Arlington Public Schools

Staff Shortages Cause ‘Frustrating and Unacceptable’ Start to New APS Virtual Learning Program

By Jo DeVoe

(Updated 9:25 a.m. on 9/8/21) The new virtual learning program in Arlington Public Schools, available to anyone uncomfortable with going to school in-person, has gotten off to a rocky start due to severe teacher shortages.

During the first week of school, 340 of the more than 700 students enrolled in the program were assigned subs rather than permanent teachers, and many did not receive class schedules. Instead, many virtual students saw their classes canceled or they were shuffled into multi-grade classes and “virtual waiting rooms” without teachers or monitors.

And today (Tuesday), APS announced another upheaval: the administrator assigned to the new program, Verlese Gaither, has been replaced. Amy Jackson, Supervisor of Educational Technology & Programs, will lead the Virtual Learning Program until a new administrator is appointed.

Complaints started shortly after the first day of school. A discussion thread on a local parenting message board titled “APS VPL is a dumpster fire” has garnered more than 200 comments since it was first posted last Tuesday.

Parents of virtual students are also raising their concerns with the School Board and administrators, asking for appropriate staffing and improved communication. One of their requests — a meeting with APS — will be met with a town hall set for tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 7 p.m.

“The VLP is a critical program for vulnerable students and their families during this unprecedented pandemic,” Laura Haltzel, whose son is learning at home for health reasons, tells ARLnow. “Families want the virtual program to succeed and would like to work with APS to try to resolve some of the challenges we experienced in the last week. We believe that many problems can be solved with the appropriate allocation of teaching staff and administrative support.”

APS apologized in a School Talk email sent to families this afternoon.

“As we prepare to start the second week of school, we want to apologize for the challenges students encountered accessing their classes in the Virtual Learning Program last week,” the school system said. “We understand that this was a frustrating and unacceptable start to the school year for our VLP families and are working to ensure that these issues, related to staffing, scheduling, technical support and communication, are addressed as quickly as possible. We are also committed to ensuring that VLP students will have permanent teachers assigned to their classes as soon as possible.”

School Board Chair Barbara Kanninen likewise apologized and affirmed the board’s commitment to making the program work.

“I want to personally apologize to our VLP students and families,” she tells ARLnow. “Our goal is for the Virtual Learning Program to be an innovative, engaging, and rewarding academic experience for our students. The School Board is 100% committed to the program and we support the immediate steps APS is taking to ensure its success.”

Haltzel is part of a group of parents who wrote to administrators and School Board members on Monday outlining their concerns, which include a lack of staffing and a lack of communication.

“The combination of these above concerns, coupled with the silence from the APS School Board and Dr. Duran, has left VLP Parents concerned, frustrated and unsatisfied,” the group’s letter said. “Most critically, VLP students are demoralized and distraught.”

There are about 740 students enrolled in the VLP, including 63 students added since Aug. 16 via medical exemption appeals, a fluidity that APS says impacts staffing and class sizes.

With the changing class sizes and staffing shortages, some students were placed in courses through Virtual Virginia and other similar programs, while others were placed in a temporary classes to work on asynchronous assignments developed by APS teachers assigned to brick and mortar schools. These classes were monitored by an adult and students will receive feedback on their work from their teachers in September.

Families report incidents of online bullying between the younger and older unsupervised students in these mixed-grade “waiting rooms.” They say their younger students are upset and no longer enthusiastic about school.

Meanwhile, APS said in its email to parents today that it is committed to solving the teacher shortage quickly. As of Thursday, APS had 92 virtual teachers, but it still needed 106 teachers to fill out the program, a spokesman said. According to parents, some teachers initially assigned to the virtual program were later reassigned to teach in-person.

Parents say it wasn’t until they started asking questions that APS acknowledged that staffing was the problem.

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Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
Holiday decorations now on sale at the Pentagon City Costco (photo courtesy John Antonelli)

Local Pet Rescue Orgs Take in Hurricane Evacuees — “One of the first transports of dogs arrived Sunday with Lucky Dog Animal Rescue, which was able to find fosters to take in evacuated dogs from Mississippi shelters… Homeward Trails Animal Rescue is another rescue urgently working to take in dogs and cats in Hurricane Ida’s path… ‘Fostering or adopting an animal NOW will save more than that one life. It will save dozens. Please donate, foster and adopt NOW.'” [WUSA 9, WTOP, WJLA]

Arlington Girl Hooks Record-Setting Fish — “If you happen to meet 5-year-old Caroline May Evans, she may want to tell you about the fish she caught. It’s a story worth hearing: She and her mom and dad hiked 12 miles into the remote Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, where she swung a red worm over the outlet of a lake with no name and caught what turns out to be a world-record golden trout. Caroline’s fish, landed on July 8, a few days before her 5th birthday, weighed 2 pounds, a remarkable size for a golden.” [Field and Stream]

Young Dems Blast Arlington Bishop — From the Arlington Young Democrats: “In a letter penned to his church community, Bishop Michael F. Burbridge of Arlington made heinous statements about trans folks and even trans children, where he stated that “no one is transgender.” Not only is this statement harmful to the hundreds of thousands of trans people that live in this country, many of whom live here in Arlington, but it is categorically false.” [Twitter]

APS to Punish Less, Teach More — “The Arlington County, Virginia, public schools are reimagining discipline, in the hope that teaching valuable life lessons will benefit students more than punitive consequences. On the first day of the 2021-2022 school year, Superintendent Francisco Duran, standing outside the newly opened Cardinal Elementary School, in North Arlington, said the school system is shifting the focus of discipline from punishment to making amends.” [WTOP]

Glebe Road Over Pimmit Run Back Open — “After more than two weeks, N. Glebe Road between Military Road and Chain Bridge Road/Virginia Route 123 in Arlington reopened Monday morning after delays caused by storm damage. The stretch was was originally set to be closed for nine days beginning Aug. 13 and ending Aug. 23, but an additional week was added on because of the impact of severe weather.” [WJLA]

Police Make Credit Card Theft Arrest — “The officer located the owner of the wallet, contacted him, and learned the wallet was previously stolen and there were fraudulent charges on the victim’s credit cards. The officer initiated a follow-up investigation and developed a suspect description. At approximately 8:22 a.m. on August 29, the officer was on patrol in the area of Wilson Boulevard and N. Randolph Street, observed the suspect on foot, and took him into custody without incident.” [ACPD]

Learning Gaps, Outdoor Lunch Top of Mind for APS Administrators, Parents

By Jo DeVoe
1/10

For the first time since March 2020, most Arlington Public Schools students will be in their classrooms for five days of in-person learning, starting Monday.

Some students will continue at a distance, but overall, the school system says it is focused on three areas this year: accelerated learning, health and safety, and social-emotional learning, according to last night (Thursday’s) School Board meeting.

Parent groups meanwhile, tell ARLnow they are keen to see how these plans to close learning gaps and mitigate the virus’s spread are implemented at local schools.

“Accelerated learning is a key focus for us,” Superintendent Francisco Durán told the School Board during the meeting last night. “What that really means is helping teachers help students focus on grade-level material, while reinforcing what they know from the previous year and what gaps they may have to help them move forward.”

Students will be taught grade-level material with any supports needed to make the content accessible, he said. Teachers will build social-emotional learning into the school day.

Administrators pointed to performance this spring on state standardized tests to illustrate the impact of distance learning. But the data, which contrasted performance in the 2020-21 year with those of the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years, came with a number of caveats from the Virginia Department of Education.

Participation in VDOE’s Standards of Learning (SOL) testing during the 2020-21 school year was down “significantly” in all subject areas compared with pre-pandemic participation, according to a presentation. For example, only 75.5% of students in tested grades took reading tests in last year, and just under 79% took math tests, compared with 99% in both subjects in 2018-19.

“The major takeaway is that districts should not use 2021 SOL results to compare to previous years,” according to a presentation slide. “Given the wide variability in participation and modalities, comparison of APS students’ scores with neighboring divisions scores is discouraged.”

A few drops were particularly stark, especially in math. Performance rates dropped 20-40 percentage points for students in grades 3-8, for low-income students, for Black, Hispanic and Asian students and for emerging English-language learners.

“Virtual learning had a tremendous impact on mathematics progress,” Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Bridget Loft said last night.

In a statement, Arlington Parents for Education — which advocated for full-time in-person learning while APS was offering remote and then two-day-per-week in-school learning — said the results should surprise no one.

“Superintendent Durán and the school board made a choice to keep Arlington public students from receiving a full day of instruction for over a year. That choice had many consequences —  none so obvious now as the staggering drop in academic decline illustrated in this data,” APE said. “[It’s] the students who didn’t have access to outside tutors, at-home support from parents or pod coaches who were set even further behind their peers.”

The group said APS must tackle educational disparities with research-based best practices and increased instructional time.

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Parent Group Calls On Arlington Dems To End School Board Caucus

By Jo DeVoe

A parent group that got its start advocating for a full return to school during the pandemic is calling on the Arlington County Democratic Committee to end its School Board caucus.

Arlington Parents for Education (APE), which has been vocal recently in its criticism of School Board leadership and Arlington Public Schools’ American Rescue Plan spending amid the coronavirus, says the caucus — most recently held in May, to determine who local Democrats endorse in the general election — discourages broad election participation and makes officials beholden to the political party.

“This ‘endorsement’ effectively decides the outcome of the general election during a little-known caucus in May, because the ACDC places the endorsee’s name on its coveted November sample ballot. To wit: every School Board member since 2003 has been endorsed by the ACDC,” APE said in a statement.

The group added that until this process ends, “the Arlington School Board will continue to put students’ needs last, move in lock-step, and avoid even voting on issues that may be unpalatable to the caucus-voting-minority within the party.”

In Virginia, all School Board races are nonpartisan, meaning parties like Arlington Dems can only endorse candidates, not nominate them as in a primary. But as part of the endorsement caucus, candidates agree not to run in the general election, making the end result similar to a primary.

In a statement, ACDC Chair Jill Caiazzo said the group has the same right as any private organization to support candidates for elected office.

“Arlington Democrats fights every year to elect candidates who will advance Democratic policy priorities at all levels of government, including local races,” she said. “Voters need look no further than the recent alt-right fracas at a Loudoun School Board meeting to understand the importance of Democratic leadership in our schools at this time. Arlington Democrats choose our endorsed candidates for this critical leadership position using the most robust endorsement process of any organization in Arlington, with record-breaking participation in each of the past two years.”

This year, the caucus was held to decide who Democrats will endorse during the Nov. 2 general election to fill a seat held by School Board member Monique O’Grady, who’s not seeking a new term. The 2021 caucus, in which ACDC endorsed former educator Mary Kadera, had in-person and online voting options due to the pandemic, and brought in 6,207 ballots, setting a local record. The lockdown-era mail-in caucus in 2020 brought in 5,700 votes.

For the parent group, that turnout is low, even if record-breaking.

“This means that a School Board seat for a 25,000+ student school system in a county of 233,000 is decided by just 2.5% of the population, and in most years it is even lower,” APE said. “We believe broad participation and civic engagement are cornerstones of democracy.”

The group pointed to a list of self-identified Democrats who also want to see the caucus abandoned, including Parent-Teacher Association members, local NAACP members and former School Board candidates Symone Walker and Miranda Turner.

This spring, Kadera and Turner also critiqued the caucus during a candidate dialogue hosted by the Arlington NAACP.

“With all due respect to Arlington Dems, I’d like them to see them be able to endorse a candidate in the normal way other community organizations do, without running a caucus that can artificially constrain the participation of some people,” Kadera said.

Turner agreed, saying the process — which happens in the spring — confuses people and generates low turnout.

“I think it does tend to discourage folks from voting who would otherwise be very interested in voting for a school board candidate,” she said. “It is in fact a nonpartisan race, and I do think it might be better for the school system as a whole to treat it as such.”

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Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

APS Getting EV Buses — “Arlington Public Schools (APS), working collaboratively with the County’s Department of Environmental Services (DES), will receive a $795,000 grant from the state, to be spent on three fully electric buses (EV buses) that will replace three with diesel engines. The EV vehicles, each with a capacity of some 65 passengers, will be equitably assigned to routes throughout Arlington. Currently there are no EV buses in the APS fleet of 200. The vehicles slated for replacement each travel some 8,000 miles a year.” [Arlington County, Gov. Ralph Northam]

No PARK(ing) Day This Year — “PARK(ing) Day is an annual international event where the public collaborates to temporarily transform drab parking spaces into small parks… Due to continuing COVID-19 issues, Arlington County will not participate in 2021 PARK(ing) Day. We hope to welcome participants back in 2022.” [Arlington County, Twitter]

USS Arlington to Help in Haiti — “The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Arlington (LPD 24) departed Naval Station Norfolk to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to Haiti in support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) led mission, Aug. 17.” [Navy]

Arrests in Ashton Heights Armed Robbery — ” The Arlington County Police Department’s Homicide/Robbery Unit is announcing the arrest of three suspects in an armed robbery that occurred during the early morning hours on Wednesday, August 18… At approximately 1:08 a.m., police were dispatched to the report of a robbery that had just occurred. Upon arrival, it was determined that the two male victims and a witness were sitting at a bus stop in the 700 block of N. Randolph Street when the three suspects approached.” [ACPD]

Arlington Org Deals with Afghanistan Fallout — “The young women of Ascend were used to spending their days doing yoga, preparing for mountain climbing excursions and teaching women at mosques in Kabul how to read… After the Taliban swept through Afghanistan this week, retaking control after two decades as the Afghan government collapsed, most of Ascend’s participants have been sheltering at home in fear of reprisal. Some have destroyed documents that would associate them with the Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit group, and are pleading for assistance from its leadership to help them find refuge in other countries.” [Washington Post]

Arlington Bishop Talks About Trans Youth — “The topic of transgenderism is discussed routinely in the news, on television shows and in schools. This prevailing ideology — that a person can change his or her gender — is impacting Catholic families, too, said Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington… Burbidge knows many will be criticized and ostracized for their belief that men and women cannot change their sex, but he asks the faithful to speak out anyway. ‘We cannot be silenced. The mandate to speak on this issue clearly and lovingly is greater than ever,’ he said.” [Catholic News Service]

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Vax Mandade for County, APS Employees — “Arlington County Government and Arlington Public Schools (APS) will implement a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for employees. This joint action, effective August 30, is a necessary step to help keep the community safe and is consistent with COVID-19 public health guidance. This policy will also apply to interns, volunteers, substitutes, and contractors… All unvaccinated employees will be required to be tested at least weekly for COVID-19 to limit the potential spread in the workforce and in the community. Testing will be provided at no cost to the employee.” [Arlington County]

Mask Mandate for Va. Schools — “Virginia will require all students, teachers and staff in K-12 schools to wear masks indoors this fall, even if they are vaccinated, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced Thursday. The mandate, set forth in a public health emergency order, is sure to stir controversy and anger amid an already fractious debate over education in the state.” [Washington Post, Gov. Ralph Northam]

Escalator Replacement at Pentagon City Metro — “On Monday, August 16, Metro will begin work to replace the four entrance escalators at Pentagon City station with brand new, more durable escalators.  Construction is expected to take approximately nine months to complete both entrances and will require each entrance to be closed during construction, starting with the east side of South Hayes Street and followed by the two escalators on the west side.” [WMATA]

Arlington Real Estate Remains Hot — “A combination of challenging affordability and low inventory may be conspiring to dampen home-buyer enthusiasm across much of the Washington region, but you wouldn’t know it in Arlington, where some regions remain red-hot locales… While the region as a whole is down, Arlington has an overall rating of 205 – well into the “High” category and leading all other regional jurisdictions.” [Sun Gazette]

Summer Friday for ARLnow — We’re taking part of the day off, so expect a lighter publishing schedule today.

Federal Court Rules in Favor of APS in Drawn-Out Education Dispute

By Jo DeVoe

(Updated at 2:50 p.m.) A multi-year legal battle between a family and Arlington Public Schools over the appropriateness of their child’s special education support ended this summer with a decision in APS’s favor, handed down by federal court.

While the avenues for dispute resolution dead-end there for the family, the decision provides an insight into how fraught the special education system can be. What is supposed to be a collaborative effort among schools and parents can turn into a grueling legal process if the parents and the school system disagree over aspects of the child’s disability or which setting best meets their needs.

In this case, the parents sued APS, requesting it pay for tuition at a private day school that — according to them — would be better for their child than Williamsburg Middle School. The federal court decision said APS did not have to pay the cost of tuition.

The court also overturned a lower ruling by a state officer who said the school system should reimburse the parents for a private evaluation they obtained. A psychologist found their child exhibited disabilities that APS did not find in their evaluation.

This case reveals how some decisions favor schools partially because parents make procedural missteps before they realize that every step of the process could become evidence in a hearing later on, special education lawyer Juliet Hiznay tells ARLnow.

She said both the hearing officer and the federal decision were well-reasoned, and that the parents made a couple of common errors.

“A lot of parents get caught up in sort of what I call traps for the unwary: not preserving their claims, not communicating them during meetings, not getting them on the record,” she said.

That the case reached federal court is also exceedingly rare, because the special education legal system is set up to have these issues resolved in meetings and mediation sessions, she said. The parents sued after an administrative process with an independent hearing officer did not go in their favor.

“There is a risk associated with doing this. There’s an emotional toll, and practical price to pay: School districts don’t like being sued, so the relationship gets destroyed when you sue a school division,” she said. “And many parents are afraid, and some of them have more than one child, and they don’t want to risk any kind of retaliation by the school district.”

One family’s experience

The boy at the center of the lawsuit is currently attending a private school in Sterling, Virginia, according to federal court documents. The home school is Nottingham Elementary School, which he attended from kindergarten through fourth grade.

While at Nottingham, his parents and school officials noticed he struggled academically and socially. During an assessment in the first grade, he “presented with difficulty in a number of different areas” including reading, writing and math, attention and organization and making friends, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the parents.

He was given an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), a document outlining the services the school will provide, under the category of “specific learning disability.” But by fourth grade, he “still continued to struggle greatly,” per the lawsuit.

According to Virginia Department of Education data, APS has been providing services to steadily more children with presumed or diagnosed specific learning disabilities in the last four years.

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/6875805/

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JUST IN: APS Announces Universal Mask Mandate for Return to School

By Jo DeVoe

Arlington Public Schools will require universal masking at the start of the school year, regardless of vaccination status, according to an email to families this morning.

The order applies to all students, staff and visitors inside APS buildings and on school buses, Superintendent Francisco Durán said in the announcement. Masks will not be required when eating or during outside recess, P.E. class, athletics and other outdoor activities.

The new school year begins Monday, Aug. 30.

“Universal masks are part of a layered approach to help our schools stay open and safe, and to ensure all students can safely return to our buildings, especially when physical distancing is not possible at all times and not all our students are eligible yet for vaccinations,” Durán wrote.

APS’s new mandate mirrors the rules for in-person summer school. It comes amid a rise in COVID-19 cases in Arlington County, fueled by the more contagious Delta variant. The announcement comes on the heels of similar universal mask mandates announced this week by Fairfax County and Montgomery County public schools.

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance to recommend that even vaccinated people wear masks in indoor, public settings where prevalence of the virus is elevated.

“Universal masking for the start of the school year aligns with the latest CDC guidance, and the recommendations of local and state public health authorities, to help ensure all students can safely return to school buildings,” Durán said.

Citing CDC guidance, Durán said a student who is within three to six feet of an infected student will not be considered a close contact as long as both students are wearing masks and the school takes other precautions.

“We will continue to regularly review our masking practices and other health and safety measures to keep them in line with national, state and local health recommendations,” Durán said. “As guidance changes, we will keep the community informed of any changes to our practices.”

Durán encouraged families to vaccinate children ages 12 and older.

“The most effective tool for protecting our school community and preventing the spread of COVID-19 is vaccination,” he said. “We look forward to welcoming students back to school for in-person learning, five days per week.”

Divide Over School-Issued Devices Remains After Year of Online Learning

By Anuj Khemka
Arlington Public Schools students learning on their devices while in person during the pandemic (via APS/Twitter)

Seven years after the initial rollout of Arlington Public Schools’ digital learning initiative, and after a year of heavier use due to distance-learning, opinions on tech in schools remain divided.

For today’s students and parents, virtual learning during the pandemic only highlighted the benefits of and exacerbated the drawbacks to iPads and laptops. Parents say their kids struggle to focus, navigate programs and engage with the material. Students tell ARLnow that the devices can make their learning easier, more efficient and more interesting, but some have also outsmarted controls to watch TV and play games.

“They help you out. You can just search up anything you need there,” said Liam, a rising seventh-grader in APS. He added that it’s easier to stay on top of work and grades online using Canvas, the division’s learning management system, saying “you can see if you have any missing assignments, and if you’re doing well in school or not.”

Views appear to remain as entrenched as they were in 2019, when North Carolina State University studied tech use and support for devices in APS. At the time, 55% of parents supported the initiative, compared to the 85% of teachers and 75% of students who said devices improved the learning experience.

Through its initial rollout, APS aimed to give each 2nd-12th grade student a tablet or laptop for school use by 2017. From 2017 up until the pandemic, APS provided iPads to all students between third and eighth grade and MacBook Airs to high school students.

Today, the school system uses approximately 34,000 student devices, including both individual devices and shared computers, according to an APS spokesperson. This includes all K-2 students, who were given iPads during the pandemic to facilitate virtual learning when schools were closed. This year, K-2 students will continue to have access to individual devices.

Most students will be in-person this fall, using their devices in the classroom setting. About 890 will be learning fully at a distance, due to the pandemic and personal preference. That preference is set to eventually give rise to a full-time, APS-run virtual learning academy for those who want the flexibility provided by learning at home on their own time.

Over the last year, iPads and MacBooks were how students interacted with teachers and classmates and completed assignments via Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace apps, along with apps such as Dreambox, which offers interactive math lessons and games, and Seesaw, which is like the digital equivalent of a homework folder that both teachers and parents can access.

“Our kids are using their iPads for content delivery, for collaboration, and for writing, reading, and simulation. Creatively, they’re also doing activities and learning through research and creating projects,” Arlington Traditional School instructional technology coordinator Marie Hone said.

Rising fourth-grader Spencer suggests that without iPads, virtual learning would have been more difficult.

“We were able to have calls with our teacher and meet together for school, unlike the year before that,” he said.

Pre-pandemic, high schoolers Anthony Doll and Wyatt Shoelson say that they used their MacBooks in just about every class.

“MacBooks make it easier to keep everything in one place. Typing everything out and going on websites for classes is easier. It’s better to do it electronically than on paper,” Doll said. “My high school experience would be a lot more disorganized without MacBooks.”

Still, concerns remain. Rising second-grader Cecilia Leonard tells ARLnow that the approximately three hours she spent on her iPad throughout the school day hurt her eyes. Experts say that kids who spend too much time on screens may experience eye fatigue and sleep problems.

Middle and elementary school students also tell stories of classmates circumventing device restrictions to play video games and stream videos.

“There are these websites that are pretty much educational, but there’s also a non-educational twist to them, and you can play games on them. We also figured out you can watch Hulu on certain websites,” Spencer said.

And parents? Some have been critical of the program since 2014, when they said it was put in the budget with little public input. After watching their kids learn online for a full year, some parents are not convinced they help. Whether during Arlington School Board meetings or on online forums, some parents continue to be concerned about whether iPads and MacBooks help students or hurt them.

“Devices are not the answer to teach kids. Many kids craved paper and were denied. The iPad was a wonderful connection device but difficult for production and navigation of several tabs for middle school kids,” said parent Kelly Alexis, who manages the Facebook group Arlington Education Matters, where much discussion over iPads and laptops has taken place.

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APS Encourages More Parents to Enroll As It Prepares for Full-Time In-Person School

By Jo DeVoe

With one month to go before school starts, parents are being urged to enroll their kids in some Arlington public schools amid a continued drop in enrollment.

Screenshots and emails provided to ARLnow indicate some elementary schools, including Discovery and Jamestown, need just a few more kindergarteners before they can officially get one more kindergarten class. The correspondences say the extra class would reduce class sizes and keep teachers at the school they were teaching at last year.

“If you have a rising Kindergartener, please register your child ASAP!” one woman wrote on Nextdoor. “I heard through the grapevine that [Discovery is] 3 kids shy of a third class… which means they may have to let an amazing teacher and assistant go! Help spread the word to any new families in the neighborhood!”

An email to Jamestown families pleaded with families to “pretty, pretty please” register their children as soon as possible, as the elementary only needs 10 more students to add a fourth class.

School starts on Monday, Aug. 30 for most students. The vast majority will be in-person five days a week, though APS is offering a full-distance model this year for families still unsure about returning to school amid the pandemic, as cases rise and as the state recommends all students wear masks at the elementary level.

The encouragement to enroll comes on the heels of new enrollment numbers APS released earlier this month, showing a continued drop in APS students since the start of the pandemic. The new data indicates so far, there are 26,052 students registered for the fall. Of those, 891 will be full-time distance learning, and 25,161 students will be in-person full-time. In June of this year, there were 26,502 students enrolled, and in June 2020, 28,142 students were enrolled.

APS attributed the drop last year due to the pandemic, when many families decided to wait a year, homeschool their kids or switch to private and parochial schools. Since then, officials have said the schools should prepare for enrollment to bounce back.

Enrollment numbers will be made official in October. Lower summer numbers and encouragement to register are both annual phenomena, APS spokesman Frank Bellavia said.

“Every year at this time, we encourage families to register as there are always families new to the area, rising kindergarten students, military and embassy families,” he said. “We typically see a large bump in registrations in August and even September.”

Two years ago, Ashlawn Elementary School was slightly below projections and then saw 49 students register on the Friday before school started, he said.

As for the emphasis on class sizes, that’s because APS had to increase class sizes at all levels due to budgetary decisions made earlier this year.

Enrollment is also fluid within APS’s two programs, in-person and fully virtual.

“The total enrollment in the Virtual Learning Program has decreased by more than 300 students since June, when we announced that virtual families can transition to in-person school at any time,” spokeswoman Catherine Ashby said.

Bellavia said teachers at schools that lose classes due to lower enrollment won’t lose jobs, but will instead be transferred to where they’re needed.

“We are committed to retaining the excellent teachers that we have, and look for opportunities in their current school or to re-assign teachers to school where enrollment requires additional teachers,” he said.

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County to Remove Barriers on S. Carlin Springs Road This Weekend

By Dana Munro
The right lane of S. Carlin Springs Road reopens to traffic on Saturday (photo via DES)

Temporary bollards and wheel stops along a segment of S. Carlin Springs Road are set to come down this weekend.

Since March, these barriers — closing off the northbound right travel lane from 8th Place S. to 5th Road S. — have been up to give more room to kids walking to their neighborhood schools. On Saturday (July 24), S. Carlin Springs Road will fully reopen to traffic, according to a tweet from Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services.

“APS and the Department of Environmental Services saw an opportunity to create pilot temporary walking routes not on built sidewalks but rather on space carved out from an original travel or parking lane to help students get to school,” DES spokesman Peter Golkin said.

Campbell Elementary School, Glen Forest Elementary School and Carlin Springs Elementary School are all on or near that stretch of S. Carlin Springs Road that starts in Arlington Mill and ends in Glencarlyn.

The pilot walkability route was part of the county’s five-year Vision Zero Action Plan, aimed at eliminating traffic-related deaths and severe injuries. The County Board approved the Vision Zero safety plan this May.  

“Staff collected information on facility use feedback, community experience, field observation of operation, traffic pattern, crash experience, etc.,” Golkin said. “Staff hope to use the comments and data to inform future decisions.”

DES and APS will continue studying how the road is used to decide any future changes to traffic patterns, he said. They also tested out the idea on Lorcom Lane in residential North Arlington, which has seen prior attempts to improve safety for kids walking to school.

Although the test was part of a long-range plan, the department took advantage of conditions this spring — when there were fewer cars on the road due to the pandemic and kids were starting to walk to school again — to pilot the change, Golkin noted.

He says neither the Arlington County Police Department nor APS observed a notable increase or decrease in the number of collisions during the study period. Instead, they saw “challenging and dangerous encounters, but none resulted in a collision.”

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