In the wake of last week’s fatal stabbing of Alexandria City High School student Luis Mejia Hernandez, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. has advised School Board members to not talk with the media.
No arrests have yet been made after the May 24 incident, which resulted from an afternoon brawl with 30-to-50 Alexandria City High School students in the McDonald’s parking lot of the Bradlee Shopping Center.
May has been the second worst month for new Covid cases this year, with 2,900 cases reported. That’s a 94% increase over the 1,488 cases reported last month.
As of Tuesday (May 31), the total number of reported cases reached 34,505, with 189 deaths, according to the Virginia Department of Health. That’s an increase of 741 cases since this time last week, with the seven-day average of new cases now at 105.9, down from 199.4 last week, but still higher than the 78.6 at the beginning of the month.
Alexandria City High School (ACHS) will have a modified schedule this week as the school’s community reels from the killing of a student last week at a nearby shopping center.
Principal Peter Balas said in a message to the community that the school will have virtual asynchronous learning and SOL exams. ACHS staff will be in classrooms providing virtual instruction and will be available to proctor exams and be available to any student in need of social-emotional support or socialization.
(Updated at 5:45 p.m.) Alexandria Police were at the scene of Tuesday’s brawl prior to the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Luis Mejia Hernandez, according to video of the incident obtained by ALXnow.
Hernandez was stabbed during a brawl with 30-50 teenagers in the McDonald’s parking lot. A video of the incident obtained by ALXnow showed police cruisers at the scene and an officer attending to Hernandez immediately after he was stabbed.
Two Alexandria City Public Schools have switched to virtual classes due to widespread power outages around the city after a storm Sunday night.
Alexandria City High School’s King Street campus (ACHS) and Charles Barrett Elementary School have both switched to asynchronous virtual learning, meaning classes are being switched to online rather than in-person.
(Updated at 1:45 p.m.) The Alexandria City Council unanimously adopted City Manager Jim Parajon’s $839.2 million fiscal year 2023 budget on Wednesday night (May 4), and despite giving all city employees raises, Mayor Justin Wilson says inflation will likely mean more raises in future budgets.
“We’re staring into a significant inflationary environment that pinches our employees very hard, just like it pinches everyone hard,” Wilson said. “We’re going to have to continue to have this conversation every year about how we make sure we invest in the level of compensation and benefits required to not only attract but retain the best and the brightest in the city.”
Alexandria City Public Schools will likely soon begin carrying Nalaxone, or Narcan, as an emergency medication to be given to students if they are overdosing on opiates.
If approved by the School Board on May 5 (Thursday), school nurses or anyone “acting on behalf of the School Board who has completed a training program may possess and administer naloxone or other opioid antagonist for overdose reversal,” according to a staff report.
All Alexandria City High School (ACHS) campuses have gone into a “secure the building” status while the Alexandria Police Department (APD) investigates a threat to the school.
According to a release from ACPS:
(Updated at 11:15 p.m.) Just as the spring weather blooms, Covid cases are on the rise in Alexandria.
As of Monday (April 11), the number of reported Covid cases in Alexandria reached 30,566, and the seven-day average of cases is 40.9 — nearly double what it was at this point last month. There have also been 415 cases so far this month, putting Alexandria on track to eclipse the number of 593 reported cases in March and reach the 1,227 cases reported in February.
Soon after allegations of a sexual assault surfaced at Alexandria High School’s Minnie Howard Campus, a parent filed a Freedom Of Information Act request to find out more. Two weeks after filing her request, the parent was told that it could be fulfilled, but it would cost $84,300.
On March 21, Devon Runyan Wells, a parent of five ACPS students, requested all email communications over the last two years regarding Title IX complaints and investigations between Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr., School Board Members and staff. Wells also asked for any emails that contained the words rape, harassment, assault, sexual abuse, weapon, police, law enforcement, gang and gang violence.
Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Hutchings is making a case for critical race theory (CRT) and abolishing policing practices, although not within the school system he manages.
In an opinion piece published by EducationWeek on April 6 (Wednesday), Hutchings said that school systems need to employ six steps if they want to “embrace” building an anti-racist school or school system. In “The Anti-Racist Counternarrative Public Education Needs Now: Six steps for escaping the trap of attacks on ‘critical race theory’“, Hutchings wrote that most public school educators never heard of the term before it became politicized during the 2020 election cycle.
