Arlington Public Schools will be hosting a community meeting tonight, seeking input on the proposed design of a new elementary school on the Thomas Jefferson middle school and community center site.
One expected hot topic of conversation: whether parking for the school should be partially above ground or completely below ground.
School administrators say they are “currently without air conditioning in the majority of our building.” The A/C troubles come as temperatures are expected to reach into the upper 90s today.
Separately, Taylor Elementary School is also reported to be experiencing air conditioning problems.
(Updated at 10:50 a.m.) With the notable exception of Barcroft Elementary, which opened on Aug. 1, today was the first day of school for Arlington Public Schools students.
Kids and parents flocked back to local elementary, middle and high schools this morning, as the APS bus fleet traversed local roads. There were no major hiccups reported, save perhaps a fire alarm that was set off in the teacher’s lounge of Taylor Elementary around 10 a.m. (No smoke or fire was found.)
Arlington Public Schools and the Arlington County Police Department are reminding students, parents and drivers to watch out for one another on the roads as a new school year starts.
But there’s a big asterisk to that fact, says an APS spokesman.
As opposed to 2010, when all APS high schools were included in the top 500, for the past couple of years the school system hasn’t even applied to be ranked by Newsweek.
A new county-owned synthetic turf field at Yorktown High School has been vandalized.
The $1.6 million turf replacement project just wrapped up last week. Over the weekend, a vandal or group of vandals spray-painted the field and the surrounding track and caused some other damage.
Earlier this month, Arlington Public Schools relaunched its website with an updated design and new technology.
There are still some minor bugs evident — many older links to specific pages on the site are not working — but for the most part the transition appears to be complete.
Arlington Public Schools high school students will have an early dismissal today, their last day of the school year.
The last day of school for APS middle school students is Thursday; it’s Friday for elementary students. All schools will have early dismissals on their last day.
Right now, the school uses a system of regular trash cans and blue recycling bins to sort its garbage.
“One would think that we already have an effective system as there are blue recycling bins in every single classroom,” said the petition. “However, these recycling bins are just treated as normal trash cans by a majority of students. This eliminates the whole purpose of the recycling bins and teaches students that the environment is not that important and can be overlooked or put aside.”
In a June 15 petition to the Arlington School Board, more than 330 Randolph parents, school employees and their supporters said they are “deeply concerned” about the panel’s decision to give principal Renee Bostick a new, unspecified role at Arlington Public Schools July 1. She has led the school at 1306 S. Quincy Street since 2004.
APS told the Randolph community her removal was due to “test scores,” but didn’t elaborate, according to the petition.
Letters were sent to parents of eligible students last week, asking them to “supervise and monitor your child while on the device” but also giving them the option of refusing the take-home iPad.
“The decision to allow students to take the APS issued iPads home over the summer is made individually by the administration at each school,” said Arlington Public Schools spokesman Frank Bellavia. “We are excited for the opportunity for our students to be able to extend their learning over the summer through access to high quality digital resources including curriculum specific tools as well as thousands of eBooks through the APS Library and Arlington Public Library systems.”
The group “had graphic signs, they filmed students, parents and staff members, attempted to distribute flyers and to engage students in discussion,” according to the following letter to parents, sent by the school’s principal.
Dear Parents/Guardians,
