Earlier this month, Alexandria City High School senior Abdelraman Aboud Abdelsadig received life-changing news. After submitting all his paperwork and waiting a month, Abdelsadi was awarded the competitive QuestBridge Scholarship to attend Colby College in Maine.
The scholarship is worth about $300,000, and Abdelsadig found out about the award at school on Dec. 1.
The days of making offerings to ancient winter deities in hopes of summoning a snow day could be a thing of the past for Alexandria students. Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) said in a newsletter last week that the schools may continue virtual learning for various winter weather conditions.
ACPS said in a newsletter that school buildings may close as usual, but instruction will continue virtually at home, Alexandria Living Magazine first reported.
A student was suspended last month at Francis C. Hammond Middle School for allegedly writing about ‘shooting up the school’ on Discord with another student.
On October 26, the school resource officer at Francis C. Hammond Middle School was alerted by school staff that the student was interviewed and suspended.
Alexandria’s bus service DASH isn’t alone in starting its electric conversion; yesterday Alexandria City Public Schools celebrated the addition of five new electric buses to the school system’s bus fleet.
At an event yesterday, ACPS and Dominion Energy leadership celebrated the launch of the new buses.
Alexandria City Public Schools staff and the Police Department are hammering out a revised memorandum of understanding (MOU), and while few details have been released, the school system says that the school resource officer (SRO) program will change next year.
It’s been more than a month since City Council reversed its decision and brought back SROs. The initial decision to defund the officers redirected $800,000 in SRO funding toward mental health resources for students. It created a rift between City Council and the School Board, but after numerous violent incidents with weapons in schools, School Board Chair Meagan Alderton and Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. pleaded for their return.
Alexandria School Capacity The Focus Of Proposed Capital Budget — “The latest Capital Improvement Plan proposal includes funding for a newly acquired office building that will become a school.” [Patch]
The Happy Cat Hotel and Spa to open next weekend — “It’s time for dogs to move over, because there’s a new cat in town – or a cat hotel and spa, rather.” [Alexandria Living Magazine]
District A School Board candidate Aloysius “Ish” Boyle says he’s a proven leader, and that Alexandria City Public Schools is still in crisis mode.
Boyle, a retired Marine Corps captain with combat tours in Iraq, has two young children in ACPS and gives the school system a four out of 10 for its COVID-19 response. He says students should have gone back to full-time in-person learning sooner than the beginning of this school year, and criticized Superintendent Gregory Hutchings for putting his own kids in private school.
Alexandria City Public Schools is seeing a shortage of classroom monitors, bus monitors and substitute teachers.
Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. told the School Board last week that ACPS’ Human Resources Department is working to hire more, and that staffing levels were impacted by hybrid learning last year.
Metal detectors are not being considered at Alexandria City Public Schools.
After a rocky start to the school year with multiple students caught bringing weapons to Alexandria City High School, the issue has been publicly raised more than a few times in recent weeks.
Second Alexandria early voting site opens for November election — “An additional in-person early voting site for Virginia’s general election in November opened in the City of Alexandria on Friday and will remain open through Oct. 30.” [Patch]
Nominate Alexandria schools staff for teacher and principal of the year awards — “It’s that time of year again. Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) is once more participating in The Washington Post’s Principal of the Year and Teacher of the Year Awards.” [Zebra]
Bridget Shea Westfall says she’s not a status quo kind of person. Westfall, the parent of a second grader at Naomi L. Brooks Elementary School, also calls her son her hero.
“My son was my hero during the pandemic, and he just had to do a lot of adult things,” Westfall told ALXnow, fighting back tears. “He had to be very resilient, brave and strong and use executive functioning skills that most adults haven’t mastered in their professional and personal lives. But my son said to me, ‘Mom, you should do it. You should. You should run.'”
