Alexandria City High School students watching Saturday Night Live this weekend might have seen a familiar face in the musical numbers: the school’s Director of Choral Activities Theodore Thorpe III.
Thorpe was part of the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers in a choral ensemble with Coldplay, performing the songs The Astronaut, Human Heart, and Fix You in the show on Saturday, Feb. 4.
The long and tangled history of the Appomattox statue that once stood at the intersection of S. Washington Street and Prince Street took another turn this week as ALXnow learned the base had been installed in a Carlyle-area cemetery.
The statue had been removed in 2020 after years of debate over its presence. While some neighbors have expressed misgivings at the base’s new home above Confederate graves in the Bethel Cemetery not far from historic Black cemeteries, the new location is on private property and the cemetery’s owner said he’d like to see the statue reinstalled there.
Two Alexandria City Public Schools will be getting metal detectors before the end of this school year.
On Thursday night, the School Board voted 7-0 (Board Chair Meagan Alderton and Member Christopher Harris were not present) to approve the process for “advanced weapons abatement technology” to go into operation at two unnamed ACPS schools in May.
Alexandria City High School (ACHS) was evacuated in response to a bomb threat earlier today, the second day in a row that bomb threats have forced a school evacuation.
The school was evacuated at 2:25 p.m. today, though students were already dismissed earlier at 1:15 p.m. for parent-teacher conferences.
Updated at 3:15 p.m. Alexandria City High School’s campuses evacuated at 2:25 p.m. today after a bomb threat was made earlier by phone.
Principal Peter Balas wrote that the bomb threat was made while the schools were under a “Secure the Building” status.
It’s been a busy week in Alexandria.
As teachers fought for a pay raise, Alexandria City High School (ACHS) students walked out of the classrooms in protest against Alexandria City Public Schools leadership stonewalling a lunchtime program.
(Updated 3:55 p.m.) At 10 a.m. today, Alexandria City High School students filed out of their classrooms and took to the field behind the school in protest against the elimination of a popular lunchtime program at the school.
For a time, students could use their lunch block to meet with clubs or teachers in a program called Lunch and Learn. This was later given a more formal structure in a program called Titan Lunch, a re-do with more security, but that program was never instated.
Alexandria City Public School teachers are saying that the proposed salary and step increases aren’t enough.
Last Thursday, 15 ACPS teachers appeared before the School Board at its public hearing for Interim Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt’s $359.9 million fiscal year 2024 combined funds budget proposal. Kay-Wyatt is proposing a 2.6% step increase and 2.5% market rate adjustment for eligible ACPS employees, and the 85% of the budget pays the salaries for 2,700 employees. She’s also proposing eliminating a step for employees on the pay scale.
(Updated at 5 p.m.) Police responded to “student altercations” today at Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard campus but the incidents did not result in a lockdown, the school’s principal wrote in an email to parents on Monday afternoon.
Three juveniles were arrested for obstruction of justice. No students went to the hospital or were reported injured, police said.
After a back-and-forth with city leadership on school safety, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares got a quick tour of Alexandria City High School from the city’s leaders on Monday (Nov. 7).
Miyares toured the school, met with students and city leaders, ate lunch and discussed school safety.
Alexandria has started identifying pedestrian safety improvements around Alexandria City High School and a number of other school campuses.
Staff with the city’s Department of Transportation & Environmental Services are creating “walk audits” with available for public review in a final report by next June.
