Current and former city leaders met Tuesday (Sept. 1) to officially name the athletic field complex after former Mayor Kerry Donley.
Donley died unexpectedly in 2022 at the age of 66. He was on City Council for 18 years, and was mayor from 1996 to 2003. After a two-year stint as the chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, he was hired as the athletic director at ACHS, a position he held from 2005 to 2008.
Alexandria City High School opened its football season with a 21-7 win at home against the Lake Braddock Bruins.
After the game, a number of fights were also reported on the police scanner outside the school and in the parking lot of the nearby Bradlee Shopping Center. The Alexandria Police Department said that its officers and Alexandria City Public Schools administrators were able to work together to safely disperse crowds from the area, and that there were no injuries or arrests.
It’s the final weekend of August, and there’s still summer fun happening even after the kids went back to school.
The Around the World Cultural Food Festival will be the biggest event of the weekend, bringing visitors to Alexandria’s Oronoco Bay Park for food, performances and vendors. Other notable events include the annual remembrance event for lynching victim Benjamin Thomas and the Alexandria City High School Titans’ first home football game of the season.
The Alexandria City School Board unanimously accepted $240,100 in donations to the city’s school system on Thursday night (Aug. 27).
Along with school supplies and donations for meal debt, the gifts include a $158,000 donation to buy phone pouches with magnetic locks for every student at Alexandria City High School. With more than 4,500 students getting accustomed to a new bell-to-bell phone ban, Principal Michael Burch told ALXnow that the donation will buy enough pouches to last the school for several years.
Alexandria City Public Schools welcomed students back for the first day of school today (Monday) as the district implemented a stricter student cell phone policy and new school boundaries.
More than 15,000 students started school at ACPS, from the incoming kindergarten class who will graduate in 2039, to the seniors graduating next year. Acting Superintendent Grace Taylor, Mayor Alyia Gaskins, School Board Chair Christopher Harris, Alexandria City High School Principal Michael Burch and Police Chief Tarrick McGuire visited classrooms at ACHS’s King Street Campus on the first day.
Three Alexandria City Public Schools facilities that the School Board voted to rename will be dedicated in the next two months.
The Alexandria City School Board voted in December 2025 to name Keith Burns Field at Alexandria City High School’s Parker-Gray Memorial Stadium after a 1990 T.C. Williams High School graduate who had an NFL career. The athletic field complex at the high school’s Minnie Howard Campus will be named after the late Alexandria Mayor Kerry Donley, and a media center at Naomi L. Brooks Elementary School will be named after Jean Reid, who taught at various ACPS schools.
Residents shouldn’t be alarmed when they see an increased police and fire presence at Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard Campus later this week.
The Alexandria Police Department, Alexandria City Public Schools and other emergency partners will hold an incident response drill at the campus (3775 W. Braddock Road) Thursday (Aug. 13). Expect police, fire and EMS vehicles and personnel to be in the area between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
With a new principal at the helm, Alexandria City High School administrators will focus their efforts this school year on chronic absenteeism and implementing Virginia’s stricter ban against smartphones and other smart devices in schools.
On Wednesday morning (July 15), new principal Michael Burch told students, parents and administrators that he’s been sending out emails about the “bell-to-bell” phone ban signed into law by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D).
ACT for Alexandria’s Fund for Racial Equity has awarded more than $200,000 in grants to 29 local organizations and individuals, the organization announced in a new report.
The nonprofit created the fund in 2020 and established a resident community advisory board to lead grantmaking in 2024. The advisory board led three rounds of grantmaking over the next two years, awarding flexible, unrestricted grants to the organizations and individuals, according to ACT for Alexandria’s A Journey in Hope report.
Members of Alexandria City High School’s award-winning Titan Robotics team are protesting a decision to move the team to a new, smaller dedicated classroom space at the King Street Campus.
Last September, the award-winning Titan Robotics team was informed they would have to divide their 4,000-square-foot space next to the school gym with a new carpentry program. The move took away an area the team used to test the robot they enter in regional and national competitions. Earlier this month, the team was told by an Alexandria City Public Schools facilities administrator that the carpentry program was expanding and that Titan Robotics would be moved to an unused 1,500-square-foot classroom on the ground floor of the King Street Campus.
Michael Burch, the ACHS lead administrator for operations and student support, has been hired as the next principal of Alexandria City High School.
Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt made the announcement at tonight’s School Board meeting. With approximately 4,500 students and hundreds of staffers spread across four campuses, Burch will will lead the largest public high school in Virginia starting on July 1.
