Is Arlington Public Schools a two-tiered education system, with some groups receiving needed resources while others are left behind?
That was the view, to varying degrees, of the four candidates vying for two open School Board seats.
|
School Board
Arlington school leaders are likely to lobby the General Assembly to permit standardized testing in languages other than English to determine student achievement.
Allowing a language option would be helpful in jurisdictions, like Arlington, where there is a significant percentage of English-language learners, advocates believe.
Would Arlington students and staff be safer if the county school system returned to having resource officers from the county police department in its halls?
The final tally among the four contenders for two open School Board seats: One yes, three no.
With campaign-signs-in-medians season in full bloom across Arlington, one 2024 candidate for local office is standing out from the crowd. And doing so face-first.
Paul Weiss, a former public-school educator who is running as an independent for School Board, is the lone candidate for local office in Arlington this year whose face graces his campaign signs.
Three of four candidates for two open Arlington School Board seats have come out forcefully in favor of an “away-for-the-day” policy for student phone use, with exceptions available in narrow instances.
“School should be phone-free,” Paul Weiss, a retired county educator, said at a Thursday (Oct. 10) candidate forum sponsored by the Arlington Parents for Education (APE) advocacy organizations.
Arlington’s embrace of a more urban future was among the topics of discussion as local candidates recently competed in the political equivalent of speed-dating.
Hosted Oct. 6 by the League of Women Voters of Arlington & Alexandria City, the event gave voters the chance to spend 15 minutes at the table with each aspirant for County Board and School Board posts. When time was called, candidates stayed put and attendees rotated to the next table over the course of two hours.
Arlington Public Schools is proposing to significantly increase its budget next year to support more staffing and a pay raise for personnel.
The proposal, which Superintendent Francisco Durán and the Arlington School Board discussed at a work session yesterday (Tuesday), calls for gradually adding 252 new full-time positions and a 3% cost-of-living increase over the next three years.
|
Early voting on national, regional and local candidates and issues begins this week in Arlington.
In addition to the presidential election, Arlington residents will vote on races for Arlington County Board, Arlington School Board, U.S. Congress and U.S. Senate, as well as bond referenda and a proposed Constitutional amendment.
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.
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.
|
Impassioned discussion surrounded a split Arlington School Board vote on Thursday to approve a $570 million Capital Improvement Plan for the next decade.
At issue in the 3-2 vote on the 2025-2034 CIP were disagreements over Arlington Public Schools debt service as well as a plan to relocate the Montessori Public School of Arlington (MPSA) to the current Career Center building.
An Arlington parents group is pushing for more stringent rules around cellphones in the classroom.
Arlington Parents for Education argued in a letter to Superintendent Francisco Durán that a countywide policy of having students stow phones in lockers during the day would improve learning and mental health during the 2024-2025 school year.