Leaders of Arlington Public Schools are getting an early start on health-insurance renewal, while bringing employees into the conversation from the very beginning.
The goal, Superintendent Francisco Durán told School Board members Tuesday (Oct. 29), is to do better than in 2023, when confusion over a change in health-care providers and poor communication with the rank-and-file about it sparked outrage and led to an auditor’s investigation.
The plan, going forward, is to “make sure we are doing things differently, communicating early … and being proactive,” Durán said at the School Board’s last meeting of the month.
School Board members at the meeting opted not to relive what had been a supremely unpleasant situation last fall, moving on to other business without comment after Durán’s report.
The school system’s contract with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield does not expire until December 2026, but a new task force will start meeting in coming weeks to discuss issues related to health care and the current contract.
The tentative timeline from there goes like this:
- November 2025: A request for proposal is issued, to determine interest of health-care providers.
- January 2026: The deadline for submission of proposals.
- March 2026: Negotiations begin.
- May 2026: A new contract is awarded.
- December 2026: The existing contract expires and a new one replaces it at the start of 2027.
In September 2023, the school system announced plans to switch from Kaiser Permanente and Cigna to CareFirst just a few months before the change was to take place. The switch in providers angered some in the school-system ranks, but the way communications were carried out infuriated even more.
About 3,700 school-system employees and about 250 retirees under age 65 were impacted by the changes. Retirees over age 65 who were covered by Kaiser were allowed to remain in that coverage pool.
This May, the school system’s internal auditor, Alice Blount-Fenney, laid blame for the confused state of affairs partly on Kaiser and partly on county staff. While Blount-Fenney reported no malfeasance and concluded that “overall controls are adequate,” she also delivered a host of recommendations so the situation was not repeated.
The school system’s response to the her report said some of the blame should have been placed on a consulting firm, which the school system had paid $120,000 to manage the process of choosing its health-care provider.
Three County Schools Lauded for Excellence: School Board members on Monday (Oct. 29) celebrated the achievements of three elementary schools.
Arlington Traditional, Nottingham and Tuckahoe were among 92 schools statewide to win “Highest Achievement” Exemplar Awards from the Virginia Department of Education.
Selections were based on academic achievement among all groups of students within a school, as well as low rates of absenteeism.
