Archive for the ‘Schools’ Category

Miriam Gennari, the Green Party candidate for school board, made her case for why she should replace incumbent Sally Baird last night. To Gennari, the biggest challenges facing Arlington Public Schools come down to sustainability and environmental stewardship.

“The questions that we’re going to face have more to do with our environment than anything else,” Gennari said. “As we continue to plan our community to become more dense… we have to determine how we can best make those transitions while not having a negative affect on our children.”

Gennari touted her fight against styrofoam in school cafeterias two years ago. She also questioned the nearly $100 million spent on a Washington-Lee High School that opened in 2008 and is already overcrowded.

Baird, meanwhile, emphasized student achievement, saying she wants to continue her efforts to boost the graduation rate.

“First and foremost, we’re about helping kids achieve,” she said.

Baird recounted that when she ran four years ago, the student population was declining and someone asked if she “would have the courage to close a school.”

“There are generational trends going on here, so we have to be very careful about how we manage it… understand that in some places where the population is growing it’s not going to keep growing,” Baird said.

Both candidates were asked about the planetarium, which was set for closure under the superintendent’s latest school budget. The 40-year-old facility was saved by the efforts of the Friends of the Planetarium, a coalition of concerned citizens who agreed to raise funds for renovations.

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Olympic track and field star Carl Lewis will be on hand at Washington-Lee High School this afternoon to help launch the newest chapter of the Best Buddies program.

The nine-time gold medalist will meet W-L students and tell them about the volunteer program, which encourages students to build one-on-one friendships with intellectually and developmentally-disabled individuals.

Lewis’ appearance will take place in W-L’s auxiliary gym at 1:00 p.m.

Best Buddies chapters are already in place at Wakefield and Yorktown high schools, and at the H-B Woodlawn and Stratford secondary programs. In Virginia, Best Buddies International operates 25 chapters which count more than 10,000 participants in total.

Thanks to generous donations, the 62 homeless youth served by Doorways for Women and Families were able to go back to school today with supply-filled backpacks.

The backpacks contained lunch bags, water bottles, pencils, crayons and even a gift card redeemable for donated clothing.

“The security of starting the school year well prepared will help these children to overcome some of the other uncertainties in their life right now,” Doorways services coordinator Kristen Barnes wrote on the organization’s blog.

Photo courtesy of Doorways.

At 6:30 this morning, school buses were streaming out of a county facility near Shirlington, on their way to pick up students for the first day of school. It’s the start of a ritual that will continue every school day until the start of next summer.

In all, about 120 buses will pick up about 10,000 students county-wide this morning. Another 11,000 will walk or be driven to one of Arlington’s 34 public schools.

Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Patrick Murphy started his own first day ritual at the bus yard, doing a live shot on the Fox 5 Morning News, greeting bus drivers, and talking to a video crew with the school system’s TV station.

Asked about emotions and expectations on the first day of school, Dr. Murphy emphasized the importance of maintaining student engagement after the new-ness wears off.

“It’s exciting, it’s starting new, but the first day should be just like every other day,” Dr. Murphy said. “Everybody can be great on day one — it’s about being great every day.”

More photos after the jump.

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Back to School — The nearly 21,000 students enrolled in Arlington Public Schools are returning to class today. Watch out for school buses on the roads this morning.

Arlington Parents Like Their Kid’s School, Teachers – On Friday, we reported that a survey conducted on behalf of Arlington Public Schools found that parents were very much opposed to redrawing school boundaries. Now comes more evidence that parents of APS students are happy with their kid’s current school. Asked to grade their child’s school, teachers, and quality of education, parents gave each a 4.4 out of 5 on average. More from the Sun Gazette.

Arlington-Based Rosetta Stone Disappoints Investors – Language education software maker Rosetta Stone, which has its corporate headquarters in Arlington, has struggled through executive departures and weak sales this year. The company hopes to turn that around with a new product, to be launched next week. More from Business Week.

Enthusiastic Review for ‘Chess’ – Signature Theater’s production of Chess, which was inspired by a much-hyped 1972 chess match between American Bobby Fischer and the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky, might not sound too exciting at first. But add a rock soundtrack, energetic performances and (of course) a love story, and Chess “sizzles,” according to theater critic Terry Ponick at washingtontimes.com. The Shirlington-based production runs through October 3.

New Bike Lane in Courthouse — Cyclists now have a safer way to get to Courthouse from North Rhodes Street (and vice-versa). The Ode Street Tribune reports that a bike lane has been added to 15th Street.

Flickr pool photo by afagen

Arlington Public Schools will be opening next week with at least 600 more students than a year ago and 14 new relocatable classrooms to accommodate the burgeoning student body.

Relocatable classrooms –  superintendent Dr. Patrick Murphy prefers the term “learning cottages” — are here to stay in Arlington County. The school system, having determined that the portable units are ten times more cost-effective than physically building a new classroom, has started buying rather than leasing the “relocatables,” and has started buying them four at a time for a further cost savings.

This summer APS added four relocatables each to Glebe, Carlin Springs, and Barrett elementary schools. One relocatable was installed at Nottingham Elementary and H-B Woodlawn, according to APS spokesperson Frank Bellavia.

The school system also likes relocatables because of the flexibility they provide. They can be moved from school to school, can be put into reserve in case of a sudden influx of students, and can be removed if the student population enters a cyclical downturn, as it did in the 1990s.

Indeed, although student enrollment is projected to increase through 2020 (see chart below), school board member Sally Baird says the increase is as much a “generational spike” in certain areas of the county as it is a result of Arlington’s steadily growing population. That growth, she says, is only temporary.

“There will be, at some point, a plateau,” Baird said.

In addition to the “relocatables” — APS is also implementing a number of strategies specifically intended to allow then to squeeze in more students without laying a single brick.

Class sizes have increased by one student across the board, with the exception of the fourth and fifth grade classes. At high schools, classrooms are being utilized six out of seven periods, up from five. And Washington-Lee High School is offering “zero period” classes before the start of school, a strategy that may spread to other high schools.

One thing that the school system is no longer considering is redrawing school boundaries. Although the idea was under consideration, it was panned by parents when polled for an APS survey.

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A beloved fifth grade teacher at Ashlawn Elementary School suddenly passed away on Friday, two weeks before the start of school.

Long-time Ashlawn teacher Jimsey L. Frye is being remembered as a devoted educator with an infectious sense of humor. She died unexpectedly at the age of 61, at a time when she was getting ready to greet students for a new school year.

“Needless to say this is a loss for us and the larger school community, as Ms. Frye has touched so many lives in her many years of teaching,” wrote Ashlawn’s new principle, Judy Apostolico-Buck, in a letter to parents.

“I know the strength of the Ashlawn community will sustain us at this difficult time,” Apostolico-Buck wrote. “Please be assured we are working diligently to ensure the fifth grade will be off to a good start this year, despite our loss.”

The school will have counselors available to students or families that would like assistance, Apostolico-Buck said.

Former Ashlawn principle Edgar Miranda said college-aged students would regularly come back to Ashlawn just to visit Ms. Frye.

“She took a genuine interest in them, not just as students but as people,” Miranda said. “She was a wonderful person.”

Frye is survived by a brother, several sisters and Matthew Lemons, her husband.

A memorial service for her Frye be held tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. at Bull Run Park in Centreville. A private staff memorial was held on Monday.

Construction crews have been working feverishly over the summer to get the new Yorktown High School ready for students, while tearing down remnants of the old Yorktown High building. With one week left until students return and with a field full of rubble left to clear, it looks like the work may be coming down to the wire.

Check out the photos below, which show heavy equipment picking through huge piles of debris as well as a worker hosing down the rubble, apparently to keep dust down. Also below: a photo of the old high school, just before the demolition.

Fire Works Pizza Opens in Courthouse – The much-anticipated Fire Works Pizza has finally opened its doors and its large outdoor patio. A “healthy” crowd showed up for the first night, writes TBD’s Rebecca Cooper.

New APS Teachers and Staff Getting Ready For New School Year — This week, all new Arlington Public Schools employees are undergoing a comprehensive training program to prepare them for the fast-approaching school year. School starts on Tuesday, Sept. 7.

Arlingtones Looking for a Few Good Men — The Arlingtones Barbershop Chorus is looking for new members. The a cappella group meets weekly at Gunston Middle School. More from the Ode Street Tribune.

Police Investigate Disturbance at Windsor Apartments in Shirlington — After a 2:00 a.m. call from a resident who had just returned home to find his neighbor’s apartment trashed, Arlington police responded to the Windsor apartment complex at 3000 South Randolph Street. In the trashed apartment, they found a chair that had been apparently thrown through a window, a handgun and a possible shell casing lying on the floor, and a very drunk middle-aged man on a couch. The man was taken to a local hospital. No word on whether the gun had been fired in the apartment, but curiously nobody had called to complain about noise in the area.

Flickr pool photo by Christopher Doorley.

Three-Year-Old Boy Drowns Near Chain Bridge — The Arlington County Fire Department pulled the lifeless body of a 3-year-old boy from the Potomac River yesterday afternoon. He was pronounced dead at Virginia Hospital Center. The boy had been picnicking with his family near Chain Bridge when he somehow ended up in the water. More from TBD/ABC 7.

Alaska Plane Crash Survivor from Arlington Back in Va. — Friends and family were on hand at Dulles Airport to welcome Arlington resident Jim Morhard back to Virginia. The 54-year-old lobbyist is still recovering from injuries he sustained in the plane crash that killed former Alaska senator Ted Stevens. More from WUSA 9.

Students Will Have Option to Transfer from Certain Elementary Schools — After their neighborhood elementary schools failed to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards for two years in a row, parents will have the option of sending their kids to nearby schools with a better track record. More from the Sun Gazette.