Schools | ARLnow.com

School Board Vigorously Defends Washington-Lee Renaming Process in New Court Filings

Published November 14, 2018 at 1:45PM

A sign in front of Washington-Lee High School in 2018

Opponents of the decision to change the name of Washington-Lee High School have long claimed the School Board improperly cast aside its established engagement process on the matter — but the school system has now provided its most robust rebuttal of those charges to date.

A trio of students at Washington-Lee are hoping to block the school’s renaming with a lawsuit targeting the School Board and other top Arlington Public Schools officials, arguing primarily that the Board rushed a vote on the issue and failed to follow its proscribed process for accepting public comments on the name change.

Superintendent Sends New Boundary Proposal to School Board, Leaving Abingdon Unchanged

By Alex Koma

Published November 6, 2018 at 9:45AM

Superintendent Patrick Murphy has revealed his final proposal for new elementary school boundaries to forward along to the School Board, with a new map designed to simultaneously the answer the concerns of some Fairlington parents and reduce overcrowding at Barcroft Elementary.

Arlington Public Schools officials have spent months drawing up map after map to guide attendance boundaries at eight South Arlington elementary schools set to go into effect next fall. Each one has prompted fresh rounds of concern among parents nervous about seeing their kids moved to different schools, as the school system prepares to open up the new Alice West Fleet Elementary next year.

Parent Takes APS to Court Over Handling of Special Education Classes at Carlin Springs Elementary

By Alex Koma

Published November 1, 2018 at 5:00PM

A parent of an autistic student at Carlin Springs Elementary worries that school officials are pushing her son into general education classes too quickly, and she’s taking the school system to court in response.

Jemie Sanchez says that school officials assured her last year that her son, Christopher, would continue to primarily learn in small classes when he moved up to kindergarten this fall, with attention from a special education teacher. But she says she subsequently discovered her son has been spending his time in larger, general education classrooms instead, and can’t understand why educators would make such a change.

APS Proposes New Boundary Map to Keep Fairlington Students at Abingdon, Though Concerns Linger

By Alex Koma

Published October 30, 2018 at 9:45AM

Arlington school officials are proposing a new boundary map that would keep South Fairlington students at Abingdon Elementary, answering the concerns of parents there who worried the school system’s process of drawing new attendance lines would break up the community.

The school system has wrestled for months now with the thorny question of how to best tinker with the boundaries for eight South Arlington elementary schools, in order to address overcrowding concerns and prepare for the opening of Alice West Fleet Elementary next fall. Previous proposals for new maps initially irked parents at the Drew Model School, prompting Arlington Public Schools officials to propose an option moving some students in Fairlington neighborhoods from Abingdon to Drew to help address those worries.

Naming Committee Narrows List to Three Options for New Stratford Middle School

By Alex Koma

Published October 29, 2018 at 1:45PM

A naming committee is narrowing down its options for a moniker for the new middle school taking the place of the Stratford School building in Cherrydale.

The 1,000-seat middle school is set to open next fall, and a committee of parents and community members charged with picking a name for the building has settled on three finalists, according to an anonymous tipster and confirmed by school system spokesman Frank Bellavia. Those include:

Parents Urge APS to Keep the Henry Community Together As Part of Move to Fleet

By Alex Koma

Published October 23, 2018 at 4:45PM | Updated October 24, 2018 at 4:10PM

Meghan Ripple, a parent at Henry, speaks at the School Board's Oct. 18 meeting on the boundary process.

(Updated Wednesday at 4:10 p.m.) As the heated process of setting new boundaries for eight South Arlington elementary schools lurches forward, parents at Patrick Henry Elementary are trying to deliver a single message to school officials: don’t break up the community in the move to Alice West Fleet Elementary.

Fleet’s planned opening next fall precipitated this process of drawing new boundary lines for the schools in the first place, with most Henry students set to move to the new school and the Montessori program currently housed at Drew Model School will move to Henry’s building.

APS Draws Ire of Abingdon Parents With Boundary Tweaks Designed to Satisfy Drew Concerns

By Alex Koma

Published October 18, 2018 at 4:15PM

Abingdon Elementary School (via @AbingdonGIFT)

Arlington school officials have hit a bit of a snag in the complex, contentious process of setting new boundaries for the county’s southern elementary schools — changes they’ve proposed to address concerns from Drew Model School parents have generated a new backlash from the Abingdon Elementary community.

Some parents living in the Nauck neighborhood initially raised concerns that proposed boundary tweaks at Drew would drastically change the school’s socioeconomic make-up, leading to a substantial boost in the number of students receiving “free and reduced lunch,” a measure of each family’s economic means, at the school. They feared such a shift would amount to packing poorer students into a single building, rather than maintaining a more balanced percentage at each South Arlington school.

Privately Funded Science Lab Set to Be Included in Planned Arlington Science Focus-Key Building Swap

By Alex Koma

Published October 9, 2018 at 10:45AM

Arlington Science Focus School

County school officials are reassuring nervous parents at Arlington Science Focus School that a state-of-the-art science lab, built thanks to nearly $200,000 in private funding, will be included as part of a controversial building swap with the Key Immersion School in the next few years.

Arlington Public Schools is still sorting out the logistics of the move, which is designed to ease overcrowding at both buildings and address the fact that ASFS is the only neighborhood school in the county to sit outside its own attendance boundaries. The school system has yet to even nail down an exact timetable for the swap, with the change on tap for either 2020 or 2021.

JUST IN: Wakefield High School Lets Out Early Due to Power Outage

By Alex Koma

Published October 4, 2018 at 12:45PM | Updated October 4, 2018 at 1:01PM

Students and staff at Wakefield High School are heading home early today, thanks to a power outage in the neighborhood.

Arlington Public Schools announced the dismissal around 12:30 today.

New Elementary School Boundaries Advancing, Prompting Some Concerns at Drew

By Alex Koma

Published October 3, 2018 at 3:45PM

The ever-contentious process of setting new elementary school boundaries is picking up steam in Arlington, with the school system spending the next few weeks collecting community feedback ahead of a School Board vote before the year is out.

Arlington Public Schools will hold an “open office hours” with planning staff tonight (Oct. 3) to let parents discuss the proposed boundary maps, and will accept online comments on the redrawn boundaries through next Wednesday (Oct. 10).

New Audit Finds No Cause for Alarm Over APS Construction Costs

By Alex Koma

Published October 1, 2018 at 3:45PM

Arlington may spend slightly more on school construction than some of the county’s peers around the D.C. region, but a long-awaited audit report suggests that the school system has done a decent job holding costs down in recent years.

Prepared by an independent firm for the School Board’s internal auditor and released today (Monday), the new analysis commends Arlington Public Schools for matching other dense urban areas like Alexandria and D.C. when it comes to the cost of new school construction. The audit found that the county does tend to spend more on architectural and engineering work than some of its neighbors, but analysts chalked up that discrepancy to Arlington’s challenges finding space for new schools.

Young Democrats Plan Push to Change APS Sex Education Policies

By Alex Koma

Published September 25, 2018 at 9:45AM | Updated September 25, 2018 at 4:15PM

(Updated at 4:15 p.m.) The Arlington Young Democrats are weighing a new push to convince the county school system to change its sex education policies, though state law could limit the scope of their advocacy.

The concern of some of the group’s members is that Arlington Public Schools still includes abstinence as part of its “family life education curriculum,” a focus that researchers believe does little to address teen pregnancy or the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Any eventual lobbying effort could center on urging the School Board and Superintendent Patrick Murphy to do away with any mention of abstinence in APS sex education, and concentrate primarily on contraceptives and sexual health instead.