It was another busy week in Alexandria. Here are some of the highlights.
This week, ALXnow profiled Mayor Justin Wilson and his opponent, former Mayor Allison Silberberg. The pair are facing off in the June 8 Democratic primary, and have vastly different ideas on city governance.
(Updated at 1:45 p.m.) Alexandria City Public Schools and Fairfax County Public Schools are investigating allegations that members of the Robinson Rams junior varsity football team spit at and made a racial slur against T.C. Williams High School football players in a game on Monday, April 5.
“Yes, I am aware of these reports,” Mayor Justin Wilson told ALXnow. “It is horrifying that our students were the victims of this abuse and assault. I have been in contact with the School Board Chair, Vice Chair and Superintendent about this incident. I have also connected with my counterpart in Fairfax County, Jeff McKay. I believe it is being investigated by both school systems and I hope it will be addressed promptly.”
Kevin Harris sees himself as a man of the people, someone residents can confide in to help solve their problems.
The 40-year-old local business owner says he decided on March 1 to run for City Council as a democrat in the June 8 primary.
The Alexandria School Board on Thursday, March 18, will conduct a public hearing on the proposed new names for T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Maury Elementary School.
The 5 p.m. public hearing will allow testimony from residents on what they think about proposals by Superintendent Dr. Gregory Hutchings to respectively rename them “Alexandria High School” and “Naomi Brooks Elementary School”. The two finalist names were chosen from a list that ACPS released last month.
What a busy week in Alexandria.
Our top story this week was on Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Old Town shop fibre space on March 3. It was Harris’ first official visit outside of the White House since she was inaugurated, and she spoke about the American Rescue Plan with shop owner Danielle Romanetti.
What was meant to be a fun, wholesome Super Bowl watch-party with City Councilman John Chapman this weekend was briefly derailed as the meeting was stormed by newcomers with Nazi profile pictures spouting racist slurs.
The meeting was hosted as part of Chapman’s reelection campaign. The event was open to the public and had fairly lax restrictions on who could speak.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Congressman John Lewis and 1972 Titan Petey Jones are just a few names that have made the latest cut in the rename process for T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Maury Elementary School.
The semifinalist names for the schools have been selected, and ACPS has launched another set of polls to further slim down the selection. The polls close on Feb. 19 and the top three names from each poll will be presented to the School Board for final consideration on March 4. There will be a public hearing on March 18, and then the Board will vote on the names on April 8.
Every month, Agenda Alexandria tackles a topic of significance to the public. This month, the organization is hitting two of the biggest talking points of 2020 in one fell swoop: how is Alexandria influenced and impacted by institutional racism.
A discussion with Bernadette Onyenaka, co-founder of the O&G Racial Equity Collaborative, and Sara VanderGoot, co-owner of Mind the Mat, is scheduled Monday, Jan. 25, from 6:30-8 p.m. The program will be streamed live.
After a unanimous vote at the Alexandria School Board meeting last night, the names T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Maury Elementary School were voted out — with the replacements still to be decided.
Over the next few months, the School Board will seek public feedback before settling on a new pair of names. The new names will be chosen by the Board in the spring and go into effect at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.
Heading into a School Board vote on Nov. 23, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings had thrown his support in with those supporting changing the names of T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Maury Elementary School.
Hutchings explained his support for the name change in an opinion piece in Tes, an educator trade magazine.
The City of Alexandria is planning to host a series of meetings to discuss work being done to promote racial and social equity in the city. The discussions will culminate with a resolution going to City Council.
“Alexandria is committed to race and social equity through collaboration among City departments, employees, community members, nonprofit partners and other stakeholders to implement a framework that ensures City policy decisions and practices advance race and social equity,” the city said. “The City’s commitment and efforts moving forward require inclusion, input and ideas from every part of the community.”
