Update at 1:05 p.m. — Alexandria City High School students will be dismissed early due to the bomb threat. Alexandria Police Department Communications Manager Tracy Walker told ALXnow that police are still searching the high school.
Alexandria City High School is being evacuated due to a bomb threat at the school, the Alexandria Police Department (APD) said.
“Out of an abundance of caution, ACHS officials have decided to evacuate the school,” APD said in a release around 12:20 p.m. “APD officers are on the scene investigating.”
According to an email from Alexandria City Public Schools:
At about 11:50 a.m. today, students and staff at the Alexandria City High School (ACHS) King Street campus were evacuated in response to a bomb threat received by Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS). The Alexandria Police Department is on site and working with ACHS administration, ACPS leadership and the ACPS Office of Safety and Security Services.
Students were evacuated from the King Street Campus to designated areas outside, and the ACPS Office of Transportation has sent buses to the school to provide warming stations for the students. We have also contacted Episcopal High School to serve as an evacuation site in the event of a prolonged evacuation.
We ask families to please not come to the ACHS campuses at this time. Updates will be provided as the investigation proceeds and more information becomes available.
The safety and security of our students and staff are of utmost priority. We will continue to communicate with any additional information and will update the ACHS website.
Principal Alexander Duncan III sent a message to families and staff at ACHS:
Dear Alexandria City High School – King Street Campus Families and Staff,
Students from Alexandria City High School (ACHS) – King Street Campus will be dismissed early at 1:00 p.m. today due to the message we sent this morning regarding the bomb threat and evacuation. Due to the size of the building, it will take a considerable amount of time to search and clear the building, and we are concerned about having students and staff outside of the building with the current temperature.
As a result, an early dismissal has been called and after-school activities in the building are canceled.
Buses will begin picking up students at 1:00 p.m. We ask families to please be patient as we work to drop off students at regular bus stops. For parents picking up students, meet your students at Woods Avenue entrance for King Street campus.
We know this is a difficult situation for families to manage and we appreciate your patience as we implement this plan. The safety and well-being of our students and staff are the most important priorities.
Sincerely,
Alexander Duncan III, Executive Principal
Notification: There is currently a police presence at Alexandria High School due to a possible bomb threat. Out of an abundance of caution, ACHS officials have decided to evacuate the school. APD officers are on the scene investigating. pic.twitter.com/li3S2uvm8K
— Alexandria Police (@AlexandriaVAPD) November 1, 2023
ACHS King Street campus evacuated due to bomb threat. https://t.co/uA5338GN3c
— Alexandria City High School – King Street Campus (@AlexCityTitans) November 1, 2023
(Updated at 8:30 p.m.) A 17-year-old former Alexandria City High School student was sentenced Thursday to five years with the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice for the 2022 murder of 18-year-old Luis Mejia Hernandez in the parking lot of the Bradlee Shopping Center, with one of those years already served.
Ryan Vega was 16 when he fatally stabbed Hernandez during a melee with dozens of ACHS students in the parking lot. In a two-day June bench trial, Judge James C. Clark found Vega guilty of second-degree murder and murder by mob, and said that Vega took advantage of his time behind bars at the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center by exhibiting good behavior and doing well with school.
“It appears to your credit, Mr. Vega, that you have taken advantage of your time,” Clark said before announcing the sentence. “In making this decision, I cannot ignore the harm of your actions. If I thought a life sentence would bring Luis back, I’d do it.”
Clark sentenced Vega to remain in the juvenile detention center until he is 21, in addition to 10 years suspended with the Virginia Department of Corrections and five years of supervised probation. He’s already been in jail for 17 months, putting the total sentence for the homicide at approximately five years behind bars by the time he is released.
He must also continue behavioral therapy and have no contact with the victim’s family.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Lord asked Clark for a 30-year sentence in an adult prison, with 10 years suspended. Lord said Vega was addicted to fentanyl at the time of the incident and was part of a disturbing trend of young people living on the edge.
“Part of justice involves answering that pain by the imposing of justice by this court,” Lord said in his closing argument.
Vega, who wore black sneakers, dark slacks and a gray sweater on top of a blue button-up shirt, kept his head down as he read a statement to the court. He said that the events of May 24, 2022 never stop running through his head and that he wishes he could turn back the clock.
“I am deeply and terribly sorry for the pain and loss I have caused your family,” Vega said, after being admitted to address the victim’s family. “Please know I will always pray for your family and Luis until my final breath.”
Vega said in another statement to the court that he spent sleepless nights staring at the ceiling of the juvenile detention center and that he was “remorseful beyond comprehension.” His attorneys Sebastian Norton and Sean Sherlock said that he wrote letters to Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson asking for more books in the detention center, and that he has distinguished himself as a leader behind bars.
Osmin Mejia Romero, the victim’s father, was upset by the sentence.
“This sentence is nothing,” Mejia Romero said. “It’s not a good situation. I wanted him in jail for 30 years, and I waited more than a year for this. His apology means nothing. He’s a liar.”
Mayor Wilson said he never saw a letter from Vega and that the Commonwealth’s requested sentence seemed appropriate.
“I did not review the evidence or sit through the trial, but based on my knowledge of the case, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s requested sentence certainly seemed a lot more appropriate to me.”
The stabbing occurred during a brawl between two rival gangs of Alexandria City High School teenagers on Tuesday, May 24, 2022 — a week before graduation on a half-day while students took their Virginia Standards of Learning tests. The fight was over within one minute, and Mejia Hernandez was fatally stabbed in the heart. An autopsy showed that he also had abrasions to his neck, chin, the back of his hands, abdomen and knees, according to court records. The cause of death was a 7/8-inch stab wound to the chest.
Hernandez was given a posthumous diploma at graduation a week later.
Clark said that Vega was likely experiencing opioid withdrawal at the time of the incident.
“I just can’t help observe the defendant’s decision to start using drugs,” he said. “It likely was a significant factor in forming his judgment to be at Bradlee.”
The murder was one of several incidents that resulted in a number of new policies and security enhancements in and around Alexandria City High School, including a metal detector program, increased police patrols in the area, as well as a rule prohibiting kids from frequenting the shopping center during school hours.
Sherlock said that he is thankful for Clark’s “wise” decision.
“We are incredibly remorseful to the family of Luis Hernandez,” Sherlock said. “We’re very thankful for the wisdom of the court and Judge Clark in imposing this sentence, fully taking into account the seriousness of what happened on May 24, while balancing that appropriately with the goals of sentencing and the capabilities of rehabilitation for juveniles.”
Alexandria City High School senior Mohommed Abir Rhaman was shocked when he was notified last month that he got a perfect score on the Advanced Placement U.S. History Exam.
The notoriously grueling exam takes more than three hours to finish, and Rhaman is one of 13 students in the world who aced it this year, according to Alexandria City Public Schools.
“I was very shocked,” Rhaman said, of learning his score last month. “This was very early in the morning and I was in school, and I just opened my email and just saw all of a sudden while being in a tired state while my teacher was talking in class. I had to conceal my excitement. Not to be rude, just to not disturb anybody, but I was very, very excited.”
The exam, which Rhaman took in May, generally covers the history of the Americas from Christopher Columbus landing in 1492 to the present. It’s split into three parts — 55 minutes to answer 55 multiple choice questions; 40 minutes for short answers to two questions; and an hour-and-40 minutes to write an essay.
“I can confidently say that the month leading up to the test so throughout April, I probably spent well over a couple hundred hours studying for it,” Rhaman said. “And throughout the school year, I spent a lot of time like studying for mainly AP U.S. History, just mainly because history as a subject doesn’t come to me as easily as like math or science.”
Rhaman is currently taking AP English literature, AP U.S. government, AP computer science, AP calculus, AP economics and AP physics. He’s also applying to colleges and wants to study quantum physics.
“My main interest about physics is just like, it’s kind of an attempt by mankind to try to learn more about the world and try to explain why things are the way they are, and try to expand our boundaries and to what we know or at least what we know that we don’t know,” he said.
Alexandria City High School seniors with a 3.25 cumulative grade point average or higher are now eligible for automatic admission to George Mason University.
The deal for the pilot program between Alexandria City Public Schools and GMU was struck earlier this month, and 428 ACHS seniors have since been informed that they have earned a guaranteed admission to the university. The agreement expires in August 2026.
“There are no applications, application fees, essays and SAT requirements, or recommendations,” Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt told the School Board on Oct. 5.
ACHS Executive Principal Alexander Duncan III said that direct access to college takes away the stress of figuring out a path out of high school.
“ACHS is beyond thrilled that our students are afforded this chance and thankful to GMU for providing it,” Duncan said. “No doubt, this will help as we work to provide equal access to education for all students.”
The school system said that anyone granted automatic admission will get a link to an application that’s 75% complete, with students needing to fill out the remainder.
“This trailblazing opportunity allows many seniors who may not have applied for admission to a four-year university the chance to make a life-changing decision with the confidence of knowing they have already received admissions,” ACHS Director of School Counseling R. Briana Hardaway said. “ACPS and ACHS leadership are thrilled about this pilot program and grateful to be among the initial schools in Northern Virginia who are part of this partnership.”
ACPS is proud to partner with @GeorgeMasonU to offer a direct path to college for qualified students. We recently celebrated the launch of the program and the 428 @AlexCityTitans seniors who were informed that they have earned guaranteed admission to GMU. https://t.co/DfhcigD6Vp
— Alexandria City Public Schools (@ACPSk12) October 19, 2023
Police were sent to Alexandria City High School (ACHS) to respond to a possible brawl in the cafeteria.
Additional Alexandria Police Department (APD) units were requested at ACHS for a large fight in the cafeteria, according to scanner traffic.
Principal Alexander Duncan III said in an email to staff and families that police were brought in as a result of “student altercations.”
“This morning, there was additional police presence at the Alexandria City High School King Street campus resulting from student altercations,” Duncan said. “As a precaution, the Alexandria Police Department was called for assistance in the event that additional support might be needed.”
Police have been called multiple times over the years for brawls in Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) and ACHS in particular. There were 112 fights reported in ACPS last year.
In the email, Duncan said APD and school security assured the safety of all students and staff in the building after the events and modifications were made to the lunch schedule, but the regular schedule will resume after lunch.
Alexandria parents are up in arms over a staffing crisis within Alexandria City Public Schools.
Kelly Organek says that her ninth-grade son at Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard campus hasn’t had a geometry teacher since school started in August and that he only recently got a new biology teacher.
“We are in a staffing crisis that is not okay for our children,” Organek testified to the School Board last Thursday night (Oct 5). “Since August 21, my son has had to teach himself biology and geometry. We have no way to know if he’s learning the material.”
ACPS staff also provided an update on staffing woes. The school system currently has 55 central office vacancies, as well as more than 100 licensed and non-licensed school-based positions. Just how many teachers are needed is not clear, and ALXnow is awaiting a more comprehensive breakdown of ACPS staffing needs.
“We’re at a point now where people are just looking for bodies to put in classrooms and that makes me so sad,” said Board Member Meagan Alderton. “I think the people on the ground, the HR (human resources) folks, have got to do the work.”
The ACPS employment page lists dozens of vacant positions, including high school science, math and history teacher jobs.
“We do know that the last couple of years have been very challenging for all of our staff,” Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt said.
Margaret Browne, the ACPS director of recruitment and retention, said she is working on streamlining the onboarding process so that applicants can start work faster. She also said that ACPS advertised positions on radio stations, television, newspapers and online media, and that she and her staff conducted 13 job fairs in-house and traveled to 40 career fairs around the country last school year, including to Puerto Rico.
“I anticipated that we were going to do a large number of events last year and I’m ready to set a new record (for job fairs),” Browne said. “We’ll go down the Eastern Seaboard. This time we are going west and we’ll also do Puerto Rico again.”
The school system is also short 15 bus drivers and is offering an additional 5% raise for drivers over the course of the next three years.
Browne said that ACPS will also focus on marketing to people switching careers within associations and military organizations.
David Paladin Fernandez has been an ACPS 6th and 8th grade general education teacher for eight years. He said that his salary has been frozen half that time, and that due to an impasse over collective bargaining that the school system is running short on special education teachers, bus drivers, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, therapists, audiologists and more positions.
He also brought a red velvet cake to the School Board meeting.
“Our district is facing a staffing crisis like we’ve never seen, and our management would rather spin stories than face the reality that their recruiting and retention efforts are simply not enough,” Fernandez said. “School Board members, tonight you have heard and will hear from a number of Alexandria citizens who have been personally impacted by the decisions ACPS management has made under your watch. These citizens come to you asking, nay demanding that you start holding management accountable because the things that they are saying to the public do not match the actions we see. It’s as ridiculous as offering cake at a School Board meeting.”
Rene Pascal, the acting head of human resources for ACPS, said that teachers should feel incentivized to work for ACPS by paying smaller premiums on their health plans (see graph in above gallery).
Alexandria City High School parent Sarah Schultz said that ACPS is not being transparent on staffing woes.
“We’re asking our children to receive instruction without teachers,” ACPS parent Sarah Schultz told the Board. “We feel strongly that ACPS should not take the stance that online classes are a reasonable substitute for in-person instruction, especially for required courses and question the equity of moving groups of students to online while the rest of the students receive in-person instruction.”
Two ACPS recruitment videos made earlier this year are below.
Alexandria City Public Schools saw a 26% increase in student arrests last school year, and a disproportionate number of arrested students are Black males.
There were 58 ACPS students arrested last school year, according to a school safety report to be presented to the School Board on Thursday. There were also 32 weapons-related incidents, 100 students injured, 112 fights/assaults and five reports of sexual misconduct.
The news follows an ACPS report revealing that most of Alexandria’s middle and high school students feel unsafe.
There were 451 incidents requiring a police response within Alexandria City Public Schools in the 2022-2023 school year — 188 incidents in the first two quarters of the year and 263 incidents in the final two quarters. That’s a 17% increase over the 385 incidents in the 2021-2022 school year.
While 25% of ACPS students are Black, most of those arrested are Black males.
Middle School Arrests (27)
- Black male — 14
- Hispanic male — 4
- Black female — 4
- Hispanic female — 3
- White male — 2
High School Arrests (31)
- Black male — 18
- Hispanic male — 6
- Black female — 4
- White male — 3
- Hispanic female — 2
Weapons seized include a handgun, two BB guns, stun guns, tasers, knives, pepper spray and a box cutter.
ACPS made a number of safety improvements in the 2022-2023 school year, like new ID requirements for students, designating entrances and exits at schools, installing metal detectors, and renewing its partnership with the police department to provide school resource officers.
Incidents in the 2022-2023 school year include:
- 112 fights
- 116 incidents characterized as “other” (parking lot accidents, trespassing, mental health episodes, property lost/damaged)
- 100 injuries requiring medical assistance
- 32 confiscated weapons
- 21 reports of controlled substances recovered
- 19 threats (verbal/cyber/social media)
- 16 missing student reports
- Seven reports of suspicious activity
- Five alarms pulled
- Five reports of sexual misconduct
- Three thefts
- One report of possessing prohibited materials
There were 175 incidents reported at the Alexandria City High School campuses, 183 incidents at the city’s two middle schools, 43 incidents at K-8 schools and 50 incidents at elementary schools.
First days back at school are always bumpy, but Alexandria City High School had a particularly rough start with an evacuation first thing in the morning.
Fortunately, the evacuation didn’t last long, but students and staff were outside of the building for around 25 minutes on their first day.
According to a message from Principal Alexander Duncan:
I want to inform you that the fire alarm at Alexandria City High School (ACHS) King Street Campus sounded at 9:40 a.m. today, resulting in students and staff evacuating the building for about 25 minutes. The evacuation was conducted in an orderly and safe manner, and the school resumed normal operations, with students and staff beginning to re-enter the building at 10:05 a.m.
The Alexandria Fire Department (AFD) responded to the alarm immediately and, once the AFD determined that it was safe for students and staff to return to the building, they provided the all clear to school administrators. The normal school schedule is in place.
In other news, both Alexandria City High School leadership and Alexandria City Public Schools leadership at large have said a major goal this year is combatting absenteeism and keeping students in their seats at school — particularly after issues in recent years at the nearby Bradlee Shopping Center.
Ahead of the start of the new school year, Alexandria City High School (ACHS) Principal Alexander Duncan issued a warning reminder that students are “discouraged” from going to nearby shopping centers during school hours.
The specific shopping center isn’t named, but it’s no secret that the Bradlee Shopping Center has been afflicted with violence in recent years linked to students from the nearby ACHS. There have been multiple shootings and brawls, including one that ended with the murder of 18-year-old Luis Mejia Hernandez in the parking lot of the Bradlee Shopping Center.
“Students are strongly discouraged from patronizing local shopping centers or establishments during school hours (unless permission has been received per the process shared above),” Duncan said in a message to ACHS students and families. “This constitutes ‘skipping class’ and is in direct violation of our attendance policy and the Student Code of Conduct.”
Duncan said that ACHS is partnering with the Alexandria Police Department and the shopping centers to increase police presence and deter truancy. The new ACHS Principal said the concern is not only about safety and security, but students missing vital instructional time.
“Please be advised that students will face disciplinary consequences by ACHS administration for intentionally missing class to patronize local shopping centers, and will also be held accountable for any behaviors when they are supposed to be in school,” Duncan said. “I am confident that we all agree that our students need to be in their classrooms engaged in learning.”
A grassroots social media page at Alexandria City High School, run by students and teachers, is looking for some funding to help make better content for the school.
Alexandria City High School teacher Gabriel Elias was the example in a Washington Post story and a White House briefing in 2020 of teachers adapting to virtual classrooms and connecting with students digitally. Since then, Elias has been working with a volunteer team of students and teachers to make a positive social media hub at the school. Now he’s looking for some help to take the project to the next level.
“Over the past years, I’ve gone from teaching with social media to planning, shooting, editing, and posting for a school of over 4,000,” Elias, a teacher at the school’s International Academy, wrote. “I teach full-time, but I run the successful social media team. The impact of our positive content on struggling students, concerned parents, potential community partners, and inspired teachers is massive. I want to step it up next year!”
The channel includes testimonials from students, coverage of events at the school and more. The Instagram page has roughly 3,233 followers.
So far, the students and teachers have mostly been using personal cellphones since they don’t have access to cameras that record well indoors. Elias is looking for funds to help give the students access to top-of-the-line camera kits, microphones and more to help promote activities and events at the school.
The Donors Choose page — a fundraising platform for teachers — says the goal is $2,922 for better equipment by Nov. 14.
“By last year’s end, we were posting (we are a team of students and teachers– all volunteer) at least ten video segments a week including sports events, clubs like Black Student Union, ceremonies, interviews on safety, and much more,” Elias wrote. “Next year will be even more: People expect a video for everything!”
Please click here and share to check out my project! Donate a small amount if you can to trigger the algorithm! #AlexandriaVA #AVA #ITeachPublicSchool https://t.co/KYXCSbdbjB
— Gabriel Elias (@Gabriel3lias) July 20, 2023
