"Ruh-roh!" This has the word 'T-R-O-U-B-L-E' spelled all over it! It's going to get VERY LOUD in Charles Houston tomorrow night!

This is going to be a BLAST. Totally looking forward to it. I'll be there with bells on.

There was an incident this August involving a air soft gun and students at Mt. Vernon. The end result was not the arresting of a child. The NAACP should find out why there is a difference here. Also the commonwealth attorney declined to prosecute this and put th responsibility square on ACPS administrators for the handling of this cases. Why did the superintendent contend that the school system's hands were tied when clearly they were not? I hope the patch and the NAACP make public the results of this q and a session.

I suspect this has less to do with the child's race than with the anti-anything-resembling-a-gun hysteria sweeping the country. A 7 year old in Maryland, whose race I'm unaware of, was recently suspended because he bit his pop-tart to form the shape of a gun. At least a toy gun could actually be mistaken for a gun by a rational person.

The NAACP National Education Program strives to ensure that ALL students have access to an equal and high-quality public education by eliminating education-related racial and ethnic disparities in our public schools. Notice the mission is for ALL students not just one race in particular. The NAACP can only be part of an incident when report to them. Maybe if the situation in August was brought to their attention it could have been addressed.

Based on the posts here, particularly the first two, sounds like Mr. Sherman doesn't stand a chance. Facts and explanations be damned!

Edmund Lewis...if you aren't there with flyers detailing everything that has happened under the Superintendent's reign...we will be deeply disappointed!

What are the odds Morty doesn't even show up?

Considering he has a meeting scheduled with MacArthur parents at 6:30 he either will not show up or thinks MacArthur parents are only worth 15 minutes of his time.

The whole thing a complete FARCE. It was NOT a Q&A. I was one of only two white woman at the sham Q&A who were not press. The other woman was wearing an ACPS jacket and I think she was ACPS staff but I'm not sure. I wrote three questions for Sherman, as directed. Two were not asked. They were roughly as follows:

1. Many citizens and electeds have called for your resignation. Why don't you resign?
2. Why did you not arrest the WHITE coaches, teacher and students who bullied a white girl on the lacrosse team in 2009?
Howard Woodson, an attorney and NAACP member, reviewed all question and refused to give those two to Sherman. When I asked Woodson to return my questions, he said they were the property of the NAACP and that they had been destroyed. I never saw him leave the room or rip up any papers. I did see him write on some of the cards. He also used profanity twice, telling me he "didn't f***** care" if I put this info on twitter on facebook and that I could "do whatever you f****** want."

The event was advertised as open to the public and was held in a city facility, but Woodson tried to tell me it was a private event by the NAACP and all items were property of the NAACP and they could do whatever they wanted. He said he was there as a private citizen but admitted that he is an attorney and I have photos of him reviewing and writing on the question cards.

This was a sham, a farce and the Alexandria NAACP should be deeply ashamed. They claim to want educational opportunities for all kids. Howard Woodson, whose wife is a former school board member, is a disgrace, not to mention an arrogant jerk. I don't mind calling out prominent local Dems when it is warranted. When a group with a distinquished reputation like the NAACP publicly advertises a Q&A with the school superintendent, and then packs it with police and court officials to answer preapproved questions and refuses to allow full and open participation by the citizenry, they need to be called out and exposed for the sham that they are. The NAACP of Alexandria showed itself to be a willing participant in the Mort Sherman sideshow whitewash. It was disgraceful. BTW, I sat next to one of this town's most vocal Republicans. We get along just fine because he and I agree on this issue. Mort Sherman needs to resign.

Right - my mistake. City council

Did contributors from the patch attend? Was this an open q and a forum as advertised? Let's here it patch.

Sharon from Old Town Patch was there.

I think there is a sad fact missing here...we live in a culture of violence....little kids taking toy guns to school to show off.... how sad and disturbing.......we have Hollywood to thank for a lot of that...the focus here should be on new unified initiatives to mentor young children most at risk. There is a strong legacy of that here in Alexandria.

Violence in movies is nothing new. It's just gorier now and kids see it more in video games than anywhere else. It's up to parents to monitor what their kids watch anyway. I'm all for mentoring kids and whatever else we can do, but the fact is that some of our local "leaders" are nothing but self promoting opportunists who want to put on shows and not do any actual real work. That doesn't help anyone.

So the questions were screened first and only certain questions were answered. Not exactly a question and answer session involving the public, more of a public display of the information these public servants are willing to share. Was the question raised "why was this student arrested in the first place if the Commonwealth Attorney felt that it should have been handled by school officials?" If so, what was the answer? Other students have had toy weapons on school ground and those incidents were handled by the school. Why was this incident handled differently and by whom?

That question was not among the pre screened, pre approved questions, Edmund.