Samuel Tucker Elementary’s proud year-round school program is being cut back this year due to coronavirus, but School Board members offered reassurances to the community that the change is only temporary.
At a School Board meeting last Friday, school principal Rene Paschal said the questions about how coronavirus would impact the school’s calendar started in the parent community and conversations with school staff continued until the school administration was putting together a plan for what a temporary change away from the year-round program would look like.
“A poll showed over 70% support for a one-year modification,” Paschal said. “Every time it came up with a parent, you could almost viscerally see the comma come up with ‘don’t forget, it’s for one year only.'”
The new schedule will align Tucker with the rest of the school system for one year — starting on Tuesday, September 8. Teachers are expected back on Thursday, August 27.
School Board members acknowledged that there was cause for parental concern, given that the School Board has previously looked into eliminating the year-round program at Samuel Tucker. Board members said not only was the change temporary, but some suggested there is support for looking at implementing year-round programming at other schools now that restrictions have been lifted on how early schools can begin.
“I can relate to where that concern comes from,” said School Board member Ramee Gentry. “There was a period of time in ACPS when it did feel to the Tucker community that they had to wage a full campaign every budget cycle to preserve the modified calendar. Fortunately, we haven’t seen that in recent years.”
The ACPS website said that teachers at Tucker will remain on their usual payroll schedule as changing to a new schedule for one year would create an unneeded disruption.
Veronica Nolan, Vice-Chair of the School Board, said that not only is the school board not considering permanent changes to the Tucker calendar, but that she hoped the program could be expanded to more schools, noting that students traditionally lose learned information over the summer between school years — a phenomenon called the Summer Slide.
Photo via ACPS
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If you had a chance to enhance a child’s future with a time commitment of less than 2 hours a week, how would you respond? You have that opportunity right now to join over 200 Alexandrians as a reading tutor volunteer with the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium (ATC).
ATC tutors work with one child in kindergarten, first, or second grade in Alexandria public schools who need extra help with reading. Tutors meet with their Book Buddy 1-2 times each week for 30 minutes October-May at school, during school hours. Many struggling readers only receive one-on-one instruction through this program, and it makes all the difference. Last year, ATC served 195 children, of whom 82% ended the year reading on grade level and 96% made substantial reading gains. But the need is great, and we are still seeing learning lags from the pandemic.
This year, ATC plans to significantly increase the size of the program to reach over 250 students and to serve every elementary school in Alexandria. This is very exciting news, but we will only succeed if we can recruit more tutors. ATC trains you, matches you with a child, and provides ongoing lesson materials and support.
If you have been thinking about buying your first home or haven’t owned one in the last three years, THIS IS FOR YOU!
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2023 Alexandria Fall Festival
Food trucks, bounce houses, pony rides, magic shows and more at the 2023 Alexandria Fall Festival, an Alexandria Living event presented by The Patterson Group. Join us at River Farm on Sunday, Nov. 5 from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
