Port City Notebook

News, views and random observations around Alexandria

Archive for January 2015

Turning the Page on School Calendars

A couple of items to note about the recently-approved 2015-2016 ACPS traditional academic calendar and the modified calendar for Samuel Tucker Elementary: All schools will be closed for students on Election Day, November 3, a change from past practice. Because city-wide elections will be held that day, voter turn-out is expected to be slightly higher than some years, even though not as high as for a Presidential election. And though […]

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Five Favorite Books of 2014

These five weren’t all published in 2014, but they are ones that I most enjoyed reading during the past year. Here they are, in alphabetical order: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (fiction) Named to the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2014, this novel weaves together the stories of Werner, a young German orphan whose knack for putting radios together attracts Nazi recruiters, […]

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