Arlington Public Schools

APS Pulling Back From France Exchange Program

By Ethan Rothstein

France flag (photo by wox-globe-trotter via Wikipedia)

A high school and middle school exchange program to France could be on its last legs after Arlington Public Schools administration took a closer look at its travel policies.

Up until this school year, teachers had been granted “professional leave” for a two-week student exchange trip to Reims, France, one of Arlington’s sister cities. But that is coming to an end, jeopardizing the Reims exchange program — a possibility that’s upsetting some parents.

Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Constance Skelton said it has been APS policy that teachers were not permitted to take professional leave for international trips. The Reims program has apparently been an exception. Starting this year, however, teachers will not be able to take more than one day of paid leave — a personal day — before the spring break trip to France.

“We realized within our own policies that we do not allow administrators or teachers to have professional leave for international trips with student groups,” Skelton told ARLnow.com. “When this all came to light, we said ‘we have to go with our policy.’ We had to make that clear.”

Skelton said there was confusion about who was actually approving the trips and teachers’ paid leave. She said Superintendent Patrick Murphy was concerned about the potential for APS’ liability in case an incident were to happen overseas.

“People were not aware of the policy,” Skelton said. Instead of the leave going through typical approval channels, “none of that had ever been happening, the trips were just occurring.”

Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Brenda Wilks — a former foreign language teacher — said that despite the renewed enforcement of School Board policy, it is APS’ hope that trips like the Reims exchange program continue.

“We never wanted to discourage travel,” Wilks said. “It enhances students’ education, we just need to adhere to the board policy.”

Parents of students who have taken the trip are convinced that the change in enforcement will kill the trip entirely. APS wants the Arlington Sister City Association to “separate the trip from the school” — to be responsible for collecting money and organizing trips and chaperones.

“The teachers who are involved told parents that there has been a definite sea change that will seriously inhibit their participation and thereby threaten the program as it has been conducted in the past,” one parent, Lori Rottenberg, said in an email. Lori and her husband, Chuck, said they have a child who has gone on the program and they have hosted a Reims student in their house. “All that the teachers do to prepare and run the trip cannot be done in a day, and the trip itself would be ridiculous if limited to just 7 days because of the length of the time involved to travel overseas.”

Rottenberg said that the teachers involved informed parents that the trip “may not happen this year” because of the new enforcement of school policy.

“This drastic action on the part of the school administration essentially signals the death knell of a wonderfully unique program that benefits students as well as the entire Arlington community,” said Natalie Roy, a Washington-Lee High School parent.

Representatives of the Arlington Sister City Association did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo by wox-globe-trotter via Wikipedia

Peter’s Take: Time to Finish the Job

By Peter Rousselot

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Peter RousselotIt’s time to finish the job of providing Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) programs at all Arlington public elementary schools.

As the Sun Gazette reported last week, parents at the elementary schools that currently lack FLES demanded again at the Sept. 12 School Board meeting that the School Board follow through on its repeated prior commitments to provide FLES. The School Board Chair re-affirmed that doing so is an APS priority. Parents who support finishing the job now are asking supporters to sign a petition.

This is a matter of simple fairness. Why is it taking so long?

The case for FLES in our globally competitive 21st century was made and adopted by APS years ago. It’s an excellent case, supported by many peer-reviewed studies that go back decades. The problem certainly is NOT that FLES lacks sufficient merit or that APS has not thoroughly studied FLES.

As I wrote in an earlier column, the major part of the problem lies with the County Board’s unnecessary spending on projects like the Aquatics Center, Artisphere, the Clarendon Dog Park, and the Columbia Pike streetcar. In the new normal for Arlington’s budget environment, the County Board’s improvident spending on such projects has made it harder for the School Board to complete its justified commitment to FLES.

Another reason the School Board may have been having trouble finishing the FLES job is that many Arlington teachers believe they should receive pay raises to make up for raises they didn’t get during the Great Recession, and that such raises should have a higher priority than completing the implementation of FLES. That’s a false choice.

Both these teachers and the parents who want the School Board to finish FLES are being constrained by the County Board’s misguided spending. It’s time for the teachers and the parents to join forces and tell the County Board to change its budget priorities.

Both Arlington’s residential and commercial real estate taxpayers are the common source of funding for all of these competing demands. Our public money is both fungible and finite across the entire spectrum of school and county spending.

Providing all of Arlington’s elementary school children with better opportunities to learn one language in addition to English deserves a higher priority than it has been getting.

Let’s finish implementing FLES now.

Peter Rousselot is a former member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Demolition of a pedestrian bridge in Crystal City over the weekend (photo courtesy Ryan Kaltenbaugh)

New APS Teachers to Begin Orientation — More than 400 newly-hired Arlington public school teachers are set to begin orientation sessions next week. The school system says it has hired nearly 90 percent of the teachers necessary to keep up with attrition and a growing student body. [Sun Gazette]

APS Debuts Smartphone App — Arlington Public Schools has unveiled a new iPhone and Android app for parents. The free app “features news and headlines, upcoming events, sports scores… and easy access to APS services such as MySchoolBucks, the Extended Day portal, lunch menus and calendars.” [Arlington Public Schools]

Great Falls Drowning Danger — The waters at Great Falls claim an average of seven lives per year, including three since June. The waters are especially deadly because of strong undercurrents in parts that look calm on the surface. [Washington Post]

Photo courtesy Ryan Kaltenbaugh

High School Students Required to Take Online Classes

By Ethan Rothstein

High School students in a computer labStarting this year, incoming freshmen in Virginia high schools will need to take at least one class online in order to graduate, as a result of a law passed by the General Assembly last spring.

Arlington Public Schools has been offering online classes for some time now — last year, APS offered 25 classes, mostly foreign languages like Arabic, Chinese and Japanese — but the portfolio of offerings will need to greatly expand to accommodate the new state law.

With less than a month to go until the school year, APS Director of Instructional and Innovative Techonologies Pat Teske said the decisions on which classes to offer online and how many are still being made.

“We’re looking at programs we want to offer to build a program,” Teske said. “We’re looking at it as more than just a graduation requirement.”

About 400 students took online classes last year, Teske said, many of whom took classes not in APS’ portfolio, but offered by Northern Virginia Community College and other institutions. The state Department of Education maintains a list of approved online educators, but before APS allows students to take any classes, school staff vets the educator for county standards.

While the rollout of the state policy takes place, some may be questioning whether forcing students to take an online class is a good idea. Brittany O’Grady, a recent graduate of Washington-Lee High School, took English 12 online as a way to get college credit simultaneously.

“I would have learned better in a classroom environment,” O’Grady said in an email. “I really enjoy making connections with people. The material becomes more engaging. Looking at a computer screen and learning the confusing material on my own was absolutely exhausting and not fun. I just wanted to get the class over with.”

Gov. Bob McDonnell argued when pushing for the law that it prepares high school students for the modern marketplace. Teske said so much business is done online — and so many colleges offer and/or require online classes — that the requirement is a logical one. The program will be called Virtual@APS, Teske said, and she and her staff have been working long hours trying to put it in place.

“The way of the business world today, you do online collaborations, online projects,” Teske said. “You have to be an effective online learner and collaborator… You can’t go to college today without taking many online classes. There are online degrees as well. We’re really giving our kids the skills they need to be productive beyond the 12th grade.”

Inside Arlington’s Overflowing High Schools

By ARLnow.com

This article was written by Audrey Batcheller

Class at Yorktown High SchoolArlington Public Schools continue to plan new school construction, and as student populations grow, so do the number of complications students face.

All three Arlington high schools have recently been rebuilt, but it appears they are already over capacity. Washington-Lee has seen its enrollment rise by 30 percent in the last six years, and this increase can be partially attributed to the abundance of transfers coming to the school for the International Baccalaureate diploma program. Washington-Lee is the only high school in the county that offers this program, so many transfer students apply to participate in the competitive diploma program. Yorktown and Wakefield have also seen steady increases in their enrollment, and Wakefield students will begin studying in their new facility this coming school year.

Although many schools have been labeled as “over capacity,” they continue to operate quite functionally with a few minor alterations. At Washington-Lee, rooms formerly used as teachers’ lounges, old computer labs, and offices are now occupied by desks and smart boards to be used as functioning classrooms.

Class at Washington-Lee High SchoolDespite being harder to find as a new student, or adding to the commute between classes, these classrooms have proved to be easy solutions to accommodate the need for space. These changes, in most cases, are harmless and don’t have a negative impact on the students, but in a few cases, students have suffered.

When the Mac computer lab at Washington-Lee was converted to a classroom, the Macs were relocated to the library. This computer lab had been used primarily by the broadcast journalism class for video production, and when the computers moved, the students attempted to transition into the new spacel, but lost access to the library after several noise complaints from the librarians.

With only two Mac desktop computers and one Mac laptop available for video production, members of the class have been significantly inconvenienced and the class had to adjust its methods of production due to the loss of their workspace. Some teachers are equally inconvenienced by being forced to share a classroom with another teacher or having to teach in two different locations where they must cart their belongings and instructional materials back and forth.

New trailer classrooms at Washington-Lee High SchoolThese changes are still insufficient, however, in providing enough classroom space and Washington-Lee will see the addition of four new trailers next to the school this coming school year, bringing their total to six.

Students are allotted six minutes in between classes to pass from period to period, and the trip outside to the trailers can be completed in that time, but bad weather is always a possibility that students face when venturing to their outside classes.

The first two trailers are located in the side parking lot next to the Arlington Planetarium which is located directly next to the school. The next four being added to the school’s facilities will be placed beside the school on what was previously used as a practice field.

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Morning Notes

By Katie Pyzyk

Wall art in Rosslyn

Obama Visits Arlington National Cemetery — President Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Monday during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery in honor of Memorial Day. In addition to remembering fallen service members, Obama asked that Americans “not forget our nation is still at war.” [Washington Post]

Record High County GOP Membership — The Arlington County Republican Party chairman says the county’s membership is at an all time high, at least over what is has been for the past decade. The number of members now stands at 139. [Sun Gazette]

Students Earn Latin Exam Medals — Forty-five Arlington Public Schools students have received gold medals for the scores they received on the National Latin Exam. Another 41 students received silver medals and 50 earned bronze medals. Three students earned a perfect score. The National Latin Exam is given in March to students at six levels of Latin and covers grammar, reading comprehension, Roman culture, history, geography and mythology and etymology. More than 500 students in Arlington joined the 154,000 students from around the world who took the exam. [Arlington Public Schools]

Peter’s Take: AFAC Provides Vital Community Services

By Peter Rousselot

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Peter RousselotIt’s important every so often to take a step back and recognize organizations that provide vital services to our community.

AFAC—the Arlington Food Assistance Center—is one of these organizations.

AFAC is a non-profit founded over 20 years ago to distribute food and groceries to Arlington residents who cannot afford to purchase enough food to meet their basic needs. Any family seeking such assistance must have a referral from a local church, school, social service agency, or Arlington County government agency.

AFAC currently serves approximately 1,600 families. About 40 percent of its clients are children. Among these are homeless children. The Arlington Public School system estimates that there are as many as 300 homeless children attending schools in the County at any one time. They live in transient housing, often with no food or kitchens available. Their main meal of the day is at the school they attend.

The other main categories of AFAC’s clients include:

  • elderly residents with high medical expenses
  • those with mental or emotional disabilities
  • eligible applicants for food stamps who have not yet begun to receive them
  • those suffering from illness or disability who lack sick leave employment benefits

AFAC depends on different kinds of volunteer assistance to sustain its programs. In 2012, volunteers provided AFAC with over 25,000 hours of their time. This saved AFAC at least $500,000 in staffing costs, and enabled AFAC to direct these savings to help eligible families. Organizing food drives, and encouraging other Arlington organizations to become AFAC community partners, are two of the principal ways in which to volunteer.

AFAC organizes and administers a series of genuine safety net programs, helping needy individuals and families avoid hunger when they truly have no other viable option.

To learn more about AFAC, and how you might be able to help, visit www.afac.org.

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Wednesday is Bike and Walk to School Day

By ARLnow.com

Walk and Bike to School Day 2012 at Oakridge Elementary School in October 2012Tomorrow, May 8, is Bike and Walk to School Day in Arlington.

Not to be confused with Walk and Bike to School Day in October, which has a similar name and a similar mission, Bike and Walk to School Day “encourages students to bike or walk to school while teaching them about the health and environmental benefits of biking and walking.”

“Bike and Walk to School Day also helps to raise community awareness about the importance of bicycle and pedestrian safety education, safe routes to schools, well-maintained walkways, and traffic calming in our neighborhoods and around our schools,” says Bike Arlington, on its website.

The event, held in conjunction with National Bike and Walk to School Day, is a partnership between Arlington Public Schools, Bike Arlington and Walk Arlington.

“APS encourages all families and staff to participate in this event,” said a school system press release. “This energizing event reminds parents and students alike of the simple joy of biking and walking to school while focusing attention on the importance of physical activity, air quality, safety, and bike-able, walkable communities.”

The event will be held in the morning. Students and parents will be greeted at their elementary, middle and high schools by county and school officials and staff. At the schools, giveaways will conducted and “healthy refreshments” will be distributed, according to Bike Arlington.

Update at 3:50 p.m. — “Based on weather forecasts, some schools have opted to postpone their celebrations until Friday, May 10,” according to APS spokesman Frank Bellavia.

File photo

APS Seeing Rapid Rise in Students With Autism

By ARLnow.com

Special education enrollment in Arlington Public SchoolsBetween 2008 and 2012, the number of autistic children enrolled in Arlington Public Schools’ special education program increased by more than 50 percent — a trend that matches a national increase in autism diagnoses.

There were 276 autistic special education students in 2008. By 2012, enrollment had increased to 421, a 52.5 percent jump.

“While it seems alarming, it actually reflects the growth we are seeing in autism nationally,” APS spokeswoman Linda Erdos said of the increase. According to a government study that was released last month, the number of school age children with autism has risen 72 percent since 2007, and now stands at about 1 in 50 children ages 6 to 17.

APS “has an excellent history of services for students with autism,” Erdos said. While APS tries to integrate autistic students with the general student body, the school system does have special classes for autistic students who need extra educational support. APS is working to continue to find ways to better serve autistic students, we’re told.

On Tuesday, April 30, APS and the Arlington Special Education Advisory Committee (ASEAC) will be hosting a “Family Information Night” that will “present new initiatives and assessment tools that are designed to improve teaching for students with autism and others who learn differently.”

The event is taking place at the Arlington Education Center (1426 N. Quincy Street) between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.

Among those expected to speak at the event are Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), Del. Patrick Hope (D), APS Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Dr. Brenda Wilks and Steven Celmer, from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Autism Center for Excellence.

Moran, who visited to Barcroft Elementary for World Autism Awareness Day last month, is expected to update families on his AUTISM Educators Act, which seeks to create a five-year pilot program that would help to train general education teachers who work with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The bill was referred to Education and the Workforce Committee in the House of Representatives earlier this month.

Proposed APS Budget Trims Maintenance, Boosts Bus Funding

By ARLnow.com

Arlington Public Schools logoThe new Arlington Public Schools proposed budget includes less money for minor construction and major maintenance, after the Arlington County Board approved a smaller tax increase than was sought by the School Board.

The School Board had asked for an additional 0.5 cent tax increase dedicated to school funding, in addition to the County Manager’s proposed 3.2 cent tax increase. In the end, the County Board approved a 3.5 cent increase, only 0.3 cents more than the manager’s proposal — and that increase will be split by the county and the school system.

With an earlier version of its proposed budget now facing a shortfall of $1.4 million, the School Board cut about $600,000 from the minor construction/major maintenance fund, and another $600,000 from the school system’s reserve fund. Even with the cuts, however, the maintenance and construction fund and the reserve fund are both set to receive more than $7 million apiece in the budget.

Arlington County school busesIn a move expected to make parents happy, the new budget includes more funding for transportation.

Last week Arlington Public School parents were informed in a letter that all currently enrolled students who were eligible for bus service this year will remain eligible in the upcoming 2013-14 school year.

In order to maintain bus service while the school system adds nearly 1,000 additional students, APS is expected to add 10 new full-time positions to its transportation services department. The transportation budget will increase by about $1.75 million in Fiscal Year 2014, compared to FY 2013. All told, the FY 2014 proposed budget for transportation is $16.1 million.

The transportation budget boost comes after hundreds of parents protested changes to the busing policy at the beginning of this school year. The changes — intended to allow the school system to stop adding buses and drivers to its fleet — backfired when impacted parents complained bitterly about their children no longer being allowed to ride the bus to and from school.

The Arlington School Board is holding a public budget work session tonight (April 23) starting at 6:00 p.m. The School Board is expected to approve a final budget at its meeting on May 2.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Tree buds at night

Parents of Gymnasts Want New Facilities — Despite a tight county budget, parents of Arlington gymnasts are calling on the County Board to fund new gymnastics facilities. Heather Cocozza, a representative of the Arlington Tigers competitive boys gymnastics team, claims that a new gymnastics facility can actually make a profit for the county. [Arlington Mercury]

APS Ranks Among Top High Schools — Arlington’s public high schools have ranked in the top 2 percent of all high schools in the country, according to the Washington Post’s “Challenge Index.” In the Washington region, H-B Woodlawn ranked #4, Washington-Lee #10, Yorktown #14 and Wakefield #62. [Arlington Public Schools]

Vacant Retail Space May Become Conference Facility — A vacant 13,000 square foot retail space on the ground floor of the new 800 N. Glebe Road office building in Ballston would become a conference facility, under a proposal that’s under consideration by the Arlington County Board. The nearby Bluemont Civic Association has expressed concerns about the change. [Sun Gazette]

More Yarn in Rossyn — The Guerrilla Stitch Brigade has struck again and provided colorful, whimsical decorations for the Cupid’s Garden sculpture in Rosslyn. [Ode Street Tribune]

Va. Tech Shooting Anniversary — Today is the 6th anniversary of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. A moment of silence will be observed across the state at 9:43 a.m. [Twitter, Wikipedia]

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