A petition calling on Arlington Public Schools to ramp up education on sexual misconduct and healthy relationships has netted more than 31,000 signatures.
The petition targets Yorktown High School, where in October a homecoming football game was marred by “unacceptable behavior” by a group of students. Several Yorktown students reportedly harassed fellow students with sexual language, and one student told police she was inappropriately touched.
Arlington Public Schools will be capping the number of traditional “snow days” students get this winter.
Once the school system calls six snow days, APS will revert to remote learning for students who are attending school in-person this year.
(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) Firefighters investigated smoke seen inside the Montessori Public School of Arlington around lunchtime today.
The school at 701 S. Highland Street, in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, was evacuated after an alarm started sounding, according to initial reports. Arriving firefighters said they found smoke coming from the vents. There was no sign of an active fire.
There will be a police presence at Kenmore Middle School on Friday after two separate incidents yesterday.
The school told parents Wednesday afternoon that threatening graffiti with the statement that “I’m gonna shot this school on Friday 11/5/21” was discovered in the 8th grade boys’ bathroom earlier that morning.
Facing a shortage of substitute teachers, Arlington Public Schools has raised its pay rates to attract more candidates.
Teachers have been struggling to find substitutes, leading them to come in on days they wanted to take off or to rely on co-workers willing to cover for them, according to Superintendent Francisco Durán and the Arlington Education Association.
Braving the rain and wind, Arlington Public Schools bus drivers demonstrated along S. Arlington Mill Drive on Friday, calling for better pay and greater respect.
Huddled under umbrellas across from the Arlington County Trades Center (2700 S. Taylor Street) in Shirlington, about 50 drivers held signs saying, “We need our bonus” and “honk 4 drivers” and “equality for all” to cars passing by.
(Updated 10/25/21 at 9:50 a.m.) Hundreds of students walked out of their classrooms this morning to take a stand against sexual assault and harassment in Arlington Public Schools.
Walkouts were held from 11 a.m. to noon at Yorktown, Washington-Liberty, Wakefield high schools, H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program, and Arlington Career Center. The Yorktown walkout — held just two weeks after reports that a group of students yelled inappropriate sexual language and touched a fellow student inappropriately at a football game — trekked from the campus to nearby Chestnut Hills Park for a rally, then returned.
(Updated 9:45 a.m.) For the first time, an alternative high school in Arlington Public Schools will have a permanent home — in the second phase of Amazon’s HQ2 in Pentagon City.
Currently located next to the Arlington Career Center building, Arlington Community High School is attended by about 300 county residents 16 and older pursuing their high school diploma.
A new tech and innovation lab funded by Amazon is expected to launch at Wakefield High School by the end of the year, according to Arlington Public Schools.
Construction is currently underway on the “AWS Think Big Space,” which will provide a dedicated space for hands-on learning in robotics, the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (known collectively as STEAM), and training in cloud computing-based technologies.
(Updated 4:20 p.m.) Against the backdrop of Alexandria’s City Council voting to reinstate School Resource Officers, Arlington school and police officials say they’re confident kids and staff will be safe without daily police presence.
That’s because, leading up to the decision to remove SROs this summer, the county spent six years investing in other school safety pillars, adding counselors, enhancing building safety and beefing up emergency management operations, according to School Board Chair Barbara Kanninen.
Arlington Public Schools is preparing to redraw boundaries for a half-dozen schools to relieve high enrollment and over-capacity at three of them.
The boundary process, which will go into effect next fall, is “limited in scope” and will target Abingdon Elementary School, Gunston Middle School and Wakefield High School.
(Updated at 2:15 p.m.) Yorktown High School’s homecoming football game Friday night was marred by “unacceptable behavior” by a group of students during halftime.
That’s according to principal, Kevin Clark, who sent a scathing email to Yorktown families on Saturday, ahead of the school’s homecoming dance.
