Alexandria City Public Schools

In dramatic reversal, City Council brings back school resource officers to Alexandria City Public Schools

Published October 13, 2021 at 11:10AM | Updated October 13, 2021 at 6:07PM

ACPS Superintendent Gregory Hutchings Jr. (on right) speaks to City Council on bringing back school resource officers alongside School Board Chair Meagan Alderton and acting Police Chief Don Hayes, on Tuesday, October 12, 2021. (staff photo by James Cullum)

After significant outcry from a school system concerned about weapons in schools, the Alexandria City Council took a dramatic 4-3 vote around 1 a.m. this morning (Wednesday) to temporarily return school resource officers (SROs) to two middle schools and Alexandria City High School until the end of this school year.

Councilman John Taylor Chapman was the lone vote to reverse course, going against Vice Mayor Elizabeth Bennett-Parker and Councilmen Canek Aguirre and Mo Seifeldein, who voted to keep away SROs.

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Morning Notes

By Vernon Miles

Published October 13, 2021 at 5:00AM

A fall wreath on a door in Old Town (staff photo by James Cullum)

New gift shop in Old Town helps people with disabilities — “B.E.S.T stands for ‘Building Employment Solutions Together’ and is a collaboration between the Joey Pizzano Memorial Fund (JPMF) and ServiceSource to provide meaningful employment for people with disabilities.” [Alexandria Living Magazine]

Alexandria wins housing policy leadership awards — “Affordable and workforce housing policies and programs put in place by the governments of Alexandria, Virginia, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, have been selected as joint winners of the 2021 Urban Land Institute Robert C. Larson Housing Policy Leadership Awards.” [Urbanland]

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Kelly Carmichael Booz seeks to reclaim District B seat on Alexandria School Board

By James Cullum

Published October 12, 2021 at 3:30PM | Updated October 12, 2021 at 4:21PM

Kelly Carmichael Booz says experience matters, as the former Alexandria School Board member has thrown her hat in the ring to reclaim her former District B seat.

“I don’t think we can afford as a school district after this last year-and-a-half to have a board that doesn’t have experience coming to the table,” Booz told ALXnow in an interview. “If I’m elected and if the Alexandria citizens from District B support me, I can start on day one running with and understanding of the process.”

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Morning Notes

By Vernon Miles

Published October 11, 2021 at 5:00AM

Juvenile shot on Four Mile Road — “There is police activity in the 500 block of Four Mile Road for a shooting investigation. Officers discovered a male victim with a gunshot wound around 11:50 a.m.” [Alexandria Police]

ACPS Superintendent Pleads for Return of School Resource Officers — “Escalating violence at Alexandria City High School pushed Superintendent Dr. Gregory Hutchings, Jr .to issue a public plea to reinstate School Resource Officers (SROs) in the school system.” [Alexandria Living Magazine]

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ALXnow’s top stories this week in Alexandria

By Vernon Miles

Published October 8, 2021 at 3:30PM

Dominion employees (image via Dominion Energy/Facebook)

A power outage on Saturday set off a week of concerns about city infrastructure, even as the city was ranked one of the best small cities in the country.

The power outage that derailed the Art on the Avenue celebration is just the latest in a long chain of outages that have hit Alexandria over the last year, giving the lie to Dominion Energy’s claim that a large outage almost exactly a year ago was a fluke. Mayor Justin Wilson has previously called the state of frequent outages unacceptable and urged Dominion to do more to upgrade its infrastructure.

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JUST IN: Principal at Alexandria City High School addresses in-school violence and re-socialization pressure

By James Cullum

Published October 1, 2021 at 4:25PM | Updated October 1, 2021 at 5:06PM

Alexandria City High School Executive Principal Peter Balas says that violence within the school is being handled and students caught fighting are being dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

In a letter to the Alexandria City High School community on Friday (October 1), Balas said that many of his 4,370 students have been traumatized by the pandemic and social/political upheavals over the last couple of years. He also said that a recent shooting of a student at the McDonald’s at the Bradlee Shopping Center and the firecracker incident at a recent ACHS football game has added to a “heightened sensitivity” within the school.

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ALXnow’s top stories this week in Alexandria

By James Cullum

Published October 1, 2021 at 3:30PM | Updated October 1, 2021 at 4:01PM

It was a busy fall week in Alexandria. Here’s the rundown.

Our top story this week was on a plan to completely close off the 100 block of King Street as a pedestrian-only zone. The plan has been in the works since 2019, and was put into action last year. ALXnow’s poll on the subject had very one-sided results, showing 91% (791 votes) in favor of a permanent change.

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BREAKING: A bunch of student fights were recorded at George Washington Middle School and put on Instagram

By James Cullum

Published October 1, 2021 at 1:00PM | Updated October 2, 2021 at 11:34AM

Update on 10/2/21 — The videos of the fights at the school have been removed from Instagram, and have since been removed from the story.

A number of recent student fights at George Washington Middle School have been posted on Instagram.

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Last year’s Alexandria City High School class had the highest graduation rate and the lowest student dropout rate ever

By James Cullum

Published October 1, 2021 at 10:06AM | Updated October 1, 2021 at 10:45AM

The Alexandria City High School marquee (staff photo by James Cullum)

(Updated at 10:40 a.m. Alexandria City High School’s rates increased to their highest levels ever, not the highest in Virginia) Alexandria City High School has a lot more than just a new name to be proud of. This week, the school system announced that its recent graduating class saw the highest on-time graduation rate and the lowest student dropout rate in the school’s history.

“ACPS saw a nine-percentage point increase in the on-time graduation rate, from 82% in 2020 to 91% in 2021, and a nine-percentage point decrease in the overall student dropout rate, from 14% in 2020 to 5% in 2021,” ACPS reported. “The previous highest on-time graduation rate for ACPS was 86% in 2013 and the previous lowest dropout rate was 8% in 2019.”

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Protestors rally to return police to Alexandria schools, but officials say behind-the-scenes talks have stalled

By Vernon Miles

Published September 29, 2021 at 10:00AM | Updated September 29, 2021 at 2:12PM

City Council member John Chapman speaks with protestors demanding the return of the SRO program (staff photo by Vernon Miles)

Weeks of tension and frustration over violence in Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) boiled over last night with a small crowd of parents shouting at City Council members to restore the school resource officer (SRO) program.

In May, the City Council voted 4-3 in favor of reallocating funding away from SROs, a program started in 1997 that installed police officers in Alexandria’s high school and two middle schools. While the schools have additional security staff, SROs were authorized make arrests and carry weapons — a fact that made headlines in 2018 when an SRO accidentally fired his gun inside George Washington Middle School.

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School Board Chair Meagan Alderton says ACPS leadership will be challenged by high Board turnover

By James Cullum

Published September 28, 2021 at 3:55PM | Updated September 29, 2021 at 2:10PM

Facing no electoral opposition in her November reelection, Alexandria School Board Chair Meagan Alderton says the next three years will be full of challenges. For one thing, the incoming nine-member board will have six new faces who will be challenged to lead a school system beset by controversy.

“I am definitely concerned about the turnover of the board,” Alderton told ALXnow. “One of the greatest challenges in today’s public schools in general is what I call the revolving door. We really reached a critical juncture in which we can’t even expect and plan to our support personnel — teachers, principals, leadership, superintendents… To not stick around for at least five years is devastating to our potential for progress.”