By Tara Teaford and Dana Milburn
As mothers, our priorities center on our children’s health, well-being, happiness, and yes — definitely — their safety. As progressives, we support measures to promote those rights for everyone, everywhere.
Opinion
It’s Christmas Eve and the third night of Hanukkah, and nothing is stirring in the ARLnow offices, not even Vernon Miles — because we’re taking the next day and a half off.
ARLnow will be back on a limited coverage schedule on Thursday. Of course, if there’s breaking news, we’ll be on top of it no matter what holiday or day of the week it is.
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By Cheryl Moore
Every year from Thanksgiving through year-end, my mail fills up with pleas from various nonprofit organizations — for financial donations, groceries or holiday gifts for low-income families in Arlington.
It has been a cold and active week, both weather-wise and news-wise.
Luckily, after a cloudy and cold Saturday, milder temperatures and a stretch of fair weather is on tap for at least the next week. And, barring breaking news, starting Tuesday ARLnow will be switching to a reduced publishing schedule around the holidays, giving the hard-working people who bring you the news a chance to take a little break after a busy year.
The following Letter to the Editor was written by Jennifer Myers, a parent of two children at McKinley who’s active in the McKinley PTA and serves as a SEPTA parent liaison.
Arlington Public Schools’ recent proposal to swap a number of elementary schools has gone no better than past boundary changes.
Go to Letter to the Editor: APS Should Hire Outside Consultant for School Boundary Process
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We hope you enjoyed our series of locally-themed t-shirts available for the holiday season.
In case you missed them, check out our Clarendon Cheesecake Riot shirt, Gondola Now! shirt, South Arlington 4 Life shirt, Definitely Not an ARLnow Commenter shirt and Local Is Everything shirt.
Arlington is a beautiful community with so much to be proud of.
For my last column of the year, here are some things that have been special to me, that I recommend, or that I want to acknowledge.
The American Public Media podcast by Emily Hanford, “At a Loss for Words: How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers”, thankfully is shining a national spotlight on non-scientifically-based reading instruction. Ms. Hanford specifically criticizes Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study for Teaching Reading (Readers’ Workshop), the Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI), and Marie Clay’s Reading Recovery, for perpetuating the vicious cycle that “prevent(s) kids from focusing on words in the way they need to become skilled readers.”
Arlington Public Schools (APS) uses all of these resources, and in some cases, with our most vulnerable students.
As the year draws to a close and we reflect on the year behind us, it is natural to start peaking around the corner into 2020.
When the Arlington County Board next meets to open the new year Libby Garvey will assume the center chair to lead the body. What will be her priorities on transportation, public safety and housing? Will she seek a property tax rate cut or will she endeavor to spend every penny of revenue generated from surging property tax assessments?
By Colleen Pickford
If you are an Arlington parent, you likely have heard that Arlington Public Schools staff presented two proposals in November for moving various elementary neighborhood and option programs in advance of a new elementary school opening at the Reed site in 2021.
While many believe that Arlington Public Schools (APS) currently is engaged in an elementary school boundary process, it is not. Instead, APS proposes moving entire school populations from one school to another. It then will consider boundary changes in the fall of 2020, offering no details on what those might look like.
Making adjustments to school assignments is necessary to create an attendance zone to fill seats at the new elementary school at the Reed building opening in 2021. In addition, APS intends to redraw the attendance zone for Arlington Science Focus School to address significant crowding in that part of the County.
ARLnow posed the following Morning Poll question last week: Should homeowners have more of a say in local government than renters?
This question came on the heels of an editorial in the Arlington Sun Gazette about reducing the amount of single-family housing in exchange for multi-family units, a conversation currently being driven by affordable housing proponents that is sure to dominate the county budget conversation in the coming weeks and months.