Update 10/30: Oct. 25 was a teacher work day, the students in the photo above were not in school.
Every day, countless Alexandria City High School students walk between campuses across one of the busiest intersections in the city, and city leaders said Alexandria’s been very lucky no one has been hurt yet.
In a joint meeting of the City Council and School Board last night, Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) administrators said they are working on cutting down the amount students transfer from one campus to the other and have been on a campaign to ensure students and parents are aware of restrictions.
Alexandria City High School is a closed campus, meaning the students are not allowed to walk from the King Street campus to the new Minnie Howard campus during the school day. To transition from classes at one location to the other, they have to take a bus.
While Alexandria City High School has started enforcing their no-walk policy last week, ALXnow still found many students making the trip between campuses on foot and crossing the Quaker-King-Braddock intersection.
A scathing editorial from student newspaper Theogony laid the blame for the situation on ACPS administration, which they said downplayed the strain on infrastructure the two-campus strategy would create, calling the current setup “unnecessarily complicated and logistically difficult, particularly for a school that is already full to the brim.”
Theogony reported that many students have been late to classes because buses have been unavailable or delayed in transitioning students. While ACPS has pushed back on these claims, they’ve been echoed to ALXnow by parents and students at ACHS.
Chief Academic Officer Pierrette Finney said the lack of bus availability is a “misconception.”
“There are three transition times in each direction with 10-15 buses from each campus for each transition,” Finney said. “There’s a misconception that we don’t have enough buses. [Chief Operating Officer Alicia Hart]’s team is working hard to make sure, even if the bus driver has to do a double run, there are buses available for students… All ten buses might not be there, but they will be there within a few minutes.”
Finney said ACPS has also been reiterating to parents and students that the campuses are closed and students who walk between campuses are in violation of the rules.
ACPS administrators also said the school had a brief conversation about hiring crossing guards, but that nothing has been finalized.
Ryan Knight, division chief of transportation engineering at Transportation and Environmental Services (T&ES), said the city has looked at short term improvements to the intersection like additional hours when school flashing warning signs might go off to encourage and prioritize pedestrian safety during those transition times.
“We know that intersection is operationally a challenge,” Knight said. “We do anticipate seeing if there are any grants for further analysis or study for other improvements that can be recommended.”
City Council member John Chapman said he was mildly concerned about pedestrian improvements further incentivizing students to break the rules, but also repeated frustrations about communication failures that have dominated City Council-School Board relations for years:
I understand ACPS is making sure students are not walking. It looks like T&ES is doing additional pedestrian measures. I hope that does not encourage more walking, but if somebody does need to walk, I do think those measures are appropriate.
The question I had: I’m a little concerned how we got here. This was not something that was a surprise to either staff. As you guys laid out what your plan was, I understand folks have been closely working together, but to me… that closeness of working together was not ready for kids to be walking, whether it’s policy on ACPS side, readiness on our side. We’ve been very lucky that nobody’s gotten hurt or injured in transitions and it’s taken parent outrage to get to a place where there’s real movement.
Mayor Justin Wilson said pedestrian safety issues at the Quaker-King-Braddock intersection are nothing new. While Wilson said he’s “not afraid of encouraging people to use that intersection,” he said major improvements are not coming in the short-term.
“Complete reconfiguration of that intersection is several years off and tens of millions of dollars off,” Wilson said.
School Board Chair Michelle Rief said this has all been part of ACPS working out the kinks of a new system.
“From my vantage point, I think this is a new model that we’re introducing,” Rief said. “I know that our staff has been working very hard… This academy and pathway model was something designed to maximize opportunity and core selection. The master schedule was built in a way that accommodated student choice. The tradeoff for assigning students to one campus is how that reduces the course options.”
Rief also said conversations about campus transportation preceded parent outrage and ACPS is currently working to minimize transitions between campuses.
“I think we’re still in this phase of this is new and we’re still working through some of these challenges,” Rief said.
