Alexandria City Public Schools saw a 26% increase in student arrests last school year, and a disproportionate number of arrested students are Black males.
There were 58 ACPS students arrested last school year, according to a school safety report to be presented to the School Board on Thursday. There were also 32 weapons-related incidents, 100 students injured, 112 fights/assaults and five reports of sexual misconduct.
The news follows an ACPS report revealing that most of Alexandria’s middle and high school students feel unsafe.
There were 451 incidents requiring a police response within Alexandria City Public Schools in the 2022-2023 school year — 188 incidents in the first two quarters of the year and 263 incidents in the final two quarters. That’s a 17% increase over the 385 incidents in the 2021-2022 school year.
While 25% of ACPS students are Black, most of those arrested are Black males.
Middle School Arrests (27)
- Black male — 14
- Hispanic male — 4
- Black female — 4
- Hispanic female — 3
- White male — 2
High School Arrests (31)
- Black male — 18
- Hispanic male — 6
- Black female — 4
- White male — 3
- Hispanic female — 2
Weapons seized include a handgun, two BB guns, stun guns, tasers, knives, pepper spray and a box cutter.
ACPS made a number of safety improvements in the 2022-2023 school year, like new ID requirements for students, designating entrances and exits at schools, installing metal detectors, and renewing its partnership with the police department to provide school resource officers.
Incidents in the 2022-2023 school year include:
- 112 fights
- 116 incidents characterized as “other” (parking lot accidents, trespassing, mental health episodes, property lost/damaged)
- 100 injuries requiring medical assistance
- 32 confiscated weapons
- 21 reports of controlled substances recovered
- 19 threats (verbal/cyber/social media)
- 16 missing student reports
- Seven reports of suspicious activity
- Five alarms pulled
- Five reports of sexual misconduct
- Three thefts
- One report of possessing prohibited materials
There were 175 incidents reported at the Alexandria City High School campuses, 183 incidents at the city’s two middle schools, 43 incidents at K-8 schools and 50 incidents at elementary schools.
Alexandria Police Department Captain Courtney Ballantine just spent 10 weeks at the FBI National Academy, and spoke with ALXnow about his experience.
Over the summer, Ballantine lived in a dorm with a roommate at Marine Corps Base Quantico, worked out four times a week and studied the psychology of leadership, managing change, leading at-risk employees and strategies for community partnerships. There were about 200 other law enforcement officers who participated in the academy’s 287th session.
Ballantine, now the commander of APD’s Community Engagement Division and Special Operations Division, joined the department in 2000, straight after earning a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Radford University. He was promoted to sergeant in 2007, lieutenant in 2014, was made acting-captain in 2021 and officially became a captain in 2022.
Ballantine’s responsibilities include managing the department’s parking enforcement, traffic safety, special events, K9 units, crossing guards, school resource officers, and APD’s crisis intervention team program. He’s also the commander of the department’s peer support and resiliency group, which is designed to help officers cope with the wear and tear of the job.
He also now joins a list of APD graduates from the FBI National Academy, which includes Chief Don Hayes, Captain Monica Lisle, Captain Jerry Newcomb, Lieutenant Steve Carr, Lieutenant Mike May and Lieutenant Tara May.
ALXnow: Welcome back. How’d you get involved in this?
Ballantine: Thanks. I put in for this program a couple of years ago, and I’ve been on a waiting list. Eventually my name got pulled. You know, it’s always easy to put your name on a piece of paper saying you’re interested, but when your name is called you actually have to go and do it. It’s a reality check.
ALXnow: What was your life like at the academy?
Ballantine: It was 10 weeks of living in a dorm. I had a roommate from Bristol, Connecticut, and we shared a bathroom with two other people, and we did graduate-level coursework through the University of Virginia. In one particular training session, for instance, there were 40 other law enforcement executives across the world who brought their perspectives and experience to the conversation. So, if I didn’t learn something new in that course, I confirmed that we were already doing something right.
ALXnow: When I think of the FBI Academy, that opening scene in The Silence Of The Lambs with Jodie Foster running through the obstacle course comes to mind.
Ballantine: We watched that movie one night at the academy, and I actually completed that obstacle course at the end of the 10 weeks. It’s called the Yellow Brick Road, and it’s a 6.3-mile course, and the nine weeks of workouts leading up to that is the only reason I was able to successfully finish it.
ALXnow: What did you learn and how are you going to apply it in Alexandria?
Ballantine: What you have to understand is that the National Academy is like a utopia. You’re in the woods, where deer are frolicking in the pasture with bunny rabbits. You’re in a secured area on a secured military base. You have three meals a day, you exercise, you’re with people that want to learn and do better, and you’re learning about the world and how other people do what we do. And when I walked out, you’re hit with reality, like leaving college and facing the real world…
One of the biggest things I want to try to really expound on is wellness for ourselves. I’m currently the commander of our peer support and resiliency group, which we started in 2017. At the academy, I took the class for leading at-risk employees, which is about dealing with the wear and tear of the job, seeing all that accumulative trauma. The work can overwhelm the best of us and manifest in heart disease, depression, alcoholism, or even suicide. There’s a lot more that we can do and we have to make sure we take care of ourselves.
ALXnow: What was an inspiring moment for you at the academy?
Ballantine: I had to do a presentation in my class for leading at-risk employees. I asked a friend of mine working in the department to come down to present with me, and we talked about our ability to work together, our relationship and how we’ve helped each other through tough times, dark days and bright days. We’ve always been part of each other’s world to support each other, and when we were finished presenting, everyone in the room was clapping because they recognized how awesome that is, that we’ve both kept each other alive.
ALXnow: During your law enforcement career you could have left Alexandria. Why have you stayed?
Ballantine: I love my job. I absolutely love coming to work, being in this community working with the officers. After being here for 23 years, which is longer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, this is home.
Updated at 5:45 p.m. — There is a slight surge of Covid cases in Alexandria, however a notification that a Halloween-themed event at a city recreation center this weekend was unfounded, according to the City.
On Tuesday, an Evite was sent to reporters announcing a Halloween festival at the Leonard “Chick” Armstrong Community Center, but on Wednesday another email was sent announcing that the event was canceled.
“In the wake of the latest surge in Covid-19 cases and the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders we are having right now we figure it is best to cancel the Chick Armstrong Rec. Center’s Halloween Fest,” the email said. “We are sorry to miss the fun but it is best to stay home and stay safe. So we hope to host next year once the vaccine is out and it is safer to gather again. We are sorry to have to cancel but health comes first. Stay healthy everyone and remember to mask up.”
Diane Ruggiero, the city’s deputy director of Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities, told ALXnow that the city does not send evites, and that the message was sent from someone outside the city.
“Halloween Fest at Chick Armstrong Rec Center is scheduled for Saturday, October 14 from noon – 3 p.m.,” she said. “This free friendly spooky event will feature food, vendors, games, music, and a costume contest for the entire family. The event has not been cancelled due to Covid.”
Covid update
The Covid-19 pandemic was officially over in May, although the numbers of infected residents are climbing.
There were 614 new cases reported in the last 13 weeks, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The seven-day average for new cases is 15.86, far from the 36.86 seven-day average this time last year. The worst day of 2023 was on Jan. 5, when there were 59 new cases and the seven-day average was 41.57.
According to VDH:
- There were 98 reported cases between Aug. 29 and Sept. 4
- There were 92 reported cases between Sept. 5 to Sept. 11
- There were 62 cases of children ages 0-9 who contracted the virus in the last 13 weeks
- There were 18 new cases of children and young adults ages 10-19 who contracted the virus in the last 13 weeks
- There were 18 deaths reported over the course of the last year, no deaths in the last six months and a total of 126 Covid-related deaths in Alexandria
There are also a number of Halloween-related events scheduled at recreation centers throughout the city next month, including:
- Boo Fest at Charles Houston Recreation Center, Friday, Oct. 27, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ($5 per person)
- Family October Fest 2023 at Patrick Henry Recreation Center, Oct. 27, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ($15 per person)
- Family Masquerade Ball at Patrick Henry Recreation Center, Oct. 27, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. ($9 per person)
- HalloTeen Night at William Ramsay Recreation Center, Oct. 27, from 7:30 to 10 p.m. (Free)
- Family Costume Ball at William Ramsay Recreation Center, Saturday, Oct. 28, from 5 to 7 p.m. (Free)
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.
Kay-Wyatt said she didn’t get much sleep the night before school started.
“We really want to focus on making sure that all of our family and our students are welcome into our schools,” Kay-Wyatt said. “We’re also going to be focused on instructional practices and academic achievement. And then my third priority for the year is around absenteeism, and really focusing to get strategies and initiatives in place to make sure that our students are in school within school on time, so they can engage in all that we have to offer them.”
More than 15,000 ACPS students got up early for school today. In the wake of the pandemic, chronic absenteeism increased exponentially over the last several years within the school system.
It’s also the first school day for new George Mason Principal Christopher Finan.
“Our staff has been working very, very hard to get ready for this day,” Finan said. “Our teachers, our instructional assistants, our custodians, our cafeteria staff, our front office staff, everybody has been working very hard. I’m happy to say we are ready to go and excited to have students and staff back inside of our building. This year at George Mason we are focusing on our teams, leveraging all of the passionate, dedicated and skilled individuals, our staff, our families, our community members to ensure that we support student success across the board.”
Rief asked that parents reach out to the School Board as it embarks on next year’s budget.
“We welcome your input as your School Board,” Rief said. “We have a very full agenda this year and we want to hear from our parents.”
(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.
During the last two years, MacArthur students used the old Patrick Henry Elementary School as swing space. The new school has an 840-student capacity and ACPS projects the student population to stay at around 775 students over the course of the next decade.
MacArthur’s three-level “Forest” plan sets the school back from Janneys Lane, putting classrooms at the rear of the building and providing a view of nearby Forest Park. The $75 million project was initially planned to wrap in January, and construction delays elicited criticism from Vice Mayor Amy Jackson.
Jackson has one child who graduated from MacArthur in the swing space and another who will attend the refurbished school.
“I was concerned that construction wasn’t getting off the ground fast enough,” Jackson told ALXnow. “My children wanted to see the school one more time before they started, but I realized that we could still get on the property. So I took a video, as much as it caused angst with the community and school board, but when I’m asking staff several times and can’t get an answer, I took it to the public and sure enough the ball then got rolling the fencing was put up on the perimeter and they got the ball rolling.”
The event includes a brief tour and will be held from 9:30 to 10:15 am. Remarks will be made by Mayor Justin Wilson, School Board Chair Michelle Rief, ACPS Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt, ACPS Chief Operating Officer Alicia Hart and MacArthur Principal Penny Hairston.
ACPS will share the event on Facebook Live.
Good Monday morning, Alexandria!
⛈️ Today’s weather: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after 8am. High near 79. South wind 11 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. At night: A chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm, then a slight chance of showers between 11pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear, with a low around 60. Northwest wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
🚨 You need to know
Summer vacation is within sight, as this is the last week of the 2022-2023 school year for Alexandria City Public Schools. The last official day of school is Thursday, June 15.
All ACPS students and children are still eligible to get free meals when they go to a Summer Breakfast and Lunch program site every Monday to Thursday from June 26 to July 10. Meal distribution will not occur on Tuesday, July 4.
The schedule for breakfast and lunch is below.
📈 Friday’s most read
The following are the most-read ALXnow articles for Jun 9, 2023.
- Southern Towers gets a visit from the director of the Federal Housing Finance Administration (2754 views)
- UPDATED: Police activity shut down Mount Vernon Avenue Bridge earlier today (1989 views)
- ALXnow’s top stories this week in Alexandria (570 views)
- ACPS: George Mason Elementary students and teachers could change schools mid-year (538 views)
🐦 Tweets of note
This view of @AlexandriaVA never gets old. Good morning #AlexandriaVa @TorpedoFactory @hilco_redev pic.twitter.com/lKkCWkgsfp
— Sarah for Alexandria (@SarahforALX) June 9, 2023
📅 Upcoming events
Here is what’s going on today in Alexandria, from our event calendar.
- No events today. Have one to promote? Submit it to the calendar.
Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) is looking for suggestions from the public on how it should update its Student Code of Conduct.
The Student Code of Conduct — an 83-page document for this past year — governs everything from attendance and student rights to the expulsion of students.
“We value and actively seek input from our students, staff and families,” said Michael Diggins, executive director of student services for ACPS. “Alexandria City School Board policies as well as the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) also regulate changes to the Code of Conduct.”
Diggins said public input will be considered, along with changes made from the School Board and the VDOE, when ACPS drafts the new 2023-2024 Student Code of Conduct.
The revisioning of the Student Code of Conduct comes at a time when some voices are calling for greater liberties and opportunities to be granted to students. Earlier this year, students organized a large-scale walk-out protest against ACPS administration curtailing opportunities for students to do extracurricular activities or studies at lunch.
At the same time, the schools struggle with high levels of absenteeism and violence from “crews” of students.
The feedback form asks the public about the strengths and weaknesses of the current Student Code of Conduct as well as other comments or suggestions for ACPS.
Personal security cameras, speed cameras in school zones, summer youth employment programs and eviction prevention funding are just a few of the final additions included in the fiscal year 2024 budget by the Alexandria City Council on Tuesday.
Council approved funding a $20,000 program to encourage businesses and homeowners with a “small incentive” to set up security cameras to deter crime, as well as increase their coordination with the Alexandria Police Department.
“I like the concept,” Mayor Justin Wilson said. “I think we want our residents to partner with us in providing this kind of neighborhood visibility.”
Other additions include $490,000 for five speed cameras at school crossing zones around the city. Last year, Council approved $400,000 for the speed camera program in five school zones.
Not all of the requests made the final cut. Vice Mayor Amy Jackson’s request to give the Alexandria Commission for Women $20,000 for it’s 50th anniversary event failed to gain consensus.
Council also took $657,629 from the budget that was intended for the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center (200 S. Whiting Street), pending proposals from City Manager Jim Parajon to find alternative uses for the facility, pursue regional partnerships for facility use and optimize capacity for the underutilized space.
The full list of additions to the budget are below.
- Out of School Time Program (OSTP) staffing ($200,000) — This increases paid leave and benefits for part-time staffing with the city’s Out of School Time program.
- Fee waiver for OSTP participants ($15,000) — This would fund a waiver for program participants eligible for SNAP and TANF.
- Speed cameras in school zones ($490,000) — This adds five photo speed cameras to school crossing zones prioritized by the city’s Department of Transportation and Environmental Services
- Childcare services ($50,000) — This will provide child-minding services at City COuncil town hall events, as well as select board, committee and commission meetings.
- Additional eviction prevention funding ($150,000) — This would increase the current funding level of $100,000, all of which will “reasonably assist 40 households in FY24,” according to the city.
- Central coordinator for immigrant affairs/refugee settlement ($110,000) — This would explore a new position or series of positions that could advance efforts to connect immigrant communities with information, resources and services and address the city’s challenges with immigrant populations.
- RPCA Mental Health Pilot position ($75,000) — These funds would go toward developing a Department of Recreation Parks and Cultural Activities pilot program for youth mental health services.
- Summer youth employment program ($214,943) — This would expand the program by 50%, to serve 255 children (85 more than the current program).
- Study for local housing voucher program ($250,000) — This would add funding for a study on a voucher-like program that stabilizes housing and enables access for low-income housholds across the city’s private rental market.
- City library security ($70,000) — This funding maintains library security staffing at current levels.
- Department of Aging and Adult Services ($19,000) — This fills the gap created by Virginia budget formula changed related to the Older Americans Act.
- DASH service line expansion on Line 33 ($120,000) — This would expand DASH Line 33 service from once every 60 minutes to 30 minutes on Sundays, easing connections to the new Potomac Yard Metro Station.
- Visit Alexandria advertising ($78,000) — This additional funding can be used by Visit Alexandria for any sort of media, online or print advertising, either regionally or nationally at their discretion.
- City Council aide compensation increase ($5,300) — This is a 2% scale compensation adjustment.
- Private security camera incentive program ($20,000)
- Continuation of AEDP economic recovery manager ($147,208) — The ERPM is responsible for creating and administering AEDPs Business Association Grant program, which supports Alexandria business associations as well as other ARDP rogramming to promote economic recovery.
- Rental inspection program enhancement ($136,000) — This allows staff to evaluate non-compliant multi-family rental properties.
The budget will be approved on May 3 and go into effect on July 1.
A new report indicated Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) enrollment could stagnate over the next few years.
In a meeting of the City Council and the School Board yesterday, it was clear that stagnation is causing some in city leadership to look skeptically at some of the school district’s ambitious capacity-increasing programs planned over the next few years — the modernization of George Mason Elementary School in particular getting name-dropped.
In a joint presentation, the City’s Director of Planning Karl Moritz and ACPS’ Executive Director of Facilities Erika Gulick said that baseline enrollment — that’s enrollment without new development factored in — shows ACPS population peaking around FY 2025 with 15,668 students.
“[One] of the major [factors] we haven’t seen bounce back from Covid is birth rate,” said Gulick. “That continues to decline over time. With lower numbers of babies, we’re anticipating lower numbers of kindergarten enrollment.”
Gulick said the decline in birth rate has stuck around long enough that it’s no longer an anomaly: it’s a trend.
Even so, Gulick noted that the numbers that factor in children expected to come into Alexandria with new development projects show some continued student enrollment increases.
“Based on that projection, we’re losing close to a thousand kids over the next ten years,” Gulick said. “We don’t actually think that’s going to happen given the amount of affordable housing development that the city is focused on, because we do tend to have a lot more students that live in affordable units… I don’t want people thinking ACPS is losing a thousand students; we generally think we’ve hit our peak and we’re going to plateau.”
Once new development is factored in, that projected stagnation isn’t as intense and peaks in 2029 at 16,404 students. Even so, those projections show as many years where enrollment declines as there are years where it increases.
Mayor Justin Wilson noted that the plateauing of student enrollment in ACPS could have a significant impact on what capacity projects move forward.
“This is really interesting information,” Wilson said. “[It’s] a little bit of narrative busting here in a lot of ways. Like you said, it is a projection and we have to be careful not to read too much into it, but we’re looking at a projection that shows with the impacts of development we get back to pre-pandemic levels within a decade. That’s a pretty provocative projection. And without them: a significant enrollment decline.”
Wilson said in elementary schools the drop is particularly significant.
“If you look at baseline projections, not with development, we’re looking at elementary going from 8,000 to bottoming out in 2030 at less than 7,500.,” Wilson said. “That’s without development.”
Wilson said the drop in enrollment seems at odds with some of ACPS’ modernization plans.
“Our next priority is George Mason, which is seeing the largest drop,” Wilson said, and noted that George Mason has little by way of major developments planned nearby. “That means that most of those kids are coming out of a school like that… I’m not saying not to do Mason, but I want to make sure we’re looking at the big picture.”
Four male juveniles were arrested after a brief chase from a stolen car in the West End on Tuesday afternoon, prompting four schools to go on lockdown, according to the Alexandria Police Department.
The incident occurred at around noon near the 1400 block of N. Beauregard Street. Police recovered a handgun from one of the suspects, according to dispatch reports.
“While conducting the traffic stop, all individuals from the vehicle fled,” APD said in a release. “Additional Officers were dispatched to the area to locate the suspects. During the search, APD Officers found four juvenile male suspects and took them into custody. APD recovered one weapon.”
The charges against the minors include drug possession with intent to sale, a concealed weapons charge, illegal weapons possession, and other weapon offenses, according to APD.
Anyone with information about this incident can call the APD non-emergency number at 703-746-4444. Callers can remain anonymous.
The incident prompted four nearby schools to go into “secure the building” mode. Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School (1701 N. Beauregard Street), William Ramsay Elementary School (5700 Sanger Avenue), John Adams Elementary School (5651 Rayburn Avenue) and the Early Childhood Center (5651 Rayburn Avenue) went into “secure the building” from 12:15 to 12:35 p.m.
On Monday afternoon, three juveniles were arrested after an estimated 40 shots were fired. The shots were fired in an alleyway in the 1200 block of Madison Street, a block away from the Braddock Road Metro station, and no one was injured. Also that day, shots were fired at a Bradlee Shopping Center bus stop, which is near Alexandria City High School.
News Release:: The Alexandria Police Department Makes Arrest in Stolen Auto Case
On Tuesday, April 18, APD Officers attempted to make a traffic stop on a stolen vehicle from Fairfax County near the 1400 block of N. Beauregard Street.
Read more : https://t.co/OjySFEPAsi
— Alexandria Police (@AlexandriaVAPD) April 20, 2023
Image via Google Maps
