Next year’s Arlington 8th-graders with a passion for geography won’t have the chance to take intensified coursework in the subject.
But those arriving after the 2025-26 school year likely will.
Schools
County school leaders, both elected and staff, will be presenting a united front as the fiscal 2026 budget season fast approaches.
In a change from typical practice, the Arlington School Board and superintendent will present a joint budget in mid-March, Board members decided Dec. 12.
Falls Church school leaders are planning to add a modest number of items to the system’s updated 2026-31 capital-improvement program.
And nearly already have funding sources available, School Board members were told on Dec. 10.
Dec. 12 was a graduation day of sorts for Arlington’s two departing School Board members.
“Your work has made a real difference,” Board chair Mary Kadera told Cristina Diaz-Torres and David Priddy at the meeting, the body’s final one of the year.
Arlington School Board members Thursday night (Dec. 12) voted unanimously to implement a bell-to-bell ban on student use of phones in county schools starting Jan. 6.
“Our schools are places of learning,” Superintendent Francisco Durán said just before the vote, saying his recommendation was “a policy that will protect that instructional space.”
A bullet was found in an elementary school classroom yesterday afternoon and it’s unclear how it got there.
Police were called to Arlington Traditional School, at 1030 N. McKinley Road, around 12:45 p.m. Monday after a student reportedly found a bullet in a fourth-grade classroom. So far, the investigation has not revealed where the bullet came from.
A 17-year-old Arlington high school student has been arrested and charged with bringing a loaded gun to school Monday.
The incident happened at Arlington Community High School, which is currently located on Fairfax Drive in Ballston. The school was placed on lockdown after police say a security guard spotted the gun in a student’s backpack.
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With the deadline for School Board action looming, two major advocacy groups are pressing for a blanket ban on student phone use during the instructional day in Arlington.
The Arlington Education Association (AEA) and Arlington Parents for Education (APE) have sent a joint letter to School Board members and Superintendent Francisco Durán, seeking the more restrictive of two options currently being considered.
Arlington’s school system has 13 days built into the 2024-25 schedule to use as snow days or for other unexpected closures.
Whether they will be needed is an open question.
Already nearly at a record high, student enrollment in Falls Church City Public Schools is expected to grow consistently in coming decades.
With 2,711 students as of Sept. 30, the five-school district is currently just 10 students shy of its record 2,721 students in 2016, according to a recent report to the Virginia Department of Education. The report predicts enrollment will pass the 3,000 mark in 2027, before growing to about 3,250 in 2040 and 3,430 in 2050.
A proposal to restrict access to cellphones at Arlington high schools remains up for debate as a School Board decision deadline approaches.
With the decision date set for Dec. 12, Board members have one major decision left to make related to high schools:
Three public high schools in Arlington are stepping up security measures after a trespassing incident at Yorktown last week.
Starting this week, students at Yorktown, Wakefield and Washington-Liberty high schools will need to show a pre-approved ID to staff members to enter school buildings. Accepted forms include school-issued photo IDs, StudentVue accounts and government-issued IDs such as a driver’s license.