A series of recent internal audits at Arlington Public Schools have revealed inconsistencies in the school system’s financial management practices.
The audits, which reviewed spending from 2022 to 2024, found that APS lacks clear policies for managing purchasing card usage, fuel expenses and school activity funds. They also highlighted limited training for employees overseeing these areas and weaknesses in oversight systems.
As the 2024-25 school year starts today, Arlington Public Schools is launching several new initiatives to tackle student safety and enrichment.
Approved changes for this year include a new attendance policy for high school athletic events, a new after-school program pilot, and an extra five-day weekend in November.
Four Arlington schools will be distributing cellphone storage pouches to students this year as part of an effort to restrict mobile phone use on campus.
The pilot program will kick off in mid-September at Wakefield High School, H-B Woodlawn (middle school only), Swanson Middle School and Thomas Jefferson Middle School, APS announced in an email to parents Thursday.
As students begin returning to Arlington Public Schools this coming Monday, Aug. 26, new initiatives are meant to encourage safer driving around schools this year.
Variable message boards sharing safety messaging and raising awareness about the start of the school year will appear along roads in Arlington in coming days. Ten new speed cameras have also been installed near select schools, operating when school zone lights are flashing at the beginning and end of the school day.
New mobile phone policies are going into effect in Arlington Public Schools for the upcoming school year.
After a unanimous Arlington School Board vote yesterday (Thursday), high school students will be required to turn off their cellphones during class and elementary and middle school students will have to keep them off for the entire day.
Stephen Oxenrider, a beloved former Arlington Public Schools teacher, passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 12, after nearly two years of battling pancreatic cancer. He was 73.
Oxenrider taught English as a Second Language (ESL) for 35 years in Arlington, beginning at Kenmore Middle School before transferring to Swanson Middle School, where he stayed until retiring in 2007, per his obituary.
Arlington students could be getting an additional five-day weekend this November.
Proposed changes to the 2024-25 calendar would give Arlington Public Schools students off between Nov. 1 and Nov. 5, shortly before another five-day weekend for Thanksgiving the last week of November.
An Arlington elementary school celebrated a major upgrade to its basketball court this week thanks to a local dad and some pro sports teams.
Mascots from the Washington Wizards and Mystics joined a crowd of third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students on Monday to mark the installation of four new basketball hoops at Barcroft Elementary School. The hoops, courtesy of the Monumental Sports & Entertainment Foundation, replaced deteriorating equipment that dated back to the 1960s.
The Arlington School Board has unanimously passed an $826 million budget that, in the view of several board members, fails to accomplish key goals.
“This is a budget of status quos,” Chair Cristina Diaz-Torres said prior to a Thursday vote. “I said this the day that [Superintendent Francisco Durán] announced the budget. This is a budget of maintaining the status quo at a bare minimum.”
A busy road is closed, multiple schools have closed, and a boil water advisory is in effect after a large water main break.
The break happened in a 16-inch water main early Friday morning — before 6 a.m. — near the intersection of S. Walter Reed Drive and S. Randolph Street, sending a large amount of water down the hill to S. Four Mile Run Drive.
Arlington Public Schools is set to add several new all-electric school buses to its fleet next year.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that Arlington is among 18 Virginia school districts awarded the 2023 Clean School Bus rebate to purchase five new all-electric (or low-emission) buses.
For weeks, every time Mike Najarro attempted to log into the federal student aid portal, he received an error message about server maintenance.
The Washington-Liberty High School senior watched with growing anxiety as the portal faltered, concerned these technical delays could thwart his chance to be the first in his family to attend college.
