Megan Pauly
Staff Reporter, VPM NewsMegan Pauly reports on early childhood and higher education news in Virginia. She was a 2020-21 reporting fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network and a 2019-20 reporting fellow with the Education Writers Association.
Megan previously worked for NPR affiliate WDDE in Wilmington, Delaware, and freelanced for NPR affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C. She's also reported for NPR, Marketplace, The Atlantic, The Hechinger Report and more.
Email Megan: [email protected]
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Virginia lawmakers are weighing legislation to remove fixed salary caps for appointed members, and instead align salary rules for both elected and appointed school board members. -
Insured Virginians who end up in the hospital for an emergency – or even a scheduled procedure – can sometimes end up with a surprise bill from an out-of-network provider. It’s known as “balanced billing,” or “surprise billing.”
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As disorderly conduct charges against youth increase, some lawmakers and school staff say it's time to stop criminalizing students.
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Legislation that would fully fund Standards of Quality recommendations from Virginia’s Board of Education advanced Monday. The proposal recommends extra funding for several layers of support staff, including reading specialists, full-time principals for all elementary schools and mentors for new teachers.
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This year, legislation was introduced to require all Virginia school districts to teach firearm safety training at all grade levels. That legislation was sent to a Senate Rules committee Thursday, where it’s unlikely to move forward.
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Yeah so, the crisis is that it's incredibly hard to find affordable, available, high quality childcare pretty much no matter who you are. And so in Virginia, the average cost of childcare for a toddler or preschooler of $10,000 a year, for an infant it's $14,000 a year and at the same time, half of the census tracts in Richmond are considered a childcare desert, which means there are severe shortage of available slots.
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A bill that would’ve allowed schools to create mental health “break spaces” in public schools failed to advance out of subcommittee Wednesday.
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Over the last year, Virginia’s lottery has been losing money that would otherwise help fund public schools. Lottery analysts attribute much of that loss to unregulated games known to proponents as “games of skill” and to critics as “gray games” popping up in convenience stores and gas stations across the state.
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Governor Ralph Northam recently announced a bold plan to help pay the way for Virginia community college students in select career paths. It’s called “Get skilled, Get a Job, Give back,” or G3. Now, the plan is in the hands of lawmakers.
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Right now, Medicaid in Virginia doesn’t cover hardly any dental work for adults. A group of Democratic lawmakers are discussing ways to help more low-income Virginians get access to dental care.
