Another week of social distancing, and it’s still not clear how many are to go.
Earlier this week Gov. Ralph Northam said Virginia might see a surge of coronavirus cases as late as the latter half of May. That could push our at-home isolation well into to summer.
There is a new reality for students, families, teachers, staff, and school leaders: K-12 schools are closed through the end of the academic year, as ordered by Virginia’s Governor.
With this new reality, what are the priorities, challenges, and opportunities for Arlington Public Schools (APS) students?
“The mission of the County Manager’s Office is… to ensure high-quality services, with outstanding customer service at a good value to taxpayers; [and] to foster economic and fiscal sustainability…” – County Manager’s Office Mission
COVID-19 could cause Arlington county to raise taxes and dramatically grow the budget in times when revenues are uncertain. The county should instead stress fiscal prudence and tread lightly, starting from zero, and make targeted cuts to preserve room to respond to COVID-19.
I have always been fascinated by leadership. Studies often focus on important aspects of leadership including authenticity, influence, and communication.
Another common theme that I have recently observed is more focus on courage, especially for women. Whether it’s “leaning in,” “courageous leadership” or confronting your fears, successful leaders address their inner doubts and external criticism, and use their voices and talents for good.
Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
This piece was cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
It’s a beautiful end to a busy but — if we’re going to be honest — pretty nerve-wracking work week, with hospitals filling and economic calamity hanging in the balance.
Fortunately, with regard to the latter, temporary relief is on the way for people and small businesses in the form of a newly-passed $2 trillion stimulus package. With continued social distancing measures, hopefully the worst of the medical side of the coronavirus crisis will be over in weeks and not months.
The following Letter to the Editor was written by long-time Arlington resident John Seymour.
In a video panel discussion held this week with local Democratic leaders, several Northern Virginia members of the General Assembly were asked to select the piece of legislation passed this session of which they were most proud.
While the human toll of the COVID-19 outbreak becomes shockingly apparent, particularly in New York, the shutdown to slow the disease is also having widespread economic impacts.
Nationwide, the Department of Labor reported 3.28 million new unemployment claims, smashing the previous record. There were a total of 102,240 new claims in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland.
Coronavirus in Arlington has increased ninefold in just ten days. This is all with extremely limited testing resources. We need more tests and we needed them last week.
America just hit the highest number of individuals filing for unemployment in history. Unemployment insurance filings in Virginia jumped from just 2,706 last week to 46,885 this week — a 17-fold increase. People are losing their jobs and they’re losing them quickly.
The University of Virginia (UVA) and the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) have used their status and political power to prevent the Virginia General Assembly from taking action to enable the use of by far the most effective reading readiness screening test (RAN).
Instead, Virginia’s children are being tested using a much less effective test (PALS) from which UVA-associated individuals and organizations derive financial benefits. The Virginia General Assembly will be investigating those financial benefits this year.
As of midday Tuesday, Arlington County had 36 known cases of COVID-19. There are likely many more that have gone unreported.
While totally unscientific, we wanted to get some perspective on the case count from the personal experience of our readers. Are there substantially more people out there experiencing symptoms, for instance, but who haven’t tested positive yet?
We are 10 days into an initial 15-day nationwide effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Lives have tragically been lost. Jobs that seemed secure are now gone. Uncertainty surrounds every decision being made by individuals, families, businesses and our elected leaders. Decisions are being made daily, even hourly that in some cases drastically impact our lives.
