Teachers and administrators welcomed an estimated 23,586 students inside the halls of Arlington Public Schools for the first time since June this morning (Tuesday).
Schools
Police officers will be a high-visibility presence, directing traffic in school zones, and variable message boards will be placed along county roadways reminded drivers to take extra precaution as students start returning to area schools.
Arlington County issued the following tips for safe driving on the first day of school:
Arlington’s Grade 8 English reading pass rate this year is 77 percent, compared with 71 percent for all of Virginia. However, Arlington’s 8th graders scored a 90 percent pass rate last year.
A likely explanation for the local and statewide drop in English scores is the introduction of a more rigorous exam. The VDOE’s website says:
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(Updated on 8/15/13) Construction of the new Wakefield High School is wrapping up as school officials prepare for the first day of school on Sept. 3.
The $113 million project broke ground in 2011. It is expected to receive a LEED Gold certification for sustainability, thanks in part to having — when completed — 400 geothermal wells, each 500 feet deep, to heat and cool the school.
Arlington Public Schools has been offering online classes for some time now — last year, APS offered 25 classes, mostly foreign languages like Arabic, Chinese and Japanese — but the portfolio of offerings will need to greatly expand to accommodate the new state law.
With less than a month to go until the school year, APS Director of Instructional and Innovative Techonologies Pat Teske said the decisions on which classes to offer online and how many are still being made.
This article was written by Maddy Berner
“I was looking at choosing colleges and I wasn’t sure of about that level of intensity,” she said. “I felt like I needed more time to figure that out.”
Fall practices for Arlington’s high school football teams began Monday, officially ending the summer for fall sports athletes. In about three weeks (August 29), defending National District champs Yorktown will open play. One month from today — Sept. 6 — will be the opening night of the season for Washington-Lee and Wakefield.
Those who want to get the chance to see one of the best football teams in the country should head to Bishop O’Connell on Oct. 26 to watch the team play Maryland’s Good Counsel. The date many in Arlington will want to circle on their calendars will be Nov. 8, the last game of the regular season, when Washington-Lee takes on Yorktown.
This article was written by Audrey Batcheller
Whether they’ve spent the past 18 years in the county or have just been around for high school, these young adults have unique perspectives on life in Arlington.
Alcohol use among Arlington teens is down, and a recent trip for a group of high school students was organized to help continue that trend.
Data from the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families shows that the percentage of Arlington high school students that reported recently drinking alcohol decreased by eight percent from 2004 to 2010. In an effort to keep that number declining, Arlington’s READY Coalition sponsored a trip for Arlington students and their School Resource Officers — Arlington County police officers assigned to schools — to attend the 29th Annual Youth Alcohol & Drug Abuse Prevention Project (YADAPP) conference last week.
This article was co-written by Audrey Batcheller
As fall sports season approaches for Arlington’s high schools, varsity athletes must adjust to the new Virginia High School League realignment and reclassification for post-season competition.
This article was written by Audrey Batcheller
All three Arlington high schools have recently been rebuilt, but it appears they are already over capacity. Washington-Lee has seen its enrollment rise by 30 percent in the last six years, and this increase can be partially attributed to the abundance of transfers coming to the school for the International Baccalaureate diploma program. Washington-Lee is the only high school in the county that offers this program, so many transfer students apply to participate in the competitive diploma program. Yorktown and Wakefield have also seen steady increases in their enrollment, and Wakefield students will begin studying in their new facility this coming school year.
The construction began in 2009 and has been split into three phases, with Phase 1 completed in the summer of 2010 and Phase 2 in December 2011. Phase 3 is now in its finals stages.
Meanwhile, the classroom trailers that had housed overflow students during construction have been moved into the parking lot for Phase 3 while the tennis courts are being replaced. Arlington Public School officials sent a letter last month to parents assuring them that the trailers will be removed soon and will not be there when school starts in September.