year and outperformed the national average in critical reading skills.

While this is a positive indication of student improvement, some worry that it may also bring to light a heavy reliance on standardized testing.

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Scott Hirons, candidate for the Falmouth seat on the Stafford County School Board, has been a professional project manager for over 19 years. He currently works as a contractor for the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir.

Hirons says his leadership experience and educational background will make him a beneficial candidate for the school board.

“One of the things that government at all levels and especially the Stafford County School Board right now is lacking is good strategic management and that is what I hope to bring to the board,” says Hirons. “Without a strategic plan, we’re kind of throwing darts at the board and guessing what works best; we’re really not measuring what truly works best and then funding those priorities.”

Hirons lives in Leeland Station with his wife, Heather, and three sons, Christopher, 11, Conner, 10, and Max, 4, all who attend Stafford County Schools. Hirons says having school-age children and involvement within his community make him a valuable candidate for the school board.

“My youngest just started kindergarten, so I’m going to have a long time invested in the schools,” says Hirons. “Beyond that, I’ve been very active within my community. I have a good relationship with the Board of Supervisors and a good relationship with a lot of the county administration, and that is going to help.”

Education

Hirons says that with strategic development, the board could adequately address educational issues and then adjust the budget.

“I hope to be able to better compensate teachers without having to do things like make massive cuts to the classrooms, which just increase class size,” he says, “There is a lot of debate over teacher pay and I want to see our salary scales move up and be more competitive.”

Hirons says he feels that the biggest challenge facing the schools is teacher gratitude.

“What I hear from the teachers an awful lot is they don’t feel appreciated and I think that’s very important,” he says. “We’re losing a lot of teachers to other jurisdictions that pay more, but also to jurisdictions that don’t pay as much.”

“We need to have a happy workforce and we need to be able to measure whether or not our workforce is satisfied.”

School Performance

Hirons says that another challenge facing the schools is how to test performance.

“Right now the problem is that the state measures how a school is doing by a simple measurement of how the school is performing on standardized tests,” says Hirons. “We’ve gotten to the point in this country and state where we just can’t rely on standardized tests for everything.”

Instead he says we need to reassess the current measurements, and develop a plan to combat the underlying issues.

Transportation

Hirons says there are significant connections between schools and traffic. In Stafford County, the hot button topic has been poor infrastructure. Hirons says a poor decision made by the school board can have consequences that can persist for years.

“There are some in the Falmouth area that advocated building a new high school on property the school system acquired several years ago know as Clift Farm,” says Hirons.

He said the land deal turned out to be a poor decision.

“The roads leading the property are narrow and not adequate for the traffic a school would generate.”

“We are growing and will still be building schools over the next decade,” says Hirons. “When we build schools, we need to ensure the roads we build them on are adequate to handle the traffic generated.”

Employment and Economic Development

Hirons hopes to encourage employment growth by means of supporting an adequate educational environment.

“A good school system is something companies look for when looking to relocate or build in a particular area,” says Hirons. “Therefore it’s the duty of the school board to build a strong school system to help the county build a strong case for the Board of Supervisors to attract new companies to the county.”

Laura Sellers is the Democratic candidate running for the Garrisonville seat of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, and she is no stranger to the political scene. She first ran for the Board of Supervisors in 2009 and is currently a member of the Stafford Democratic Committee. She says she is determined to bring the board a new perspective.

“I was not happy with the county,” says Sellers. “With a young child, I have to think about what I want the county to look like as I raise him here. This wasn’t really it.”

Sellers says her expectations are in line with many of the views of families she’s spoken to within her district. She says she doesn’t feel that her opponent, Ty Schieber, has effectively represented the Garrisonville district.

“We need elected officials to staff the planning commission with someone who can help plan for our future. We need elected officials who represent our district and who stand for something,” says Sellers. “My ideas are centered on the belief that you can’t build a community 100 percent reliant upon defense contracts because those contracts go away.”

Sellers refers to the construction centering around the residential subdivision, Embrey Mill.

“Embrey Mill is being built in a district where our schools are over capacity,” she says. “Furthermore, the two fire departments in the area are under staffed and aren’t a real facility.”

“That is a representation of poor representation. Our supervisor should’ve known that the infrastructure needs upgrading before more residential homes are built.”

Sellers has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in social work. She says that through her studies, she’s been able to pinpoint what it takes to be a respectable elected official.

“Compassion I think is the biggest (component),” says Sellers. “When you’re making decisions about people’s lives and you realize your decisions are affecting people lives, you need to be compassionate and empathic with your decisions.”

She says the other element is called reflective listening, a communication strategy used to identify the expectations of the speaker(s) and work to develop successful solutions to the problems people are facing.

“We need a focus. We need a plan. And we need to emphasize the importance of character as we plan for the future.”

Education

“As a member of the Board of Supervisors, you have to let the school board function independently,” says Sellers. “I will advocate for the schools and work with them and if they want me to do something. But as far as what I personally think (the schools) should look like, I think that should be left up to the schools.”

She adds: “I do think that teachers should get paid better and classrooms should be smaller, but that has to be a priority of the school board and if they choose to make it a priority, then they will have my support.”

Economic Development

Sellers says she has spent the last four years studying economic development. She says she believes Stafford has a great potential to increase its revenue base in creative ways.

“I have a great respect for the fact that if you want to fund something, you have to fund it without always going to the tax payers,” says Sellers. “

Sellers says her plan is called “Targeted Economic Development” and she will focus on two areas: law enforcement and government, and increasing the retail base.

“I am really going to start stressing and supporting the idea of bringing in a GSA certified firing range, so we can have more local and state law enforcement use this area to get certified,” says Sellers. “(The firing range) would create a revenue source for jobs, but also a revenue source for the Sheriff’s Department, so that way they can have a little bit more money and it’s not directly on the backs of the tax payers.”

Sellers also seeks to increase local retail bases with specialty stores and restaurants.

“I’ve been doing research and looking at Wall Street Journal reports, where it shows the trends in what industries are going to make money over the next five to 10 years,” says Sellers. “It’s really going to be those professions that support people and so I’d like to really bring some of those to Stafford.”

Women’s Issues and Healthcare

Sellers attended a Meet and Greet event on Sept. 7 in Fredericksburg, which focused on advocating women’s issues. Other speakers included Kathleen O’Halloran, candidate for the 88th Virginia House District, and speakers from the National Organization for Women and the Virginia Democratic Women’s Caucus.

“I have a 13-month-old child and when I was pregnant, because I’m an independent contractor, my company does not give me benefits or maternity leave,” says Sellers. “I’ve paid my own healthcare for seven years and when I was pregnant, the doctor told me they don’t have to cover maternity care.”

Sellers says under Virginia state law, her health insurance did not have to pay for her maternity care, and since she is an independent contractor, neither would the company she works for. She ended up with medical costs about $30,000.

“To me, women’s issues have transformed from just about choice to (include the support) of a female worker and her family,” says Sellers.

Irene Egan believes every child deserves a good education, which is why she is running to fill the Aquia seat on the Stafford County School Board. Egan has two sons on her own, both which are attending Stafford County schools.

“I want them to have the best learning experience they can, and not just my children, but also for my friend’s children and my neighbor’s children,” says Egan. “These are the people that are going to be running our county, the people that are going to be running our schools. We’ve got to pay it forward.”

Egan works as a sales and marketing manager for the Hylton Group in Prince William County. She is also an active member in Stafford County Schools, serving as a member of the PTA for Stafford Elementary School, and the president of the Parent-Teacher Organization for Stafford Middle School.

Egan’s husband, Richard, shares her passion in tackling educational issues. He is a federal law enforcement officer for the US Department of Education, conducting investigations regarding waste fraud and abuse relating to education.

Egan is focusing her campaign on areas such as school security, capacity and performance.

School Security

Egan says she takes the security of schools seriously. In light of the events that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. where 20 children and six adults were shot and killed, Egan says it is clear that crime really can happen anywhere.

“I would love to see a police officer at every elementary school,” she says. “I think that it was a victory for us to get them added to the middle schools, but as you saw in Newtown, that wasn’t a high school or middle school, it was an elementary school.”

“Those are the kids that need it the most, they don’t know where to run and they don’t know how to protect themselves.”

As the Vice Chairman of the Stafford Crime Solvers Board, Egan and the board work with the Stafford Sheriff’s Department to offer monetary rewards up to those that provide information to help resolve crimes.

“We recently just paid out $1,000 to a text-to-tip lead that came in, so we were very happy about that,” Egan says.

Classroom capacities

In reference to Stafford Middle School, Egan says that there has been altering views on how the facility should be utilized, once the building is vacated by Grafton.

“Since Shirley Heim Middle School was built, there was a mass exodus out of Stafford Middle School, which left us with some empty seats,” says Egan. Currently, students from Grafton Village Elementary school are being taught at Stafford Middle School while renovations are being made to the elementary school.

“After [Grafton Village] leaves Stafford Middle school, there is some discussion to put special programs in that school as opposed to leaving it for general education and using that space to help house some of the new communities that are being built now,” she says.

“All of those middle schools or elementary schools near there are near or at capacity and there’s going to have to be a realignment of students at some point,” says Egan. “To put any special programs into Stafford Middle School is, in my view, is not a good use of capacity to help fix the problem that is on the horizon.”

Anti-bullying and anti-drug campaigns

Egan says that there needs to be more educational programs focused on anti-bullying and anti-drug awareness.

“We need something in place to stress what was in the D.A.R.E program, and that will include some of the bullying aspects,” Egan says. “As a candidate, I’m hearing more and more from parents that in fact there is an existing problem and it’s getting larger every year. I’ve had some instances with bullying with my own children, whether in the school bus or in the schools.”

Employment and Economic Development

Egan says that education is the groundwork for economic development.

“If you have a great school system, businesses will want to come here and people will want to relocate their families here to work for those businesses because there is a great school system in place,” says Egan.

“When the schools start falling apart, economic development suffers.”

She says it is important that the seven board members prioritize educational matters and come to a conclusion on how to boost the school system in Stafford.

School and Teacher Performance

The grading system for schools that will go into effect in January 2014, will assign a letter grade to individual schools to evaluate their performance.

While some legislators support the new system as a way of measuring accountability, Egan says she does not think this system is an adequate method to evaluate schools.

“Every child learns at a different rate. If you don’t have the tools in place to have those children get up to speed with your mainstream kids, you can’t hold that against the school as a whole,” she says.

She shares a similar view on teacher evaluations.

“You’ve got 26 kids in a classroom, when there should probably only be 20,” says Egan. “Each kid has a different level of learning. You’re judging a teacher on overall scores in a class when you have all of these different variables that pool, assuming all of the kids and how they test is the same is the issue with evaluating performance this way.”

She hopes that representatives in the General Assembly will address this issue during the next session and allow school board members and parents to participate.

“It is our task to make sure that every kid gets a good education, and I want to be a part of that.”

William “Bill” Howell has served as the 54th Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates since 2003. He was first elected as a delegate representing the 28th House district in 1987 and remains unopposed.

Howell has a juris doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and is an attorney practicing trust and estate law in Falmouth, Va.

During the last legislative session, Howell supported Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation reform package, which will do away with the retail gasoline tax and raise the state’s sales tax in an effort to fund repairs to roads and highways.

In recent news, Howell says he is pleased with budget for the fiscal year 2013. He says the surplus of a $261 million revenue surplus is an indication of good financial management.

“We’ve been able to manage our affairs in such a way that we’ve had four years of significant surpluses and I think that’s very important,” says Howell. “It shows that the government is run efficiently and effectively and the fact that we’ve been able to achieve those surpluses without any increase in taxes speaks volumes on how well we can manage our affairs.”

Education

Along with teacher pay and retention, Howell says the General Assembly will need to address the issue of accountability.

“I think we need to have more opportunities or alternatives for people that are in public school systems that aren’t performing,” he says. “You want to get the best people that you can as our teachers, but by the same token they need to be held accountable and to do a good job.”

Last winter, the General Assembly passed legislation that will assign an A-F letter grade for public schools in Virginia to measure performance. The bill is part of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education reform and is set to go into effect this fall. Howell says he supports this reform as a means to assure that schools are being held responsible.

“It is an example of the local schools being accountable to the parents who have children within that system,” says Howell. “They now can look and see how their school is stacking up compared with other schools.”

Obamacare

Howell says he is afraid that Obamacare will have a harmful effect to Virginia. He says it will end up increasing the cost of insurance for people who buy it on their own as well as cause employers to make significant hourly cuts.

“We already see companies changing their plans significantly,” says Howell. “I think that it’s a bill that is going to be difficult to implement and can be very detrimental to the country.”

Economic Development and Jobs

Going forward, Howell says that the economy and jobs are still important issues that need to be addressed in Virginia, regardless of the success of the last legislative session.

“The economy is very fragile, it’s been a weak recovery and I think that’s the number one issue that is on people’s minds right now,” says Howell. “We need to continue to do what we’ve done very effectively the last few years and that is maintain a climate that is conducive to new businesses that are starting in Virginia or moving to Virginia.”

Additionally, Howell says Virginia’s education and transportation system as well as high rankings as a business state have all made fundamental improvements.

 

NOKESVILLE, Va. – On Tuesday night, the Prince William County Police Department held a seminar to discuss digital safety, “sexting” and cyberbullying. Officers James Conway, Joshua Peters and Matthew Martz and Sergeant D.M. Smith delivered one clear message to parents throughout the event: be wary of what your children are doing online.

Conway said that internet and new technology shouldn’t be looked at as a bad thing, however, he said that bad decisions can lead to lasting consequences.

“I have a rule that I tell my kids and students at the schools. It’s simply this: Whatever you don’t want everyone to see or know, do not put up anywhere.”

The officers referred to a study on teenagers’ blogs released by Georgetown University. The results showed that more than half of high school students aged 13-18 revealed their contact information (61 percent) and location (59 percent) on an online medium.

To get a better idea of what students are sharing online, three-years ago, Conway went undercover on Facebook, creating a fake profile page and adding Prince William County students. Within 24 hours, he had 11 friends. Today, the profile has over 2,500 friends. He said the frightening reality is that not a single one of the students know his true identity, but decided to add him anyway.

“They all think I’m this person I pretend to be but I’m not,” said Conway. “If someone is your friend, your privacy settings don’t matter anymore.”

Conway said, on average, Facebook changes the privacy settings every three or four months. By default, these settings are oftentimes defaulted to public viewing.

“What you think you have private at one point, in three or four months from now may not be anymore,” said Conway. Further, he said these privacy issues are not limited to solely online mediums, but also include cellphone use.

The presentation featured a short news-clip that portrayed how simply uploading photos online can reveal a person’s exact location. “Geotagging” is defined as the process of adding geographical information to various forms of media. Conway says that unless the location settings are turned off, everything that person does can be tracked through geotracking technology.

“With these smart phones, by default, every time you take a picture it puts an actual pinpoint coordinate of where you are when you took that picture,” said Conway. He says that with these location features, something as simple as taking a picture of what you ate for breakfast can lead to additional information for potential predators.

When dealing with online media, the police officers recommend the following:

• Do not share your password, unless it is with your parents

• Stay up to date with continuously changing privacy settings on social media

• Time does not equal trust or knowing a person, be careful what you are revealing online

• Do not reveal personal information and turn off any location or geotagging settings

The majority of the presentation focused on the growing issue of “sexting” among juveniles, which is defined as the sending of sexually explicit photographs or messages via a mobile phone.

What may seem harmless in the eyes of participating teenagers, could lead to a detrimental outcome for all parties involved.

“If you take a (sexually-explicit) picture of yourself and you’re under the age of 18, just by taking that picture, you’ve now manufactured child pornography, which is a Class 6 felony” said Conway. “Then, every time you send it or show it to somebody, you now have distributed child pornography, another felony.”

Conway added that one of the problems is that the current child-pornography laws aren’t up to date with technology. The present laws make no distinction between adults and juveniles who make, send, receive and possess sexually-explicit images of minors.

“Those are the only laws we have to go by, there are no separate laws,” said Conway. The Class 6 felony charge carries a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, regardless if the case involves an adult and a minor or two minors.

The Prince William County officers discussed three separate cases that involved charges having to do with sexting and child pornography charges. The most recent involved Prince William County high school girls, in which a student posted an inappropriate photo of the other student to her Facebook account as an act of retaliation.

Martz says that the picture was posted on Facebook for no longer than 5 minutes, but within those few minutes, the photo was already seen by all of the Facebook followers and had been forwarded to at least 18 identified individuals.

“The original student that posted the image and other student that screenshot the image both received 100 hours of community service, were banned from social media for a year, had to undergo a mental health evaluation and had to pay restitution for 18 phones.”

“To replace an iPhone is $500, so to replace 18 of those iPhones, that’s quite a bit of money.”

In a separate incident, Conway said a high school girl came into his office to register as a sex offender. By federal and state law, a sex offender is required to register within the county and notify local law enforcement before attending any public or private school.

“She hadn’t even turned 16 years of age and she’s a registered sex offender. How do you go through high school like that?” said Conway.

“With technology, we’re all playing catch up” said Sgt. Smith. “People are finding new ways to use technology to commit crimes.”

Sgt. Smith added that there are a growing number of companies who possess software that can decrypt the pixels of an image to identify images that contain underage children. He says that information is then sent to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and can be forwarded to law enforcement.

The presentation also touched on “cyberbullying,” a growing epidemic involving the use of internet and related technology to harass, threaten, or harm by a minor against another minor. Conway says that according to data collected in 2011, 160,000 children in this country do not go to school every day for the fear of being bullied.

If your child is sent a sexually explicit message or is a victim of cyberbullying, law enforcement recommends you:

• Do not respond to the message

• Save any messages that can be used by police

• Tell a parent or trusting adult

 

Jeremy McPike, democratic candidate for the 31st Virginia House District, seeks to unseat openly conservative Delegate Scott Lingamfelter in the upcoming 2013 General Election.

McPike’s campaign will focus on issues including transportation, education and health care. He currently serves as the Director of General Services for the City of Alexandria.

With 15 years of service as a volunteer firefighter for the Dale City Fire Department, McPike is an active member of his community.

“I spend a lot of time serving the community and I look forward to continuing to do so,” says McPike. “It’s important that prince William County has a voice and we get our priorities addressed.”

Transportation

Transportation supported the recent transportation reform signed by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, which abolished the gas tax and raised Virginia’s sales tax to promote funding for roads.

“I was happy to see a bipartisan transportation bill passed,” says McPike. “With every bipartisan (legislation), not everyone gets exactly what they want and I was frankly disappointed to see that an overwhelming majority of the Prince William delegation did not vote for that bipartisan transportation bill.”

McPike says that any delegate session challenging transportation bipartisan legislation can have consequences for the Prince William County area.

“We’ve got to stop it. We’ve got to help our families. We’ve got to help bring people to their services, and that’s the key,” McPike says. He says the transportation reform will help fuel the economy and jobs in the Northern Virginia area.

“We spend too much time on the roads,” McPike said. “We need an active voice in the community that’s making that sure we get a candidate that is going to hear our voices and take care of our transit and road issues.”

Education

Through his campaign, McPike has been able to hear the concerns from teachers, parents and students firsthand.

“We’ve got to let the teachers teach not just teach to a test,” says McPike. “We need students to come out and use their critical thinking and creative abilities. We live in a creative economy now and we’ve got to make sure (students) have the resources they need to support a future generation.”

Another goal of McPike is to figure out a practical way to measure the performance of schools in Virginia.

“We need to make sure we invest well in education and continue to develop the best and the brightest and work to retain the best and the brightest here (in Virginia).”

He was recently endorsed by the Virginia Education Association.

Jobs

“We’ve got tremendous assets to offer companies but we also have to make sure that we’ve got a good business climate,” said McPike. “We’ve got to maintain that, but we also need to invest in infrastructure, and the state has neglected that responsibility.”

He says his goal is to maintain the bipartisan transportation approach in maintaining business development.

“Businesses realize that you have to be able to move people, goods and services. We’ve got some great talent in this area but we’ve got poor infrastructure. We need to continue to build businesses that are closer to home.”

Medicaid Expansion

McPike says he believes the health care expansion in Virginia is an important impact and will positively impact Virginia’s economy at a lower cost for the state budget.

“The Medicaid expansion in Virginia is an important aspect. It’s set to impact almost 400,000 Virginians and create 30,000 jobs,” he said.

Redistricting and Gift Laws

Another issue McPike says he plans to tackle is the current redistricting process and that the Virginia General Assembly should be looking at a bipartisan approach.

“We need to take the gerrymandering out of the picture and leave it to demographers and professors to provide representative districts,” says McPike.

“Give [the General Assembly] options to vote on and that’s it,” he says “Don’t let them draw the lines anymore in the background.”

McPike says he hopes to further address the current gift law, which allows elected officials to receive gifts and take trips as long as they disclose gifts over $50. McPike calls for reform and says that voters should be the top priority of public officials.