The Arlington School Board is poised to adopt more comprehensive conflict-of-interest rules, while also authorizing a hotline for staff to report suspected financial impropriety.
Assuming the pair of new policies is adopted at the March 26 School Board meeting, the new hotline for waste, fraud and abuse will be in operation “in the coming weeks,” said Steven Marku, the school system’s director of policy and legislative affairs, at a March 12 meeting.
County leaders are considering criticisms of a proposal to exclude new tax revenue from a sharing agreement with Arlington Public Schools.
Despite some pushback at a Saturday meeting, County Board members largely defended County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposal, noting current fiscal pressures.
Arlington Public Schools will dismiss two hours early Monday, due to the risk of severe weather.
The announcement was made just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday, after similar announcements from Fairfax County and Montgomery County schools. FCPS will dismiss even earlier: three hours early.
Arlington Democrats have officially endorsed School Board Chair Bethany Zecher Sutton’s bid for a second term.
Zecher Sutton was the lone candidate to seek the party’s endorsement prior to the Feb. 27 filing deadline. As a result, the planned May caucus was canceled, and party members unanimously voted to support her on Wednesday.
Constrained finances make it less likely Arlington Public Schools will add new high-school sports in the coming school year.
Left unfunded under Superintendent Francisco Durán’s $856 million proposed fiscal year 2027 school budget are staff proposals to add boys volleyball and girls flag football to athletic programming.
Arlington Public Schools’ proposed fiscal year 2027 budget reflects challenging economic conditions and uncertainty over state and federal education funding commitments.
Superintendent Francisco Durán’s $856 million proposal represents an increase of 1.3% from the current budget, one of the smallest year-over-year rates of growth in recent years.
New data suggests that Arlington Public Schools is making progress on lowering the rate of students being chronically absent from class.
Through Jan. 30, 10% of APS students this school year were absent from class more than 10% of the time, according to data reported at the Feb. 19 School Board meeting. That’s down from rates of 12.4% for the 2024-25 school year and 13.2% from 2023-24.
With heavy snow continuing to fall, Arlington Public Schools has decided to close Monday.
The snow day for Arlington students follows earlier decisions by nearby Fairfax County and Montgomery County to also close. D.C. schools, meanwhile, will open on a two-hour delay.
Arlington Public Schools is warning families to beware of fraudulent emails that use the school system’s branding to collect people’s personal information.
The emails ask recipients to click a link and provide usernames, passwords and other information, APS said in a message to families yesterday (Thursday). They are not real APS communications, but they use the APS logo and may appear to come from the school system.
A walkout in protest of immigration enforcement is in the works next week at several Arlington Public Schools facilities.
It’s unclear how large or widespread it will be, although tipsters have said action is planned at all major high schools in Arlington on Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 1:30 p.m., as well as some middle schools at a later time that afternoon.
Arlington Public Schools officials are brainstorming ways to encourage special-education teachers to serve as summer school instructors.
A little over half of educators who taught special-ed students at the secondary level during the 2025 summer school program expressed interest in returning for 2026, according to a survey conducted by the school system and reported at the Feb. 5 School Board meeting.
School Board Chair Bethany Zecher Sutton launched her reelection bid last week with a pledge to fight for students — and against the Trump administration.
“We’re all feeling the impact of this administration’s attacks on our values. We will not back down,” Zecher Sutton said during Wednesday remarks to about 200 people at the monthly Arlington County Democratic Committee meeting.
