A water main break has shut down three Alexandria schools today.
Douglas MacArthur (4633 Taney Avenue), James K. Polk (5000 Polk Avenue) and Patrick Henry Elementary (4643 Taney Avenue) Schools have been closed, according to Alexandria City Public Schools.
It’s a beautiful spring morning in Alexandria!
Today’s weather: Mostly sunny with a high of 72 degrees during the day, and cloudy with a low of 56 degrees tonight.
Four Alexandria school zones have been selected for a pilot program to install speed cameras, according to a presentation prepared for a joint City Council and School Board meeting.
This is the first time Alexandria will use speed cameras, and the following locations were agreed upon by Alexandria City Public Schools, the police department and the Department of Transportation & Environmental Services:
The tense discussions between Alexandria’s City Council and School Board came to a head over Alexandria City High School’s Chance for Change Academy.
The joint work sessions are a chance for the school and city leaders to close the $7.5 million gap between the School Board’s $58.7 million request and the City Manager’s proposed $51.3 funding to the schools in the fiscal year 2024 Capital Improvement Program (CIP). But while both sides agreed relations between the two bodies are better than they’ve been in the past, the conversation still reopened old wounds between the two leadership teams.
Alexandria City Manager Jim Parajon released his proposed $881.1 million fiscal year 2024 budget at City Hall on Tuesday night, and it includes an option to raise taxes by 1 cent.
The budget also reflects $8.1 million in collective bargaining agreement funds that will go to the Fire and Police Departments.
Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) leadership presented some recommendations for a school safety plan to City Council members, but faced some pushback that the process is moving too slowly and occasionally missing the point.
ACPS leadership presented interim Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt’s recommendations for a School Law Enforcement Partnership (SLEP) in a joint City Council/School Board meeting yesterday. Broadly, the recommendations emphasize continued funding of school resource officers along with a reexamination of protecting student confidentiality and new de-escalation strategies.
Alexandria City High School teachers are applauding increased wages and other recent changes to the Alexandria City Public Schools’ proposed fiscal year 2024 budget.
The School Board approved the proposed $359.9 million fiscal year 2024 combined funds budget proposal on Thursday night. The budget is a 4% increase over last year’s approved budget and includes funding to develop an official ACPS plan and policy for collective bargaining with employees.
Seventeen Alexandria City Public School students were arrested in the first two quarters of the 2022-2023 school year. There were also 15 weapons-related incients, 41 students injured, 44 fights/assaults and a report of sexual misconduct.
That’s according to a school safety report to be presented to the School Board on Thursday. There were 188 incidents requiring a police response within Alexandria City Public Schools in the first two semesters of this year. Weapons seized include knives, brass knuckles, stun guns/tasers, a BB gun and pepper spray.
Around 1:15 p.m. an Alexandria City High School student was taken to the hospital for a suspected overdose.
Fire department spokeswoman Raytevia Evans confirmed that emergency personnel responded to a possible overdose at the school.
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.
