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Alexandria School Board walking back budget ‘contingency’ after scuffle with City Council

By Vernon Miles
ACPS headquarters and clock (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

(Updated 4:20 p.m.) Alexandria’s School Board is meeting tomorrow for a seemingly innocuous budget revision, but city leaders say the truth is the School Board is walking back a potentially illegal decision made without communicating with the City Council.

Like previous work sessions, a joint City Council/School Board meeting became tense as the discussion turned to funding. The fiscal year 2024 combined funds budget for Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) details the revenues and expenditures.

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Alexander Duncan III hired as executive principal of Alexandria City High School

By James Cullum
Alexander Duncan III, the new executive principal at Alexandria City High School (via ACPS)

Longtime Alexandria City Public Schools administrator Alexander Duncan III was formally announced last night as the new executive principal of  Alexandria City High School.

Duncan, the ACHS Minnie Howard Campus administrator, will replace ACHS Executive Principal Beter Balas, who announced his departure last month.

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Here are the two Alexandria City High School executive principal finalists

By James Cullum
Marcia Rice and Alexander Duncan, the Alexandria City High School executive principal candidates, on Zoom on June 12, 2022 (via ACPS)

A longtime ACPS educator and a principal from Chesterfield County Public Schools are the finalists for the executive principal position at Alexandria City High School.

Alexander Duncan III, the Minnie Howard Campus administrator, and Marcia Rice, principal at Meadowbrook High School, answered a variety of questions Monday night in a Zoom meet-and-greet moderated by former ACHS principal John Porter.

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PHOTOS: More than 900 Alexandria City High School seniors graduate at GMU’s EagleBank Arena

By James Cullum
Proudly displaying a diploma at Alexandria City High School's graduation at George Mason University's EagleBank Arena, June 3, 2023 (staff photo by James Cullum)

It’s a day of happiness in Alexandria, as more than 900 Alexandria City High School seniors graduated this morning at George Mason University’s EagleBank Arena.

Perhaps student speaker Lenhle Vilakati put it best when she said: “Today we finally break apart and become our own people. Today we finally have to go off into bigger things and be amazing.”

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Alexandria parents and teachers livid over recently announced change to specialist teachers

By Vernon Miles
ACPS headquarters and clock (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

(Updated 6/5) Parents and teachers at a School Board meeting last night said the rollout of a new plan to split specialist teachers across schools has been an unmitigated disaster.

The change affects Alexandria City Public Schools’ (ACPS) encore teachers: teachers who run classes like music, art and physical education. A new change announced in an email earlier this week, without public discussion or meetings, would split these teachers across multiple schools throughout the district.

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It could be two years before ACPS comes to a collective bargaining agreement, says Superintendent

By James Cullum
ACPS headquarters and clock (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

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.

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Alexandria School Board to present Council with staggered terms proposal this fall

By James Cullum
ACPS Headquarters in Alexandria (Staff photo by Jay Westcott)

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.

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ACPS unveils new two-year agreement with police department for school resource officers

By James Cullum
Alexandria Police at Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard Campus. (staff photo by James Cullum)

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.

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ALXnow’s top stories this week in Alexandria

By James Cullum
ACPS interim Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt at the deed signing ceremony for the Winkler Botanical Preserve, September 15, 2022. (staff photo by James Cullum)

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.

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JUST IN: Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced as Alexandria City Public Schools superintendent

By Vernon Miles
ACPS Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt speaks at an event for Noah and Josephus Lyles at Market Square, October 10, 2022. (staff photo by James Cullum)

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.

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