Arlington Parents for Education

An uptick in paid holidays for 12-month APS employees rankles School Board watchdog and some teachers

Published February 5, 2024 at 2:55PM

The Arlington Public Schools Syphax Education Center (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

School Board watchdog group Arlington Parents for Education (APE) is asking the auditor for Arlington Public Schools to dive into the potential impacts of an increase in paid holidays for year-round staff.

Two school years ago, new religious and cultural holidays were added to the calendar and Supt. Francisco Durán announced APS would fully close for winter and spring breaks. APE said in a new letter to the auditor that this decision could cost millions and may hurt morale of 10-month employees, who are not paid for these days off.

Schools

APS parents and teachers want transparency. They say School Board members are advised to be ‘vague.’

By Jo DeVoe

Published February 7, 2023 at 3:45PM | Updated February 7, 2023 at 7:00PM

Arlington Education Association interim leader June Prakash (via Arlington Public Schools)

(Updated at 4:25 p.m.) After lockdowns, a fatal, apparent drug overdose, a racist threat of gun violence, and additional threats and gun-related incidents — all within the past few weeks — parents and teachers say they want more information from Arlington Public Schools.

But there’s a document floating around — outlining how School Board members should talk to the public, school staff, other board members and members of the media — that they say encourages the Board to be less transparent.

Schools

Some parents call for end to Covid protocols, less screen time in Arlington schools

By Jo DeVoe

Published September 29, 2022 at 3:35PM

Innovation Elementary School fifth-graders make solar ovens outside (via APS/Twitter)

A few hundred parents say Arlington Public Schools should prioritize recreating pre-Covid normalcy in the classroom and evaluating the use of electronic devices.

That’s according to a recent informal survey conducted by Arlington Parents for Education, a parent group that began during the pandemic to advocate for reopening schools.

News

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Published December 23, 2021 at 7:30AM

Koch Groups Moving to Ballston — “A group of nonprofits founded and supported in part by billionaire Charles Koch are moving to a combined 185K SF in the Ballston Exchange office complex owned by Jamestown, sources confirmed to Bisnow. Stand Together, Americans for Prosperity and the Charles Koch Institute, in addition to affiliated organizations, plan to occupy the space in 2023, a source familiar with the deal said.” [Bisnow]

Football and History in Halls Hill — “They were there — about a hundred mostly Black residents and former residents, gathered together on this sunny, crisp Thanksgiving morning — for the neighborhood’s annual Turkey Bowl… For more than fifty years, so-called ‘Old Heads’ in maroon jerseys and ‘Young Heads’ in yellow have squared off in this Halls Hill tradition — ‘since before Martin Luther King’s birthday was a holiday,’ says one longtime resident, Paul Terry, who has been living in Halls Hill since 1968. ‘It’s always fun.'” [DCist]

News

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Published December 14, 2021 at 7:30AM

The Grinch, illustrated in Post-It Notes by Brigid Donaghy on the front of the H-B Woodlawn school building in Rosslyn (photo courtesy Dan Donaghy)

Redevelopment of Parking Garage Proposed — “The owner of a pair of Crystal City hotels along Richmond Highway is moving to redevelop a parking garage on the property into residential, the latest bit of change for the neighborhood as part of an Amazon.com Inc.-inspired development boom. Miami’s Sound Hospitality is on the hunt for a development partner to manage the transformation of a garage that currently serves Crystal City’s Hampton Inn and Suites and Hilton Garden Inn.” [Washington Business Journal]

Parent Group Wants More Class Time — “An advocacy group is pressing the Arlington School Board to add more instructional time to the school system’s proposed 2022-23 calendar. The comments came at the Dec. 2 School Board meeting, in which board members were presented with a staff proposal that meets the letter of state law in providing at least 990 hours of instructional time. But the school system should be going further – holding classes the full 180 days that had been the pre-COVID standard – said Camille Galdes, who spoke on behalf of Arlington Parents for Education.” [Sun Gazette]