The COVID-19 shutdown has brought an early summer slide to Alexandria City Public School students.
On Friday, the School Board discussed the issue in its first online meeting since canceling all in-person meetings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has closed the school system until April 14.
(Updated at 7 p.m.) Alexandria City Public Schools will be closing Monday until April 14 — after spring break — due to the coronavirus outbreak, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings, Jr. announced in an email at noon on Friday.
ACPS has a plan to feed students on free and reduced lunch. Starting Monday, the school system will provide free emergency meals for “any child under 18 and any family who needs it.”
Alexandria Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gregory Hutchings needs help, and says that his newly approved chief of staff will is a key component to the success of the school system’s organizational structure.
“Right now I have nine direct reports, so that’s nine department heads reporting directly to me,” Hutchings told ALXnow. “Each of those individuals has a department that they oversee.”
Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Hutchings Jr. was recognized with a leadership award from a non-profit promoting healthy living conditions for children in the D.C. area.
Hutchings was awarded the Tom Cookerly Exceptional School Superintendent Leadership Award 2019 earlier this month by the National Center for Children and Families, citing his “his success as an outstanding leader in education and as an advocate, role model and mentor for minority youth in schools,” according to a press release.
The School Board has shot down a plan to add a second high school in Alexandria and is sticking with — as several members of the audience chanted throughout the night — “One T.C.”
After a long debate at its Sept. 26 meeting that dredged up Alexandria’s history of segregation in schools and the ongoing achievement gap, the School Board voted 6-3 in favor of expanding the current high school into a “campus.”
