Sutton’s attorney, Ari Stein, confirmed his client had decided to drop out but didn’t offer a reason for the change of heart. The decision leaves Sutton’s opponent, Mark Bohenstiel, as the only candidate who will appear on the November ballot. Incumbent Jessica Owens is not seeking reelection.

Sutton’s decision came shortly after Virginia Beach Circuit Court Judge Afshin Farashahi declined a request from Bohenstiel for an emergency order that would have prevented Sutton’s name from being included on the ballot as the registrar’s office prepares to send out mail-in ballots and begin early voting next week. Bohenstiel filed a lawsuit last week in which he claimed Sutton had failed to meet all the requirements needed to be eligible to run.

Farashahi’s ruling on Monday, however, was only a temporary measure until a trial on the matter could be held. No trial date was set, but it would have been held before the election.

Bohenstiel’s case centers on the petitions Sutton submitted to qualify for the race. Candidates had to obtain 125 valid signatures from qualified voters in the district. While Bohenstiel’s lawsuit didn’t challenge the authenticity of the signatures, it did question the dates included with some of them, as well as the process followed when the petitions were notarized.

During a hearing Friday before Farashahi, Sutton testified he did his best to follow all the rules for obtaining and submitting signatures. The retired teacher and school administrator said he dated the pages of signatures he collected as Feb. 3, which is when he began gathering them. Some, however, were obtained on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, he said.

A former student of Sutton’s who attends the University of Virginia helped collect signatures, along with two of his fraternity brothers, Sutton said. A notary public in Charlottesville who notarized the petitions submitted a written statement in which he said the petitions were signed before they were presented to him. In such cases, he wrote, the standard practice is to have the presenters swear to their signatures in the notary’s presence and then re-date them. They weren’t re-dated in this case, he said.

Farashahi said there wasn’t enough evidence presented at last week’s hearing to indicate whether Bohenstiel was likely to succeed at trial.

He also said that while Bohenstiel would suffer “irreparable harm” if Sutton’s name is included on the ballot at this time, and then he’s later determined to be ineligible, the harm to Sutton would be greater if he were kept off the ballot now and then were to prevail at trial.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com

Hickory High and Hickory Middle schools will have synchronous virtual instruction that day, meaning students will log on to their school computers for class. Southeastern Elementary and Hickory Elementary will dismiss students at 1 p.m.

Country music star Luke Bryan will bring his “Farm Tour” to Heritage Park, 3444 S. Battlefield Blvd. in Chesapeake, for a 6 p.m. show. Parking will open at 2 p.m.

In a message sent to parents and posted on the schools’ websites, officials said that the division is “committed to the safety and security of our students and staff” and made the changes after receiving updated information about the concert’s “anticipated community impact.”

After-school activities were also canceled and school officials said the elementary afternoon bus routes might experience delays. Students at the elementary schools who were scheduled to attend the Oceana Air Show will still do so. Breakfast and lunch will still be served at the elementary schools.

During the pandemic, many divisions provided their students with devices to complete online assignments. Since virtual learning became widespread in 2020, some divisions have used the option instead of giving students a “snow day” during bad weather. In April, Norfolk schools moved to virtual learning because of safety concerns regarding the solar eclipse.

Nour Habib, nour.habib@virginiamedia.com

Earlier in the morning, students had been moved to rooms with windows, and telephone and internet access were affected, according to a text sent to parents at about 9:30 a.m. Parents received a follow-up message from the school at 10:30 a.m. about the outages and the subsequent dismissal at 11 a.m.

An electrical worker at the scene told a Daily Press reporter that a “squirrel in the line” triggered the electrical issues. Power to the building has been restored, but the dismissal will continue.

Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com

Peter Dujardin, peter.dujardin@dailypress.com

Chesapeake, Suffolk, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton have installed speed cameras in local school and work zones to deter speeding and enhance overall public safety.

Though law enforcement leaders tout the equipment as a safety measure to deter speeding, the cameras can also be significant moneymakers — with Chesapeake and Suffolk already raking in millions.

Chesapeake has a dozen cameras that have been active since 2022. The city reports a total of 158,075 violations since then, along with about $9.7 million in revenue.

Another 10 cameras in Suffolk went active in fall 2023 along with one at a work zone. Since then, the city reports roughly 196,000 citations, collecting $14.2 million in revenue. After paying the vendor, net revenue is $10.5 million. Suffolk did not specify whether the citation and revenue figures provided to The Virginian-Pilot were specific to school and work zone speed cameras only. The city also operates red light and school bus cameras.

Both cities previously said net revenue would go toward highway safety improvements and personnel costs.

The school zone speed cameras in Chesapeake and Suffolk are targeted in two lawsuits brought by former Del. Tim Anderson, an attorney who alleges the cities are improperly issuing speeding violations and allowing third party vendors to impersonate local government when collecting fees.

Anderson’s case in Suffolk is awaiting an order from a judge on whether it will move forward. A hearing in the Chesapeake case is scheduled for Sept. 18.

The Virginia General Assembly approved legislation in 2020 that allows state and local police to set up speed cameras at highway work sites and school crossing zones. Under that law, only motorists caught going at least 10 mph over the speed limit are ticketed up to $100.

Hampton is in the process of rolling out a dozen cameras in school zones this fall as part of a pilot program with staggered warning periods.

A 30-day warning period began Aug. 26 for cameras located near Bethel High School, Hampton High School and Hunter B. Andrews Pre-K. A 30-day grace period will begin for cameras at Jones Magnet Middle School, Kecoughtan High School, Lindsay Middle School and Machen Elementary School by Sept. 30. And cameras at another set of schools — Mary W. Jackson Elementary School, Thomas Eaton Middle School, Aberdeen Elementary School, Barron Elementary School and William Mason Cooper Elementary — will have a 30-day grace period beginning no later than Oct. 15.

Hampton city officials said about $3.5 million would be budgeted for the school zone speed camera pilot program.

Norfolk has 19 cameras in place across 10 public school locations. A 60-day warning period was slated to end in May, but a city spokesperson said last week that the cameras are still in an active warning period “until summons language can be resolved with the general district court and our vendor, Verra Mobility.”

Part of Anderson’s complaint in his lawsuits was that officers weren’t issuing an official Virginia summons document consistent with other traffic infractions when making the speeding citations.

Portsmouth has 16 cameras, and police began fining drivers in December. The city reports 28,289 citations and $951,061 of revenue collected between January and June. Of the total revenue, $565,042 will be paid to the third-party vendor.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the latest citations and revenue figures from the city of Portsmouth. The city provided the figures after the article published.

Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com

Sutton, a retired Virginia Beach teacher and school administrator, is running for the board’s District 3 seat. His opponent is Mark Bohenstiel, a small business owner. Incumbent Jessica Owens is not seeking reelection.

Bohenstiel sued Sutton last week, and asked the court to keep Sutton off the ballot. Also named as defendants were the city, the voter registrar, and members of the electoral board.

Bohenstiel’s case centers on petitions Sutton submitted to qualify for the race. Candidates had to obtain 125 valid signatures from qualified voters in the district to be declared eligible. While Bohenstiel’s complaint doesn’t challenge the authenticity of the signatures, it does question the dates included with some of them, as well as the process followed when the petitions were notarized.

During a hearing Friday before Circuit Judge Afshin Farashahi, Sutton testified he did his best to follow all the rules for obtaining and submitting signatures. He said he dated the pages of signatures he collected as Feb. 3, which is when he began gathering them. Some, however, were obtained on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, he said.

A former student of Sutton’s who now attends the University of Virginia helped collect signatures, along with two of his fraternity brothers, Sutton said. Testimony during Friday’s hearing suggested the students signed off on the petitions they’d circulated before presenting them to a notary of the public, which is not the proper procedure.

Also on Friday, Virginia Beach Electoral Board Chairman Jeffrey Marks told the judge the board would need to know by Tuesday what names to include on the ballot. Mail-in ballots are scheduled to go out Sept. 16, and early voting is set to begin Sept. 20, he said.

Farashahi said he would announce his decision on the injunction request Monday. The ruling, however, is unlikely to end the matter. A trial is still expected to be held before the election, and Farashahi said whatever decision he makes next week could end up changing after more evidence is presented at trial.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com

Alexander was a student at the high school when it served Black students during segregation. She later taught there when it became a middle school, and her children and grandchildren attended. Alexander attributes her success to Huntington’s loving teachers. A strong school and a strong school spirit mean a lot to a community, she said.

“Pride, dedication, family.”

Superintendent Michele Mitchell — who was a principal at the school and whose father attended Huntington —  said a strong sense of school pride is “everything” for a community, bringing people together to help all children flourish.

“In this community, to be able to say you are a Viking that means something,” Mitchell said. She is confident the new school will continue the legacy.

The original Huntington opened as a first-of-its-kind for Black students in 1920, with two teachers and 92 students. In 1936, it was relocated to 35th Street and Orcutt Avenue and closed in 2018. The site went through expansions and transformations, becoming an intermediate school after desegregation in 1971 and then a middle school in 1981.

Demolition began last year, though the facade is being preserved to be used as part of the planned Southeast Community Resource Area.

The new $77 million school will be located a few blocks south at 28th Street. The multistory building will house 600 students and focus on science, technology, engineering, art and math — or STEAM. It will feature open, collaborative spaces, learning studios and specially designed science labs.

Planning was, at times, contentious as some community members fought to keep the new school at its old site. But on Thursday, even some who had originally opposed the move came to celebrate the new chapter. 

School Board Vice Chair Terri Best, who attended Huntington in the ’70s, had initially pushed to keep the school at the old site. But she is now excited about the new location.

“This new school will be more than just classrooms,” Best said. “It will be a place where ideas flourish, dreams take shape and futures are built. It will also be a place for reflection, for remembering the rich Huntington legacy.”

Huntington students are currently housed at the Heritage High School campus.

The school is expected to be open for the 2026-27 school year. Mayor Phillip Jones said it will serve as the “anchor” to the new Southeast Community Resource Area, which will include a library and recreation center.

Nour Habib, nour.habib@virginiamedia.com

The program is a result of a $135,000 grant from the Scratch Foundation that partners Hampton University and the DevTech Research Group at Boston College for a two-year collaboration to develop the ScratchJr software, train educators and pilot the program this year. Teachers completed the training at Hampton in August.

Elaine Atherton, head of programs for the Scratch Foundation, said part of their work is bringing together nonprofits, schools, universities and other groups so they can collaborate in developing coding resources for “communities that are usually underrepresented from a lot of coding education.”

Atherton said the developers call the curriculum “Coding As Another Language” and see it as no different than learning phonics or developing number sense.

“Learning computer science is a new literacy for the 21st century,” she said. And though people often refer to today’s children as “digital native,” coding is still a learned skill.

“Yes, they have more exposure and access than any other generation to technology,” Atherton said. “But it is not intuitive that all of these children know how to use technology in a way that helps them think critically, problem solve, develop other computational thinking skills.”

Kimberly Thomas-Cain, also with Scratch Foundation, said the program allows students to “peek under the hood” and understand that things on the screen are not magic — they are created by someone.

For DeShea’ Simon, a professor in Hampton University’s management information systems department, helping young students learn these skills was part of the program’s appeal. Simon is heading the professional development piece and worked with training teachers. She and her team will support the teachers throughout the year and observe how students use the platform — where they get stuck, if they collaborate with other children while using it, how engaged they are.

“I would like these young people to be able to walk into public schools and know what a coding class is, and not to be afraid of that type of class when they hear it’s being offered.”

Nour Habib, nour.habib@virginiamedia.com

A legal complaint filed by Mark Bohenstiel names his opponent, John Sutton III, along with the City of Virginia Beach, and the city’s Director of Elections and three Electoral Board members as co-defendants. Bohenstiel alleges that 14 of Sutton’s petition signatures are dated Feb. 4, 2024, while the witness’s signature is dated the prior day — therefore his candidacy is invalid because he would not have reached the required 125 signatures.

Presiding Circuit Court Judge Afshin Farashahi said he would rule on the matter this week so that it could be resolved prior to ballots officially being printed.

Following the brief hearing, Sutton called the complaint “frivolous” and said it is an example of his opponent engaging in the “politics of personal destruction.”

“In my 18 years as a teacher and administrator, my integrity has never been questioned,” Sutton said in an interview.

John Kaptan, Bohenstiel’s attorney, said after the hearing that the citizens of Virginia Beach deserve “qualified” candidates for school board. Asked if he was referring to whether Sutton was personally qualified or legally qualified, Kaptan said his words “speak for themselves.”

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com

One afternoon when he was 5, Jonathan, who was fascinated with water, slipped out of the family’s Orange County home and into a neighbor’s yard.

The neighbor spotted the boy floating face down in his pool, let out a “bone chilling scream” and pulled Jonathan out, said Jason Eichenholz, the boy’s father.

Eichenholz raced over and found his son unconscious on the pool deck with ashen skin, blue lips and a distended belly. Eichenholz, a volunteer firefighter, was able to resuscitate him with CPR.

Children with autism are especially susceptible to the risk of drowning, as they tend both to wander away and to be attracted to water, experts say. That has led advocates to push for specialized swim lessons attuned to those kids’ situations, but much more needs to be done.

So far this year, 23 children with autism have died by drowning in Florida, including six in Central Florida, according to the Florida Department of Children and Families.  Those deaths account for nearly 30% of the 81 such deaths reported in 2024 in Florida, which leads the nation in childhood drowning.

Every time he sees a news report about a child with autism drowning his “heart sinks,” Eichenholz said, adding those stories were the catalyst for a targeted donation he made to the YMCA of Central Florida, which in the last year helped give nearly 100 kids with autism free swim lessons.

“No one tells you when you get a diagnosis of autism that the leading cause of death for your child is drowning,” said Eichenholz, whose son, now 19, took swimming lessons soon after his close call.

The most recent state case was on Aug. 27, when a 2-year-old boy wandered away from his backyard in Putnam County. A short while later, he was found unresponsive in a canal near his home, according to the department’s fatality report.

One of the recent Central Florida cases involved a 3-year-old on vacation with his father in Orlando. He wandered out of his room at the Sheraton Vistana Resort and was later found dead in a pond on the property.

There also was a close call in early August when a 5-year-old boy with autism got out of his home and was rescued by a Volusia County sheriff’s deputy, who found the child clinging to a log in a nearby pond.

“I don’t think people have been talking about drownings involving children with autism at anywhere near the level that it needs to be,” said Jon Burstein, senior communications specialist at the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County.

Autism is a developmental disability that leads to delays, and problems, in language and social skills. The symptoms can be moderate or severe and may involve repetitive behaviors and sensitivity to taste, touch and noise. Children with autism are often drawn to water, intrigued by how it feels on their bodies, and are often “elopers,” prone to wandering.

Teaching children with autism to swim means assessing the child’s individual needs, often providing private lessons and giving the youngsters extra time to adjust.

“The goal for the first three or four lessons might just be that they’ve built a trust with the swim instructor, and they are comfortable with walking away from their parent,” said Jessica Chamberlain, regional aquatics director for the YMCA of Central Florida.

The YMCA combined Eichenholz’s donation — he declined to say how much he provided — with grant money from the YMCA of the USA to offer the free swim lessons.

That money has been used up, however, and there are still about 30 kids on the waitlist. The YMCA is now looking for additional funding to provide more lessons for free. Without a scholarship, it costs $225 for eight 30-minute private lessons.

The YMCA also has partnered with Nemours Children’s Hospital, which was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Universal Orlando Foundation to help launch an aquatics program for children with autism and other developmental delays. The hospital hopes to offer lessons to about 25 children a year.

That program, which kicked off in July, has been hosting its lessons at the Leonard and Marjorie Williams Family YMCA in Orlando.

Lucas Davies was 16 months old  when he was diagnosed with autism. Not long after, his parents enrolled him in traditional swim classes at a YMCA in California, where they were living at the time. But six months later, the toddler still was reluctant to get in the pool and had no swimming skills.

When Lucas was 2, his parents, Chris and Renee Davies, moved to Orlando. Then they enrolled him in swim lessons with Geoff Dawson, who teaches at his Longwood home and has experience working with children with special needs.

Dawson had the Davies bring all three of their children to the first few lessons, so the siblings could get in the pool and make their brother feel more comfortable.

He also recommended that they break the lessons into 10-minute chunks spread out over four days, so being in the water became a normal part of Lucas’ daily routine.

At age 3, Lucas now can swim to the pool’s edge and float on his back for short periods of time.

“Before he started swimming with Geoff, if he fell in the water, there was no way he could get out on his own, or even float,” Renee Davies said. “I feel dramatically more comfortable now.”

Veronica Skyes, an Osceola County mother of two children with autism, is also the director of a non-profit that coordinates care for youngsters with the disability. Every summer, she advises parents to take their children out of other therapy sessions to make room for swim lessons.

But many are reluctant. Families with a young child newly diagnosed with autism may feel their time and money is already monopolized by that child’s therapy and treatment appointments.

“A lot of families are desperate for the progress they want their child to make — ‘I need him to speak. I need his behavior to be controlled’ — that they’re not even thinking about the swim lesson component,” she said.

Jennifer Cicia, an autism disorders specialist at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, said swimming lessons should be the last line of defense to prevent a “catastrophic event”.

Parents whose children have autism should install extra locks and alarms, get a tracking device for their child and learn CPR. If possible, they should put up a fence with a locked gate around their property, she added.

But none of those devices mean a young child won’t get out unnoticed, so learning to swim is crucial, she said.

Eichenholz said he put in extra locks on his home’s doors, but on the day his son nearly drowned, the family forgot to secure a secondary latch on the sliding glass door.

The parents of the 5-year-old boy who got out of his home in Volusia in August had alarms on their doors, the sheriff’s office said. Those alarms sounded — but the child still made it to the pond before he was found.

“I don’t know if we can ever do enough when we’re having kids drowning at the rate that we’re having,” Cicia said.

With school back in session, teachers are invited to the aquarium for free to explore the exhibits. Educators can also bring one guest for free to the exclusive teacher evening.

The event will be at the aquarium’s recently opened South Building with interactive exhibits, live animal encounters and the chance to meet the aquarium’s gallery educators. Aquarium staff will share conservation efforts and discuss hands-on learning opportunities that fulfill SOL requirements.

All public and private educators and day care employees are welcome and only need their school ID for entry. Register on the aquarium’s website at virginiaaquarium.com.