by Sarah Markel, guest blogger When it comes to social interaction, the middle school years are tough. That’s why George Washington and Hammond Middle Schools are celebrating Mix It Up at Lunch Day on Tuesday, October 29. Each campus is taking a different approach. At Hammond, Mix It Up at Lunch is a school-wide initiative. GW students must sign up with their counselors to participate. Mix It Up at Lunch […]
Different questions, overlapping answers. If you want to weigh in on the ACPS budget, a process that is just getting under way for Fiscal Year 2015, you can do that at one of three upcoming school board meetings that have been designated for budget-related public testimony: November 14, December 19, and January 23. All of the meetings begin at 7:00 p.m. at the ACPS central office building (first floor, 2000 […]
According to recent data from the Virginia Department of Education, 86% of T.C.’s Class of 2013 graduated on time, compared with 82% last year and 77% five years ago. The state average, which is now 89%, has also increased over the past five years, but by a smaller margin. The most noteworthy aspect of the data that were released last week is the improvement in T.C. graduation rates among subgroups […]
AVID (short for Advancement Via Individual Determination) is an elective course in Alexandria schools for grades 7 through 12 that equips students (most of whom will be the first in their families to go to college) with important college readiness skills. AVID serves more than 425,000 students in 48 states and 16 countries. The 30-year-old program was introduced to ACPS about four years ago, and roughly 375 students are currently […]
A month has passed since the school board ousted Mort Sherman as superintendent. What now? The good news is that our students haven’t suffered any disruptions. Acting Superintendent Margee Walsh is managing our school division effectively during this period of transition, and progress is being made on some important issues under her direction. The bad news is that the window for hiring a permanent new leader for our school division […]
The most obvious difference that you’ll see is that students in grades 3 through 5 will no longer receive “A” through “F” letter grades and younger children will no longer have the excellent/good/satisfactory/unsatisfactory scale. Instead, they will earn a score from 1 to 4 that indicates the progress that they have made during that quarter toward meeting certain benchmarks based on their individual instructional level—in other words, a score based […]
Most Alexandrians are aware in a general way that our student population is diverse, but what does that mean exactly? There are about 13,500 students currently enrolled in ACPS (the precise number will be available in early October). Our students come from 128 countries of birth and speak 80 different languages. My daughters have classmates from all corners of the world including Pakistan, Morocco, Honduras, and Somalia. One of their […]
Unfortunately, the nice shiny full-color calendar that came in the welcome packets contains several mistakes, including these omissions for dates that are coming up this fall: Monday, October 14, Columbus Day, is a student holiday/professional day for traditional calendar schools Tuesday, November 5, Election Day, is a delayed opening The ACPS Communications office is working on a flyer to go home that indicates the additional days off and a few […]
In recent years, middle-school parents have voiced dissatisfaction with the honors language arts classes in our middle schools. The complaint, in a nutshell: not enough writing and not enough challenging reading outside of class. “The people spoke and we listened,” wrote GWMS 1 language arts department chair Claire Given in an email to me last week. On Thursday, August 29, all ACPS middle-school language arts teachers attended a day-long workshop […]
This is the question that I’ve been getting from a lot of puzzled friends and neighbors since Dr. Sherman announced that he was resigning as superintendent. Yes, he technically resigned, but let’s be honest: He didn’t wish to leave Alexandria, because he didn’t believe that his work was done. After five years, the reforms that he implemented and the management systems that he put into place to turn around a […]
Port City Notebook 