Francis C. Hammond Middle School received a donation of 500 new backpacks today, which will be stuffed with school supplies for when students return for the 2026-2027 school year.
United Way National Capital Area and Enterprise Mobility donated the backpacks to the Title I school. United Way’s global headquarters are located in Alexandria.
After pool drownings of children 5 and under reached a five-year high last year in Virginia, state health officials are urging families to take a “safe swimming pledge” as pools open for the season.
In 2025, there were 12 accidental drownings of children aged 5 and under in Virginia — more than the nine reported over the prior three years: three in 2024, two in 2023 and four in 2022. Virginia reported 473 drownings in all bodies of water between 2020 and 2024.
An Alexandria learning center has been chosen to host an open casting call for a new Netflix children’s competition show.
Code Ninjas Alexandria will serve as a casting site for “Schooled,” a national competition series created by Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer who worked on the Mars Curiosity rover and now runs an engineering school called CrunchLabs Academy.
Alexandria’s DASH bus service kicked off April’s Month of the Young Child this morning (Monday) with the unveiling of a bus covered with early childhood development messaging intended to inspire parents.
The bus “takeover” was unveiled at DASH headquarters (3000 Business Center Drive) and includes exterior wraparound messaging and interior display messaging on five principles to help young children thrive. Mayor Alyia Gaskins, DASH CEO Josh Baker and Michelle Smith Howard, CEO of Kids’ First Years, were among approximately 50 children and adults who attended.
Get your Easter baskets ready and hop to egg hunts and other festivities over the holiday weekend in Alexandria.
Egg hunts, visits with the Easter Bunny and more family-friendly events are taking place over Easter weekend. Some of the highlights are an underwater egg hunt in the pool, brunch with the Easter Bunny and Councilman John Taylor Chapman’s returning egg hunt.
Alexandria’s DASH bus service will unveil a bus with colorful wraparound graphics next week to kick off April as the city’s Month of the Young Child.
At 10 a.m. Monday, April 6, Mayor Alyia Gaskins will be on hand at DASH headquarters (3000 Business Center Drive) to reveal the bus, which includes colorful wraparound graphics outside the bus. Through a partnership with local nonprofit Kids’ First Years, buses will display messaging on the five principles to help young children thrive. This is the second year that the city has devoted April toward promoting early childhood education and development with planned activities across the city.
Alexandria City Council members are pressing for more answers before they can fill a $5.65 million budget gap to pay for Alexandria City Public Schools’ first-ever collective bargaining agreement.
Earlier this month, the School Board approved its $12.7 million collective bargaining agreement with the Education Association of Alexandria, promising a step increase for all eligible employees (and an extra step for staff employed since 2010), a 2% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for licensed staff, a 3.5% COLA for support staff and a $2,000 longevity bonus for support staff.
Alexandria City Public Schools saw a 40% reduction in the number of incidents requiring a police response during the first two quarters of this school year compared to last year, according to a school safety report recently presented to the Alexandria City School Board.
During the first semester this year, ACPS reported 167 total incidents requiring a police response across the school system and 27 student referrals or arrests. The recent incident count represents a 40% drop from the first semester last school year, which saw 279 reported incidents.
A student “may have brought a loaded firearm” to Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School yesterday (Tuesday), according to an Alexandria City Public Schools message sent to the school’s community today.
The Alexandria Police Department recovered a firearm inside an 8-year-old child’s backpack yesterday in a Child Protective Services office at 4850 Mark Center Drive, the department told ALXnow. No injuries were reported, and officers are investigating the cause of the incident.
Just before snowflakes fell on Monday afternoon, a class of third graders at Patrick Henry K-8 School were outside in the school basketball court learning how to ride bikes.
For three weeks every school year, all third graders at Alexandria City Public Schools are fitted with Trek bikes and taught bicycle safety and riding by volunteers and staff working with the Alexandria Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee‘s (BPAC) Bicycling in the Schools initiative. This school year, 1,266 students are in the program, which is currently seeking more volunteers.
Two Alexandria students were recently awarded $500 prizes for their submissions to the 2026 George Washington Legacy Foundation Essay Contest.
Garrett Wagman of George Washington Middle School and David De Costa of Bishop Ireton High School won the middle school and high school contests, which were open to all students in the city. This year’s 700-to-1,000-word essay contest focused on America’s 250th anniversary and Washington’s role in uniting the colonies.
