It might take some time, but Alexandria City Public Schools has opened the door to collective bargaining with its employees.
On Thursday, the School Board conducted its first work session on the topic, and Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt says it could be two years before the issue comes to the Board for a vote. The Board has to develop a collective bargaining resolution (CBR) with staff representatives, who will iron out wage and other potential increases through a long process.
Some big changes are coming to the Alexandria School Board.
Tonight, the Board will conduct a work session on whether to stagger the election cycle for its members, as well as reducing the number of members. There are currently nine Board members serving three-year terms in Districts A, B and C, and their elections run concurrently with City Council.
After years in development, a new agreement was released between Alexandria City Public Schools and the Alexandria Police Department to provide school resource officers (SROs) at the city’s high school and middle schools.
The new memorandum of understanding between ACPS and APD has been a long time coming. SROs were defunded by the City Council in last year’s budget, and Alexandria City Public Schools spent the first few months of the 2021-2022 school year without the officers in its high school and middle schools. The officers were returned after ACPS pleaded with Council for their return in the wake of multiple incidents with weapons in schools.
It’s been a busy week in Alexandria.
City Council unanimously approved City Manager Jim Parajon’s $884.3 million fiscal year 2024 budget, funding citywide pay increases, a fully funded school system and collective bargaining agreements with the police and fire departments.
Good Friday morning, Alexandria!
More gunfire was reported near the Braddock Road Metro station yesterday afternoon, prompting the Alexandria Police Department to tweet that it’s “determined” to solve recent crime issues.
Melanie Kay-Wyatt can take the “interim” off her job title: the School Board announced tonight (Thursday) that Kay-Wyatt will be the full superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS).
At the meeting, School Board leaders said the decision is a historic one and will hopefully break ACPS run of rapid superintendent turnover.
The permanent superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools will be announced by the School Board on Thursday night, ACPS announced today.
While their identity has not been revealed, the successful candidate was chosen after a national search that started last November in consultation with Nebraska-based McPherson & Jacobson, L.L.C Executive Recruitment and Development, according to ACPS.
Alexandria could be making significant changes to the way the School Board is elected, from staggered terms to breaking alignment with the standard election cycles.
A new survey suggests that School Board elections could be changed to staggered terms, meaning school board members are elected across different years rather than all at once.
The tense discussions between Alexandria’s City Council and School Board came to a head over Alexandria City High School’s Chance for Change Academy.
The joint work sessions are a chance for the school and city leaders to close the $7.5 million gap between the School Board’s $58.7 million request and the City Manager’s proposed $51.3 funding to the schools in the fiscal year 2024 Capital Improvement Program (CIP). But while both sides agreed relations between the two bodies are better than they’ve been in the past, the conversation still reopened old wounds between the two leadership teams.
A new survey shows widespread support for the installation of metal detectors within Alexandria City Public Schools.
There were 4,374 respondents to the survey, which ACPS opened on Feb. 24 and closed on March 8. Included in the survey were 1,181 students, 609 staff, 2,295 family/guardians, and 289 community members. About 85% of survey respondents supported using weapons screening equipment in all or some schools, and 58% of respondents want the metal detectors in every school.
Old Town was packed on Monday, as thousands of revelers and marchers celebrated the George Washington Birthday Parade.
More than 2,000 freemasons from all over the country marched in the 100th annual parade, which is the largest annual celebration of Washington in the world.
