Schools

Arlington teachers decry impending healthcare changes as a ‘catastrophe’

By Jo DeVoe
1/8

Over the course of an hour last night, Arlington Public Schools teachers excoriated the School Board and central administration for how they are handling what some call a healthcare catastrophe.

On Dec. 31, APS staff will lose the healthcare they receive from Kaiser Permanente and Cigna through APS, to be replaced in January by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

Many current and retired staff say this change will upend the Kaiser healthcare teams they have built for themselves and their families over several years and in some cases, decades.

APS says it solicited bids from healthcare vendors and received four proposals, including CareFirst, the vendor it ultimately selected — but not Kaiser.

The school system first announced the change on Sept. 20 and the response was swift. Teachers spoke up at the subsequent September School Board meeting and ARLnow received at least a dozen emails from staff who were upset and confused by the change.

These feelings reached a boiling point on Thursday despite efforts from APS to smooth things over. APS held a “resource fair” with CareFirst representatives and Human Resources staff to help understand their benefits and enroll but according to the teachers union, the Arlington Education Association, this did not ease the anxiety of the nearly 400 people who showed up — some of whom were turned away.

“This disrespectful treatment of staff, lack of response and inappropriate responses from HR and lack of transparency on issues that not only affect staff but students and families, is disheartening,” says teacher Tricia Zipfel.

When teacher Marnie Lewis took the microphone at the School Board meeting, she began crying but eventually rallied to encouragement from colleagues in attendance.

“This [change] really took me to my knees,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m here. I’m here because this is how upset I am. I used to love working here, I was proud to work here and I’m not feeling that anymore… I would just like it if someone could answer my emails and questions. That would be great.”

Teacher Heidi Haretos, who recently moved from North Carolina to Arlington, asked central office and the School Board: “If your wife, daughter, husband or son had a serious health condition, and had a trusted medical team supporting them through Kaiser, would you have made this decision?”
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Anonymous commenting on new APS feedback platform divides some Arlington School Board members

By Jo DeVoe
The ThoughtExchange platform Arlington Public Schools has debuted (via APS)

Arlington Public Schools has a new internal social media platform for families but its anonymous commenting policy prompted a tense discussion among some School Board members.

This year, the school system launched ThoughtExchange, which allows people to comment on topics or proposals administrators bring to the community for public comment. Users can also rank the comments others make 1-5 stars.

ThoughtExchange is intended to be a simpler and faster alternative to answering surveys and writing emails. APS has used it to gauge reception of its proposed school calendar and its plans to turn Nottingham Elementary School into a “swing space” and relocate the Spanish immersion program from Gunston to Kenmore Middle School.

“The goal of ThoughtExchange was for us to get more comprehensive feedback from our community,” APS Director of Strategic Outreach Daryl Johnson said in a work session last week. “One of the biggest requests that we continually receive from the community is transparency, and so people are actually able to see the thoughts of others in real time.”

But the platform’s anonymous commenting function raised red flags for School Board member Reid Goldstein.

“In the 10 or 15 years that social media has been around, I have yet to hear anybody, worldwide, say, ‘Boy, this social media is the greatest thing since sliced bread,'” Goldstein said. “I’m curious as to what thought we were going to achieve by creating another social media conduit and allowing commenters to sign up anonymously.”

Johnson said APS allows anonymous feedback so people speak up without worrying their opinions will blow back in their face at, for instance, the next Parent-Teacher Association meeting.

“So yes, sometimes it may go to the other end of the spectrum where it allows someone to say something that may not be the most favorable or the most constructive feedback, but however, it allows people to actually give that honest feedback without the retaliation,” he said.

Goldstein asked Johnson if staff expect “unfavorable” comments to increase, how much time they devote to content moderation and whether the communications team will request a future full-time moderator position.

Johnson noted that staff spend significant time moderating comments and responding to those “spreading misinformation.” He said a full-time moderator is unnecessary because ThoughtExchange uses AI to flag words and notify staff and participants can also report comments.

“We also are able to comment and respond to what people are saying,” he said.

Responding to Goldstein, School Board Chair Cristina Diaz-Torres said anonymous negative comments already exist on other platforms and, with ThoughtExchange, APS at least can moderate.

“These are comments that were happening already in different venues. If you’ve seen an ARLnow comment, if you’ve seen DC Urban Moms and Dads, Arlington Education Matters, these comments have been happening,” she said.

“The reality is that these comments were being made,” she continued. “A lot of these comments are incredibly disrespectful and are incredibly unkind and are incredibly inappropriate, however, here is an area where we can in fact do that moderation, using the tools that Mr. Johnson just mentioned.”

Goldstein agreed these comments have always existed but stressed with the new platform, “we are giving a platform to them and rewarding bad behavior that we have historically…”

“We’re not, though, if we’re taking them away,” Diaz-Torres interjected.

“…historically spent too much time [rewarding],” Goldstein continued, reprising his comment.

Diaz-Torres, who added that she appreciates the ability to rank comments, concluded the discussion with a message to the community “to be kind.”

“This is a new piece of software. And yes, you can be a keyboard warrior to your heart’s content, behind your keyboard, in the privacy of your own home, but remember, that there are humans on the receiving end of this,” she said.

APS is stepping up its efforts to include students with disabilities, after years of fitful progress

By Jo DeVoe
Students at Kenmore Middle School pass a ball back and forth (courtesy of Kenmore Middle School teacher Shauna Dyer)

For the last decade, Arlington Public Schools has tried to increase the time students with disabilities spend with their typically abled peers.

Creating a more inclusive environment can benefit students with disabilities and their peers, according to some studies — though not all — as well as new APS academic data. But it is easier said than done.

As of the 2020-21 school year, 67% of students with disabilities spent 80% of their time in the general education setting. The students who make up the difference might spend more time in a small-group setting or they may be placed in county-wide programs.

The 67% figure put APS 5 percentage points below state targets that year and 13 percentage points below a goal it set in its 2018-24 strategic plan.

Progress toward this goal has been sporadic because APS lacked a concrete plan and system-wide buy in to make these changes, according to old APS reports and interviews ARLnow conducted.

“The basic punchline is that they set the goal… and then they didn’t do anything differently for the subsequent five-plus years,” says parent David Rosenblatt, the former chair of Arlington Special Education Advisory Committee. “There was no meaningful plan except goals on paper.”

There are new signs of progress, though.

This year, the Office of Special Education is working with leaders of schools with inclusion rates below 65% to develop goals around increasing inclusion and strategies to help staff with this work, according to APS spokesman Frank Bellvia.

APS is in the early stages of hiring a consultant to devise system-level changes. It issued a request for proposals this summer and is re-issuing a new one this fall.

Previous consultant reports from 2013 and 2019 said Arlington could improve its inclusion efforts but left it to the school system to change. The 2019 report gave APS low marks for its progress since 2013.

APS confirmed its 2024 goal will transfer to future strategic plans.

“Supporting our [students with disabilities] is a core value for the district, and it will take some time to achieve this goal as it involves several factors,” Bellavia said. “Some of these include building an inclusive mindset with staff and within the community, staffing needs, and master schedules at the school.”

What inclusion looks like today

For APS, the good news is that, in 2019, a majority of students receiving services for their disability said they were treated fairly, welcomed in school and able to participate in afterschool activities.

On the other hand, 30% said this was not their experience and 35% said only some or none of their teachers have high expectations for them or “that they don’t know,” per the report.

For special education attorney Juliet Hiznay, students with disabilities can benefit from the higher expectations set in general education classrooms than in separate programs.

“The rationale for [these programs] is that they need a lower ratio, fewer distractions, modified curriculum,” she says. “The problem with that is that we’re looking at supporting a programmatic model rather than taking the student and saying, ‘How do we include her? What is she capable of?’”

Separate tracks may also contribute to fewer general education teachers who receive sufficient training to teach students with disabilities. The 2019 report found only 45% of general education teachers felt equipped to teach this population.

Annually, APS reports to the state how much time students with disabilities spend in with their typically abled peers in general education classrooms, as well as at lunch, recess, study periods, libraries and field trips.

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APS to pause middle school boundary process for one year

By Jo DeVoe
Teachers and staff at Gunston Middle School greet students on the first day of school (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Arlington Public Schools is pausing an impending middle school boundary process, citing stable enrollment this fall.

Earlier this year, APS was bracing for overcrowding at a few middle schools. It proposed busing some students from Dorothy Hamm and Swanson to under-capacity Williamsburg Middle School. It also floated moving the Spanish language immersion program from overcrowded Gunston to Kenmore Middle School.

Now, administrators say enrollment needs are not pressing enough to warrant these changes just yet. The Arlington School Board endorsed a plan Tuesday to postpone the process for one year. The changes would now affect students going into grades 6 and 9 in the fall of 2026.

“As of last week at each middle school, only one school exceeds capacity: Gunston has two students beyond its design capacity,” Dept. of Planning and Evaluation Executive Director Lisa Stengle told the board on Tuesday. “Every middle school fits right now. So the urgency that we had to change middle school boundaries may not be as urgent as it was when we started this process.”

She attributed this to the home address confirmation process this summer, when APS changed how it verifies students living in Arlington and unenrolled non-resident fifth and eighth graders.

While this effort was underway, several families were voicing their opposition to the proposed boundary changes. Most vocal were Hamm families opposed to plans to bus students to Williamsburg, who said their children would forfeit the option to walk to school.

School Board members opined that walkability becomes the sticking point of most boundary processes and these efforts prioritize walkability — above other priorities, such as demographic diversity — as a result.

“The knottiest problem here… is the dichotomy between walkability and demographics because they both can’t be achieved at the same time,” School Board member Reid Goldstein said.

“We’ve heard, in the past, that when staff goes out to the community and talks about potential boundary changes, they hear ‘Well, we like walkability,’ and then we we just lean in the direction of walkability, which of course does not enhance demographics at all,” he continued.

APS may still, one day, move the immersion program from Gunston to Kenmore, in an effort to get more secondary students to stick with the program, says Director of Strategic Planning Iliana Gonzales.

Most immersion students live within the boundaries of Kenmore and Thomas Jefferson middle schools and may discontinue the program because of travel distance to Gunston, she said. Last year, a task force convened to develop a vision for the dual-language immersion program recommended moving the program to a more centrally located middle school — a change afforded by the then-forthcoming boundary process.

But School Board members and administrators are also concerned about where to put the program because it may impact the balance of native English and Spanish speakers. Only about a third of immersion students in elementary and middle school were classified as English learners, according to a 2022 report.

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APS, teachers and community members say work remains to tackle high suspension rates among certain students

By Jo DeVoe
Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer Julie Crawford (via APS)

(Updated at 6:35 p.m.) Black and Hispanic students remain more likely to be suspended from Arlington Public Schools than their peers, according to new data.

Specifically, Black students make up 11% of students yet 30% of suspensions, while Hispanic students make up 30% of the population and 45% of suspensions, per a presentation to the Arlington School Board yesterday (Tuesday).

Meanwhile, students with disabilities and those learning English are also over-represented in suspension rates. APS says they are, respectively, 2.5 and 1.5 times more likely to be suspended than their counterparts.

APS has made some inroads, noting a 5-percentage point drop in suspensions of Black students, a 4-percentage point drop among students with disabilities and a 2-percentage drop among males. Suspensions rose 2 percentage points for Hispanic students and females and remain unchanged for English-language learning students.

Disproportionate suspensions along race and ethnicity, ability and sex have long existed in APS, which has recently taken steps to reduce these gaps and improve its school climate more broadly.

This includes staff training in implicit biases and the root causes of problematic student behavior as well as in how to prevent crises using de-escalation. Also, the School Board two years ago voted to remove School Resource Officers from school grounds to tackle disproportionate arrest rates among non-white students.

More recently, APS  hired six Deans of Students this school year to address student behaviors at Yorktown, Washington-Liberty and Wakefield high schools as well as three middle schools. Middle schools in particular have seen problematic student behavior, including fights and verbal threats to teachers.

Suspensions by race and ethnicity over the last four school years (via Arlington Public Schools)

Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer Julie Crawford described to the School Board how school administrators plan to tackle suspension rates.

“We would like to continue to focus on building our alternatives to suspension at the school level,” she said, adding that the new deans work “to proactively program and build relationships using instructional time, as opposed to removing our students from the school.”

Sometimes, students have to be removed from school. APS says the top reasons for out-of-school suspensions are disruptive behavior, followed by attendance issues — such as skipping class — and drug offenses. The top two reasons for in-school suspensions are the same, followed by fighting.

Tiffany Woody-Pope, dean of students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, emphasized the importance of good staff-student relationships.

“I think the more that we are intentional about developing our interpersonal relationships with our students, the more comfort they’ll feel in classrooms — so they won’t necessarily have to be classified as ‘disruptive behavior,'” she said.

Seeing “disruptive behavior” top charts set off alarm bells for School Board member Mary Kadera.

“Disruptive behavior gives me a little heartburn… because historically, and broadly, outside of Arlington, ‘disruptive behavior’ has been a catch-all for a wide variety of behaviors and self-expression of students that a teacher may not like,” she said.

Crawford noted it is a broad definition with any of 17 different indicators, including disrespect and defiance.

June Prakash, the president of the teachers union, Arlington Education Association, would also like to see more daylight on “disruptive behavior,” questioning whether teachers and administrators have the ability to record a more accurate, specific reason for removing a student from class.

“Believe it or not, educators will put up with a lot before sending calling for help,” she said. “Staff often don’t feel supported, as it feels like their expertise is disregarded in the building.”

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Behavioral health specialists could be in Arlington high schools this winter

By Jo DeVoe
The Arlington Public Schools Syphax Education Center (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

High school-based behavioral health services could be in place by November or December of this year, according to the county.

In the wake of a mini-rash of student deaths earlier this year that included the fatal overdose of a 14-year-old Wakefield High School student, Arlington Public Schools and the county government began devising a joint response to the twin epidemics of substance use and mental health issues.

This included plans to place county therapists in schools. The intent was to make it easier for students to get mental health support from the Dept. of Human Services, overseen by Arlington’s Community Services Board, or CSB.

“Both APS and the County seek to reduce barriers for children and youth to receive services from the Arlington CSB,” a county report says. “This agreement will allow for the provision of outpatient services in the school setting rather than the office setting. It will significantly reduce or eliminate the need for transportation and potential family time away from work.”

As part of the 2024 budget adopted earlier this year, the Arlington County Board approved $520,000 in ongoing funding and four full-time employees for this program. Recruitment of the four employees is underway, per the report.

The county notes the program responds to calls from the community for more services to youth.

“Expanded behavioral health services for children and youth has been identified as a community need by both Arlington Public Schools and the County through ongoing dialogues with stakeholders,” the report says.

The report emphasizes that the School-Based Behavioral Health Program cannot be the single, defining solution for struggling teens.

It “supplements and reinforces families’ efforts to enhance youth mental wellness by teaching and coaching youth to develop coping skills for managing emotional challenges in order to improve functioning at home, school, and in the community,” the report says.

The county and APS spent the summer hammering out a memorandum of understanding permitting the DHS Children’s Behavioral Health Bureau to provide behavioral health support in high schools. This weekend, the County Board is set to ratify the document.

Once the four behavioral health specialists are hired and finish mandatory training, they could begin practicing in Arlington high schools in November or December, the report says.

NEW: Prestigious national honor for local middle school

By ARLnow.com
Williamsburg Middle School (photo via Google Maps)

Williamsburg Middle School has been named a National Blue Ribbon School for 2023.

The prestigious honor from the U.S. Dept. of Education has been presented to fewer than 10,000 schools since its founding in 1982. It honors “high-performing schools and schools that are making great strides in closing any achievement gaps between students.”

The National Blue Ribbon School designation was previously bestowed on a handful of Arlington public schools, including Arlington Traditional School in 2019, Patrick Henry Elementary in 2015 and Yorktown High School in 2002.

“This is an extraordinary achievement for our students, staff, and community,” Bryan Boykin, principal of Williamsburg Middle School, said in a statement. “Being recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School demonstrates the hard work of our educators and students, as well as our community’s continued commitment to supporting our schools and students. We are incredibly proud of the accomplishments of our students and the quality of our staff.”

More, below, from a press release.

The U.S. Department of Education today announced Williamsburg Middle School is one of 353 schools awarded National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2023.

The recognition is based on a school’s overall academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps among student groups on assessments. Williamsburg Middle School earned the prestigious award for Exemplary High-Performing Schools.

“This is an extraordinary achievement for our students, staff, and community,” said Bryan Boykin, principal of Williamsburg Middle School. “Being recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School demonstrates the hard work of our educators and students, as well as our community’s continued commitment to supporting our schools and students. We are incredibly proud of the accomplishments of our students and the quality of our staff.”

The Department recognizes all schools in one of two performance categories, based on all student scores, subgroup student scores and graduation rates:

  • Exemplary High-Performing Schools are among their state’s highest performing schools as measured by state assessments or nationally normed tests.
  • Exemplary Achievement Gap-Closing Schools are among their state’s highest performing schools in closing achievement gaps between a school’s student groups and all students. Nominated schools also complete an extensive narrative application describing their school culture and philosophy, curriculum, assessments, instructional practices, professional development, leadership structures, and parent and community involvement.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona praised all honorees in a statement:

“The honorees for our 2023 National Blue Ribbon Schools Award have set a national example for what it means to Raise the Bar in education. The leaders, educators, and staff at our National Blue Ribbon Schools continually inspire me with their dedication to fostering academic excellence and building positive school cultures that support students of all backgrounds to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. As the Biden-Harris Administration partners with states and schools to accelerate academic success and transform educational opportunity in this country, we take tremendous pride in the achievements of these schools and their commitment to empowering educators, serving students, and engaging families.”

The award affirms and validates the hard work of students, educators, families, and communities in striving for – and attaining – exemplary achievement. National Blue Ribbon Schools represent the full diversity of American schools and serve students of every background.

National Blue Ribbon School leaders articulate a vision of excellence and hold everyone to high standards. They demonstrate effective and innovative teaching and learning, and value and support teachers and staff. Data from many sources are used to drive instruction and every student strives for success. Families, communities, and educators work together toward common goals.

Past Arlington Public Schools Blue Ribbon Award winners include Arlington Traditional School in 2004, 2001 and 2019; Patrick Henry Elementary School (Alice West Fleet) in 2015; Yorktown High School in 2002; Ashlawn Elementary School in 1990; Oakridge Elementary School in 1986; and Washington-Lee High School in 1985.

Photo via Google Maps

Arlington students made gains in math and science last year, prompting APS to focus on reading and writing

By Jo DeVoe
Students arrive to Gunston Middle School on the first day of school (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Arlington Public Schools is kicking off the new school year with a bit of good news related to academic performance.

Last school year, students as a whole made gains in math, social studies and science, and in almost all areas, generally exceeded statewide scores, per new testing data.

Between the 2022 and 2023 school years, the percentage of students passing state tests increased by 4 points for math, 7 points for social studies and 1 point for science, according to a presentation to the School Board on Thursday. Reading remained flat and writing dropped 2 percentage points.

Black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities and those learning English, in particular, demonstrated progress. APS highlighted math pass rates that increased by 8 and 11 percentage points for Hispanic and English-language learning students, respectively.

Administrators says the data demonstrates that students are gaining ground after pandemic-era learning loss. It may also indicate long standing achievement gaps based on race, English proficiency, ability and socioeconomic status are narrowing.

Crediting teachers and new academic tools for that progress, Chief Academic Officer Dr. Gerald Mann, Jr. told the School Board on Thursday APS has its work cut out for them.

“We are seeing the work that our team is doing starting to pay dividends and recover some of the loss from the pandemic,” he said. “We’ve come a long way but we’ve got more work to do.”

Future focus areas include reading — where pass rates remained flat over last year, at 80% — and writing, which fell 2 percentage points.

Facing what one committee described a “literacy crisis,” APS overhauled how it teaches reading to elementary school students. Like other schools nationwide, APS is working to reverse years of reading instruction that critics say glossed over the basics, such as phonics, and disadvantaged students for whom reading did not come naturally.

That effort is starting to bear fruit, according to Superintendent Francisco Durán, who noted that this fall, some 91% of kindergarteners could meet benchmarks such as recognizing rhymes, words and letter sounds, up from 81% last year.

“[That] is building them up for bigger success later,” Durán said.

But this leaves a group of students, fifth grade and up, who were taught to read before these changes were made, and might still be struggling today. This year, APS is turning its attention to them.

“Our hope is that the work that we’re doing for secondary literacy this year also pays dividends in the future,” Mann said.

When School Board members asked about falling writing scores, Durán emphasized that the state test measures one type of writing: responding to a social studies or science text.

“We want students to be writers across all different types, and genres and ways,” he said. “I just want to make sure we all are aware of that because, I think long term, it could be misunderstood if we’re just speaking about writing, generically.”

Writing, more broadly, may still be a concern.

A 2019 survey of APS graduates found many graduates wished they had been better prepared for collegiate writing. School Board watchdog group Arlington Parents for Education, which recapped last week’s meeting, previously highlighted the survey, saying students were “practically begging for more… ‘writing assignments.’”

Even as the number of assigned essays increased, Mann said teachers already feel they cannot give adequate feedback on assignments.

“The biggest barrier that I’ve also heard is that ‘I just don’t have the time. I will assign it, but then I can’t give [them] appropriate feedback,'” he said.

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Nottingham ‘swing space’ proposal puts cart before horse, says county-wide PTA

By Jo DeVoe
CCPTA President Claire Noakes speaks at the School Board meeting on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023 (via Arlington Public Schools)

(Updated at 2:30 p.m.) The Arlington County Council of PTAs is criticizing plans to close Nottingham Elementary School and make it a “swing space” where students go when their school is being renovated.

In suggesting this change, the coalition of PTAs, or CCPTA, says Arlington Public Schools has not considered how little money it has in the next decade to spend on sorely needed renovations. It adds the move would disadvantage low-income, diverse neighborhoods that rely on schools for county and community-based services.

This spring, APS proposed closing Nottingham, in the Williamsburg neighborhood at 5900 Little Falls Road, and making it a swing space as early as 2026. It was part of a suite of proposed changes to solve for projected capacity imbalances: several schools below Langston Blvd are over-full while their counterparts north of the highway have many empty seats.

Nottingham was chosen because it would cost the least to retrofit — $5 million to expand its ability to receive buses — compared to other schools, county facilities or commercial buildings. APS also argued it would be more fiscally responsible to use the under-capacity buildings it currently has, rather than build a new school.

This proposal quickly rankled current and future Nottingham parents, some of whom argue APS made the decision on faulty projections of falling enrollment. The CCPTA joined their chorus during the School Board meeting last Thursday.

“Recent spending decisions and currently proposed spending projects have monopolized our bond issuance capacity until at least FY 2032, leaving insufficient funding for a major renovation,” CCPTA President Claire Noakes said in a statement released after the meeting.

She notes 17 of 37 school buildings have not had a major renovation in at least 20 years and are in need of upgrades, creating “a backlog of need.”

“The lack of available funds for a major renovation will cause the swing space to stay empty for six years, while other identified needs that could have been paid for with that $5 million will go unmet,” she continued.

The CCPTA illustrated its argument in a chart that shows how much money APS estimates it can issue in bonds for major renovations over the next decade.

It estimates a major renovation would exceed $25 million, based on estimates for one such project down the pike. The CCPTA say that APS would have to accumulate a few years of bond capacity, from Arlington County, to embark on a major renovation.

This squeeze is due to projects APS already has in the queue, including the new, forthcoming $180 million Arlington Career Center building and related plans to retrofit the current Career Center for the Montessori program now housed in the former Patrick Henry Elementary School. This building is set to be demolished and turned into a green space.

(Note: The chart below lists $7.5 million for the Career Center because this was tacked onto the project’s costs after APS approved the project via the previous Capital Improvement Plan.)

A chart from the CCPTA arguing APS will deliver a “swing space” at Nottingham at least six years before having the money to start a major renovation project (via CCPTA)

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New speed humps to pop up near schools where drivers flout 20 mph limit

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

It has been 10 years since Arlington County last put up speed humps to reduce speeding.

Now, they will be coming to streets around a trio of schools where lowering speeds to 20 mph has not stopped drivers from going well past the speed limit.

The humps will be installed this fall near Gunston Middle School and Cardinal and Hoffman-Boston elementary schools. The county will be piloting the humps as part of Vision Zero, the county’s resolution to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.

“This initiative reintroduces speed humps through a limited pilot focused on reducing speeds in school slow zones where data shows the introduction of 20 mph speed limits has not lowered speeds,” says Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Katie O’Brien.

Arlington County permanently dropped speeds on neighborhood streets within 600 feet of certain school access points to 20 mph. A vehicle going 20 mph has a much lower probability of seriously injuring or killing a pedestrian compared to one going 30 mph, according to government research and an investigative report.

Since the Arlington County Board approved the lower speed limits, signage alerting drivers to the changes has rolled out incrementally: 13 schools in 2022, 14 schools this year, and the remaining 19 school zones set for 2024.

At some of the 13 schools that have had lower speeds for a year, staff noticed the changes did not see slower speeds. They picked the three schools with the highest speeds for the pilot speed humps, O’Brien said.

Drivers can expect to see the humps pop up this fall on S. Lang Street, S. Queen Street and 19th Street N.

Where speed humps are coming to roads by three schools in Arlington (via Arlington County)

“The installation of a speed hump will likely take less than a day,” O’Brien said. “The pilot will use tactical speed humps because they are easy to both install and remove quickly, if needed. They are cost effective, tested for durability, and made from 100% recycled material.”

Staff will monitor the locations and collect data through the winter. O’Brien said they can easily remove them if new safety issues or concerns with the materials arise.

Next spring, there will be public engagement opportunities for people to share their thoughts on the addition of speed humps. Next summer, the county will identify next steps. That could include adding more speed hump sites in other school slow zones.

Speed humps were last installed through a Neighborhood Traffic Calming program, which ended in 2013.

Three years later, the County Board launched a new initiative to update roads: the Neighborhood Complete Streets program. When the program was adopted, “the Board included a moratorium on vertical traffic calming measures for three years,” O’Brien said.

Since then, DES has made use of other tools to manage speed and reduce accidents: speed feedback indicator signs, pavement markings, curb bump-outs, high visibility markings and protected bike lanes, among others.

NEW: Overdose reports at Wakefield prompt emergency response

By Jo DeVoe
Wakefield High School (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) Three days into the school year, Wakefield High School has logged a potential student overdose.

Medics were dispatched to the school at 11:30 a.m. and again about 45 minutes later for two students suffering possible drug overdoses — or, at least, the effects of suspected narcotics — according to scanner traffic.

Later this afternoon, ACPD spokeswoman Ashley Savage told ARLnow that a “juvenile male was transported to an area hospital in non-life threatening condition.”

Police also responded to the school to investigate and are looking into the incident “as an apparent overdose and the investigation,” she said.

In an email, Wakefield Principal Pete Balas assured families that students were safe during the ordeal, which he described as a “medical incident” involving a student.

The full email is as follows:

Dear Families,

Emergency personnel responded to Wakefield this morning to assist with a medical incident involving a student. Fortunately, everyone is safe, and they were able to work with our staff to address the situation. At no point was the safety of any students or staff compromised.

As some of our students observed the first responders in our building, I wanted to ensure you are aware that the incident was resolved, and everyone is safe.

Sincerely,
Pete Balas,
Principal

A student died earlier this year at Wakefield from an overdose, followed by more dispatches for substance-abuse related emergencies at the school and near Washington-Liberty High School.

The student’s death, followed by a parent march and outcry for more support from teachers, prompted the Arlington School Board and administrators to act.

The school system allowed students to bring the opioid-reversal drug Narcan to school and budgeted for new deans and more substance-abuse counselors. These and other measures are part of a system-wide focus on increasing student well-being, particularly at the secondary level, this year.

Wakefield’s former principal, Chris Willmore, was promoted this spring to be the director of secondary education for Arlington Public Schools. One month later, Balas, who previously led Alexandria City High School, emerged as his replacement.

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