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Zombies, mummies and superheroes attended the annual Halloween celebration on S. Lee Street in Old Town.

Thousands of costumed kids and adults walked up and down the closed-off street starting at 5 p.m., furthering a tradition that goes back decades. Residents of Lee Street spend thousands on decorations and candy for the throngs of costumed guests.


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Nearly 1,200 signatures have been collected in a new Change.org petition asking for a holiday for Alexandria City Public Schools students the day after Halloween, on Nov. 1.

According to the petition:


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Thousands turned out in costumes for the 27th annual Del Ray Halloween Parade on Sunday.

This year, the parade was named one of the top 10 Halloween Parades in the country by USA Today.


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The Alexandria School Board’s preferred options to restructure itself are “dead” as-is, mostly due to a lack of engagement with the Alexandria City Council, City Council Member John Taylor Chapman told members of the School Board on Monday night.

“I think you’re losing Council by not really engaging with them right now,” Chapman told the City Council/School Board Subcommittee meeting Monday night. “Given the response I’ve seen from my colleagues, I think you have even more of an uphill battle than you had before, and that’s not a good thing if this is supposed to be a process that’s collaborative.”


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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.


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(Updated 8/24) A group of adventurers slowly entered a dimly lit tavern with a locked cage at the center of the room. The commoners of the town, including the party cleric’s brother, were locked in that cage.

As the group filed in, suddenly from out of the shadows, things began to crawl forward. As the group of children at the Alexandria Library listened eagerly to Dungeon Master Aly Ahn describe what was lurking in the shadows, one of them hopefully suggested “Kittens?”


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School is back in session, and this year Alexandria City Public Schools wants to make sure kids go to class.

That was the message from outside George Mason Elementary School (2601 Cameron Mills Road) this morning, where Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt and School Board Chair Michelle Rief joined teachers and staff in welcoming back students. Kay-Wyatt said her priorities this year are on improving the welcoming culture within ACPS, academic achievement and absenteeism.


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Salma Faqirzaava wants to be an attorney, but that future was impossible in Afghanistan. Now she’s back in school and learning English in Alexandria.

Eight months ago, Salma and her parents moved to Alexandria, where she enrolled in Alexandria City High School, finding herself navigating the busy hallways of the second largest high school in Virginia.


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(Updated 8/11) After years in development, City and Alexandria City Public Schools leaders will cut the ribbon of the refurbished Douglas MacArthur Elementary School next Friday (August 18).

The project took three years of planning and two years of construction, and the 154,000-square-foot school at 1101 Janneys Lane will open for the first day of classes on August 21.


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More than 700 new backpacks will be handed out on Saturday afternoon at John Adams Elementary School (5651 Rayburn Avenue).

Alexandria law firm Blaszkow Legal, PLLC, is sponsoring the giveaway, which includes other school items and will be held from noon to 2 p.m.


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(Updated 3 p.m.) Alexandria’s teen pregnancy rate is falling, although Hispanic girls are disproportionately high, according to new data presented by the city.

The numbers are on the rise for Hispanic girls, with 22.4 pregnancies for every 1,000 female ages 15 to 17 reported in 2021, according to the Alexandria Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy (ACAP), part of the Department of Community & Human Services. That’s an 8% increase from the previous year, but still below the 26 pregnancies per 1,000 females reported in 2020.


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