Nearly one year after Arlington Public Schools closed classrooms, the end of distance learning is in sight for students and teachers.
Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Durán said today (Friday) that on Tuesday he will announce dates when students can return to their school buildings — with students expected to return by mid-March.
Arlington’s biggest snowfall in two years is well underway.
As of 2 p.m., the National Weather Service reported an average of around 2 inches of snow in parts of Arlington. National Airport’s official measurement was 1.4 inches, while 2.4 inches was reported near Falls Church.
A widespread East Coast internet outage may cause delays for teachers and students accessing Arlington Public Schools systems during remote learning.
“Some users may be experiencing issues with their internet, or applications such as Canvas, Google Classroom or Teams,” APS spokesman Frank Bellavia tells ARLnow.
Arlington Public Schools has asked nearly 6% of all staff who have reported in-person for work to stay home temporarily because they tested positive for COVID-19.
Among in-person students, the percentage who have been kept out of school after testing positive is 5%.
School Board Chair Monique O’Grady will not be seeking reelection after her term ends this December, according to an announcement on her website.
The chair said on Sunday that she will work for a better future for all students through her term, which ends on Dec. 31, 2021. In her announcement, she said she wrote “with a heavy heart” after “much thought, consultation with my family, and careful consideration.” She declined to comment for this story.
(Updated at 4 p.m.) In just seven weeks, engineering whizzes at Bishop O’Connell High School developed an app that NASA may draw from as it gears up to land the first American woman and next man on the Moon, in preparation for missions to Mars.
This week, NASA recognized them as one of top 10 teams in the 2020 NASA App Development Challenge, which occurred last fall. Students crunched lunar terrain data to create an app that visualizes the South Pole region of the Moon, and NASA will be using aspects of the 10 winning apps for its own program to help astronauts communicate on and navigate the Moon’s surface.
Arlington Public Schools is holding off on announcing future dates for returning students to school.
Sending back students and staff together is unsafe, Superintendent Francisco Durán told the School Board during a meeting on Thursday. For now, APS will focus on its timeline for returning staff to their buildings, he said.
Fewer K-2 students in Arlington Public Schools, particularly English learners and Black and Hispanic children, are meeting literacy benchmarks this fall, according to new data.
All APS elementary schools recently completed the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) diagnostic, provided by the Commonwealth of Virginia, for kindergarteners and first- and second-graders. The statewide system uses the screener to gauge whether students are grasping the foundations of reading.
Arlington Public Schools is preparing data that will compare students’ grades this fall, during distance learning, with pre-pandemic grades in the fall of 2019.
Superintendent Francisco Durán will present the highlights of this report at the Dec. 17 School Board meeting, APS spokesman Frank Bellavia said.
(Updated at 9:45 p.m.) New elementary school boundary changes released last week would relocate more than thousand students and increase the number who can walk to school, according to Arlington Public Schools.
The changes are part of the third boundary proposal that APS released before Thanksgiving. Community members responded to the proposal with mixed reviews in a hearing on Tuesday night, ahead of a planned School Board vote on Thursday.
(Updated at 1:30 p.m.) The Arlington County Council of PTAs is collecting money through Friday to buy fresh produce for families in need, with help from a local farmers market operator.
Through the initiative — part of the council’s pandemic relief efforts — the CCPTA is partnering with FRESHFARM Markets to provide fresh food to about 900 families who have been receiving food through seven PTA and school-based distribution sites. Fundraising will go until Dec. 4, with an extra push today (Dec. 1) for Giving Tuesday.
A giant photograph of four Black children who made history in Arlington was just installed in the new wing of Dorothy Hamm Middle School (4100 Vacation Lane), which is close to being completed.
The mural honors Ronald Deskins, Michael Jones, Lance Newman and Gloria Thompson, who set foot in Stratford Junior High School on Feb. 2, 1959, officially ending the practice of segregation in Arlington Public Schools.
