In a letter sent home by Nottingham Elementary School officials, administrators told parents that the likely cause of the outbreak is norovirus. The highly-contagious stomach illness typically leads to serious nause and vomiting.

It was a confusing day at Nottingham for many students, including 4th grader Raquel Robinson, who along with her classmates were moved from trailers behind the school into a main building. She was one of the students who ended up falling ill.

"Everyone was getting sick," she said. "It got me and all my friends worried, and we cleared out as fast as we (could)."

Arlington County Schools officials will not confirm how many children have been sickened, but a parent says that 80 children were absent from school Thursday. Most of them are 4th and 5th graders who spent their school days in trailers.

School administrators say they're still working to identify the cases and prevent the spread of the virus. Knowing the cause of the illness, though, is at least making parents feel a small bit of relief.

"I was a bit surprised and a little concerned," Nottingham parent Kim Winter said. "There are a lot of small children in one small area."

The painting is by artist John Currin and is titled "Bea Arthur Naked." It sold at Christie's auction of postwar and contemporary art on Wednesday. It had been expected to bring in between $1.8 million and $2.5 million.

Christie's hasn't said who bought it. The official selling price, according to Christie's, was $1,915,750.

"I thought about the personae of the middle-aged women that were pictured in this series, and I imagined them as being divorced and cast out, like harlequins wandering the beach," Currin said in a statement posted to christies.com. "I had a vision in my head of Bea Arthur, and I found a picture of her."

The 1991 oil painting depicts the late television actress nude from the waist up. Christie's said Thursday the image was based on a photograph of her with her clothes on.

Arthur gained fame for her Emmy Award-winning roles in "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" in the 1970s and '80s. She died of cancer in 2009 at age 86.

They say they ensure the city's most precious cargo – children, including those with special needs – make it to school each day.

But instead of being rewarded, they say their pay will be slashed.

One driver says, "We were hit with this as we came in this morning.”

It was a meeting with Ryan Solchenberger, the Director of Student Transportation in the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.

They learned the director was either going to furlough 800 workers or choose to cut work hours from seven hours per day to four.

"I cannot live off that," says driver Jacqueline Graves. "We're already working seven hours a day. We're living paycheck to paycheck."

Some drivers reportedly walked off the job, potentially leaving thousands of special needs students stranded.

Buses did eventually roll, but drivers say this decision has left them financially stranded.

"It’s no way you can survive off  four hours,” says one driver. “You have to pay taxes, medical, so what's that going to leave? $100?"

In a letter obtained by ABC7, the Division of Student Transportation informed drivers that they and their on-board attendant will be limited to four hours per day. But drivers and attendants will still receive full benefits.

The split shift will last just six weeks, starting June 18. And each driver will return to full duty on August 12.

The University System of Maryland's Board of Regents approved tuition and fee hikes at a meeting in Baltimore on Wednesday. The 2.4 percent increase over this year's tuition and fees is expected to boost revenue by $35.7 million.

Officials say tuition for Maryland residents won't increase by more than 3 percent at most schools, but in-state students' tuition will increase by 6 percent at Salisbury University. Students from other states will pay up to 4.4 percent more.

With fee increases, Maryland residents could pay a few hundred dollars more and residents of other states will pay several hundred dollars to about $1,000 more next year depending on the school.

After teaching in public schools in D.C. and Maryland, as well as local colleges, Williams founded the non-profit organization Academic Resources Unlimited. He spends countless hours tutoring children.

"Oh my do I care about them, yes,” he says. “I think about them most of the time."

Several years ago, while teaching some local high school students about Martin Luther King, Jr., Williams learned something that really bothered him. He discovered that many of the students couldn’t pronounce the words in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

So he developed several books, cross-word puzzles on famous people like MLK and the president and first lady, to help kids expand their vocabularies.

And his students praise him.

“He knows how to put things in a way that I can understand them,” says Jalante Wells, a 6th grader.

Opponents of the school closure plan filed a lawsuit in March and asked U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg to stop the closures, which begin at the end of the school year. The community group Empower DC, which is behind the lawsuit, said the closures improperly discriminate against poor, minority and disabled students.

But on Wednesday, Boasberg declined to halt the closings. In a 31-page opinion, he said there "is no evidence whatsoever" that officials intended to discriminate in closing the schools. He wrote that officials are "transferring children out of weaker, more segregated, and under-enrolled schools" into better schools.

The gift announced Tuesday comes from the Bedford Falls Foundation Charitable Trust. The foundation was established by William E. Conway Jr., the co-chief executive of The Carlyle Group private equity firm, and his wife, Joanne.

The gift includes $1 million annual installments over four years. It will fund the William and Joanne Conway Nursing Scholars Program for 18 undergraduates with financial need, covering tuition, books, room and board. It also funds clinical and faculty mentors.

The university says graduates will be encouraged to fill nursing jobs nearby.

Nursing Dean Patricia McMullen says the grant will significantly increase the number of students pursuing nursing degrees.

Superintendent Clayton Wilcox told The Herald-Mail newspaper of Hagerstown Monday that he plans to ask a group of employees to formulate suggestions for appropriate attire.

School board member Jacqueline Fischer says some female substitute teachers have worn clothes that she considers too revealing.

Board President Justin Hartings says he has seen school employees in outfits that reveal their midriffs. He says that's inappropriate attire for the classroom.

Hartings says school employees should dress in a way that reflects the seriousness of their work.

Wilcox says he hopes to have some suggested guidelines in hand by next fall.

Steger, 65, announced his plans to retire in an email to students, faculty and staff. Steger said he'll remain on the job until his replacement is found. The school said a search would begin immediately.

"When one is totally absorbed in doing what one loves, fourteen years pass in an instant. Serving as president of this great university has been the most demanding and yet the most exhilarating and fulfilling experience of my life - from the exuberance at the beginning of the fall semester to the elation at commencement and every single day in between," Steger said.

Steger is a three-time Virginia Tech grad. He became the youngest dean of architecture in the nation when he assumed the head of the university's College of Architecture and Urban Studies at age 33. He was named president in 2000.

While he has won much praise for his fundraising abilities, increasing the school's research capabilities and bringing its athletics program into the Atlantic Coast Conference, Steger's handling of the April 16, 2007, shooting massacre has been the source of criticism and lawsuits.

Some victims and parents blamed Steger for not ordering the campus warned sooner that a shooter had killed two students in a residence hall. Two hours later, when the alert was issued that a shooter was on the loose, student gunman Seung-Hui Cho was chaining shut the doors to a classroom building where he killed 30 additional students and faculty before turning the gun on himself as police closed in.

The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in June that Steger should be put on trial for his actions that day.

The issue has attracted a great deal of attention in the past four years after suicides by two students related to the policies. The Fairfax school board continued its discussion Monday on how to improve the policies, and one man is leading the effort.

Steve Stubin’s son Nick, a 15-year-old student at Woodson High School, committed suicide two years ago. Nick was suspended and faced expulsion after buying a legal synthetic drug at school, but his parents were never told by the school district.

Two years before that, a similar situation with a student at South Lakes High School also resulted in suicide.

Starting last year, Stubin chaired a committee made of parents and administrators recommending several changes to current policy, including a second chance program for first-time drug infractions, academic support for suspended students, and more discretion for principals.

Like other administrators, Westfield High School principal Tim Thomas wants parents involved when their child is in trouble, but worries notifying them too soon could hinder a school investigation.

“Some of the proposed language could impact our ability to gather the facts in a timely manner that openly we feel protects the entire student body,” Thomas says.

The school board also discussed new policies in dealing with marijuana possession at schools, as well as synthetic substances. A vote is tentatively set for next month.

No one was struck or injured during the incident, which happened just after 8:30 a.m. Monday on a Winchester Public Schools bus, where a special needs student was reportedly being disorderly.

A police officer responded and calmed the student down, ABC 3 reports, but at some point, the student reached into the officer's gun holster and accidentally fired his service weapon.

READ MORE at tv3winchester.com.

According to the GW Hatchet, the Faculty Senate at George Washington University dramatically extended the length of time victims of sexual assault have to report a crime. The statute, which was previously set at six months last autumn, was lengthened to two years.

While campus leaders say that the policy isn't "perfect," the process is now more conducive for victims to come forward with their claims. It also allows for victims to remain anonymous throughout the claim process.

"We do not want to rush anyone through this personal process," GWU Deputy Title IX administrator Tara Pereira told the Hatchet.

Meanwhile, up the road at the University of Maryland, the university's Senate recently voted to allow campus authorities to investigate claims of sexual assault both on and off campus.

Previous codes frequently led campus officials to direct victims to local police because they didn't have jurisdiction over assault claims that didn't take place on the College Park campus.

"With the changes to the code, that won't have to happen any longer," Maryland Office of Student Conduct Director Andrea Goodwin told the Diamondback.

You can read more about both policies at gwhatchet.com and diamondbackonline.com.

Andrianna Ayiotis has been accepted into a program offered by USC for mature and academically gifted rising seniors. The Washington Post reports that scholarships and grants will cover most of her tuition. About 40 students were accepted into the program this year.

Ayiotis says her success can be traced to her greatest academic failure: not getting into the county's prestigious magnet school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. She says going to George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church motivated her and helped her discover new interests.

She's considering pursuing a doctorate degree in biomedical engineering.

The Gazette reports that the College Board is reviewing the incident, which was reported by Quince Orchard High School's principal.

A student recorded the video at the testing center Monday and posted it on Twitter.

Since exam-day policies bar students from having cellphones, smartphones and tablets at a testing center, the College Board is considering whether to cancel the AP psychology exam scores.

A College Board spokesman says the case is being reviewed, but that it appears that the "security of the AP test about to be taken was not compromised." He says it appears to have been a simple violation of the cellphone policy.

Returning students will continue to pay under a block pricing structure under the plan approved Friday by the Board of Visitors. New students will pay on a per-credit hour basis, with credits at 15 hours or more reduced to half price.

The increases are 4.19 percent for in-state undergraduate students and 3.98 percent for out-of-state undergraduates. The typical bill for returning students will be $10,299 for Virginians and $24,863 for out-of-state students.

For new students taking 30 credit hours per year, the cost will be $12,002 for Virginians and $24,473 for out-of-state residents.

Costs will be higher for students living in student housing with a meal plan.

The report, released Wednesday by the New America Foundation, is critical of what it calls higher education's "relentless pursuit of prestige and revenue."

The report analyzed U.S. Department of Education data on the average net price paid by students whose families earn $30,000 or less. It also looked at the percentage of undergraduates receiving federal Pell Grants, which serve families with the most financial need.

The analysis found that low-income students suffered in states such as Virginia where schools sought to make up for dwindling state support by raising tuition while also increasing financial aid to lower-income students.

The report says U.Va., the College of William and Mary and Virginia Tech should be "a cautionary tale in the debate over the privatization of public higher education" and the high-tuition, high-aid strategy. All three schools were granted greater autonomy by the state "in part on the promise" of increasing enrollment of low-income students with disappointing results, the report says.

While U.Va. is "extremely generous" with need-based aid, Pell Grant recipients make up only 13 percent of undergraduates, the report found. The average net price for those with the lowest income at U.Va. is $3,543 per year.

While the school "gone to great lengths" to recruit low-income students from poorer parts of the state, if also attracts large numbers of out-of-state students from more-affluent families, the report said.

U.Va. Rector Helen Dragas told The Richmond Times-Dispatch she shared the report Wednesday with other members of the board of visitors and it will be reviewed closely.

The report "couldn't be timelier because it raises several of the issues we are considering at U.Va.," she said.

U.Va. spokesman McGregor McCance said Pell recipients have increased in recent years, but that it was "important to consider the success of Pell recipients rather than just the number. U.Va.'s graduation rate of 85 percent for Pell Grant recipients exceeds the total graduation rate at many American universities."

At the University of Richmond, 18 percent of students receive Pell Grants, and the average net price for low-income students is $7,150, according to the report.

The report found that schools strategically award merit aid to students who can increase their standings in rankings like U.S. News & World Report and bring in more revenue, rather than helping to make college more affordable for those with the most financial need.

Peter Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, said that since 2006 the number of in-state Pell-eligible students at Virginia's public four-year institutions has increased by almost 75 percent - from 22,260 to 39,230.

"Even with higher tuition, Virginia's institutions are finding ways to open doors for low-income students," he said.

But he said the escalating price of higher education for all students continued to be a major concern

Student Nyideh Richardson says it's interesting to be able to tell her friends that she’s heading off to work.

Don Bosco Christo Rey High School partners with local businesses to give students real work experience.

“It gives me more skills to like to apply to a real job in the real world,” says student worker Anthony Allauca.

Kelsey Leasure, HR Coordinator, says it’s great having the students come in and help.

Father Steve, president of Don Bosco Christo Rey, is the driving force behind the school, which takes low-income students from 53 zip codes around the D.C. metro area.

“Some have to care for siblings and their families,” Father Steve says. “So, when they come here it's a safe place. They feel empowered and the work program gives them the confidence and motivation to stay in school.”

The transformations, says Father Steve, are profound.

“We have students coming to us two years behind academically, and then now we realize 100% accepted to college,” he says, adding the student believe “now my life doesn't seem like it's dark, but it's bright.”

The owner of Antietam Recreation, Mary Rotz, says students take part in water events, horseback riding and a petting zoo during the trip.

Rotz also said the lunchtime performance includes an entertainer who mentions God while sharing a personal story about overcoming difficulties.

Antietam Recreation is located near the Antietam Battlefield. It describes itself as a recreational facility with a Christian atmosphere.

More on this story from The Herald-Mail.

ABC7's Adam Caskey celebrated this morning with some school kids in Vienna.

National Bike to School Day is an event that encourages children to safely bike or walk to school. It's part of Global Youth Traffic Safety Month and the United
Nations Global Road Safety Week - two global campaigns also working to improve pedestrian safety for young people.

For more information, log onto www.walkbiketoschool.org.

“I got to storm the court after we beat Duke right in the crush of the court,” said Reid. “I never expected that.”

Reid's love for UVa. began in 1963 after he dropped out of high school. He spent weekends partying with his pal, Billy Sturman, but never applied to college. And despite becoming a sports writer, conveyer belt salesman and even a race-car driver, Reid couldn't shake his old buddy's message to give college a try.

So in 2009, at the age of 66, he took community college classes, applied to UVa. and was accepted.

“It is my home,” explained Reid. “I felt it when I first walked on grounds. I felt a connection.”

Reid also received special permission to initiate in Chi Phi fraternity, with final approval from his wife.

Now he has a 3.5 GPA in the Interdisciplinary Studies program. And though his friend Sturman passed away in a car accident in 1984, Reid visits his memorial brick at Chi Phi often to express gratitude to his brother eternal.

“You're a good man, Billy Sturman,” said Reid. “I'm so glad you talked to me about the University and what I needed to be doing.”

Reid graduates next spring but can't bear the thought of leaving UVa. He's planning to apply to grad school, so he can stay three more years.

In a suit filed in D.C. Superior Court last month, the woman claims that an associate professor, Eric Saidel, "emotionally and verbally abused" her daughter while she participated in the School Without Walls Early College program in 2011.

The lawsuit names multiple parties, including Saidel, the university and its philosophy department and others. In it, the mother says that the teacher continuously lied to her daughter and repeatedly ridiculed her.

READ MORE at gwhatchet.com.

Figures released by the school system show 62 percent of high school students failed their final exams in geometry and 57 percent failed Algebra 2. Among honors level students, about a third failed those exams.

That has prompted officials in the school system to look into whether students are being adequately prepared for the tests. Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr says a work group will meet this summer. Teaching, student support and alignment between the curriculum and the exams are among the issues that will be looked at.

But there are no limousines at the Waterford Receptions. And the red carpet sees more wheels than heels

These kids are from the Key Center School, a facility for students with intellectual disabilities and autism.

Wearing a tie and holding his sister’s hand, Judd Nicely, 16, was born without 75 percent of his brain.

Judd’s date says he is the most rewarding part of her life.

"Not a lot of people ... get to know someone who has a disability," says Nikki Nicely. “It makes you grow up loving everyone.”

That's what makes it different from other proms.

“I like this one better,” says volunteer Hector Parada from Lee High School. “It opens your eyes and makes you grateful for what you have.”

And from the first dance to the last, everyone has someone to hold.

“It’s just, you know, more kids than there are seats so what are they going to do?” asks Mary Smaragdis.

Smaragdis has three kids in Arlington public schools, one at Washington Lee, where student overflow means her freshman could soon be learning in a trailer.

“It’s not going to be the most pleasant of experiences going to a trailer in the middle of winter, but that’s what they’ve got to do,” she says.

Like most public schools in Arlington County, Washington Lee is hundreds of students overcapacity. This year, the county will add 25 trailers to local campuses.

“It’s a quick fix and a temporary fix,” says John Chadwick of Arlington County Public Schools.

Chadwick oversees the Arlington school facilities and says the trailers are a relatively cheap and easy way to get students into larger quarters quickly. Over the last six years, the school system has added roughly 1,000 students every year. By next fall, roughly 2,000 students will be learning in more than 100 mobile classrooms.

“The biggest issue with them is that we have very limited space in Arlington and so they’re taking up space we’d rather use for other things,” Chadwick says.

But Chadwick says despite losing space, there has been a minimal impact on education. That is echoed by parents like Jana McAndrew.

“I think as long as teachers have the materials that they need, it really doesn’t matter the environment, whether it’s in a brick building or a mobile classroom,” she says.

The county is also considering boundary changes at the high school level to ease overcrowding, but there are no definite plans in place yet.