The semi-nomadic school has had many temporary homes over the years, and is currently located in the former Fenwick building (800 S. Walter Reed Drive).
Now, it will move into the fourth and fifth floors, a space totaling 24,288 square feet, of the office building at 4420 Fairfax Drive. The building is also the headquarters of growing catering marketplace Hungry.
The Arlington School Board signed the lease, from January 2023 to Sept. 30, 2026, earlier this month, says spokesman Frank Bellavia.
The School Board heard and took action on approving the lease in its meeting on Oct. 27. Normally, it hears an item in one meeting and acts on it in a subsequent meeting.
The reason for combining these steps, per a presentation, is that “lease negotiations took longer than expected and staff wishes to begin design work immediately to help mitigate project delays.”
APS will move the school over the summer and students will start in this temporary location in September, Bellavia said.
The school system must seek a Special Use Permit from Arlington County to allow educational use in the office building. That use permit request will go before the Arlington County Board in January.
APS will spend an estimated $1.5 million on building modifications and approximately $80,000 a month on the lease. It estimates the rent will be around $90,000 a month in the final year of the lease.
Amazon has pledged to house the school in one of the office buildings it will build at the corner of S. Eads Street and 12th Street S. as part of the approved second phase of its HQ2 project.
The Arlington Public Schools Syphax Education Center (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Durán is proposing an earlier start to school next fall and more instructional days than the current academic year.
If approved, the 2023-24 calendar would have 180 instructional days for all students and would start on Aug. 21, 2023. This year, elementary and high school students have 175 instructional days and middle schoolers have 174, falling under the state standard of 180 days and APS calendars pre-pandemic.
The proposal comes after APS received more than 7,100 responses from families and staff earlier this fall in a survey gauging approval of the current calendar and asking for input on three possible calendars for next year. Some respondents urged APS to align its calendar with neighboring jurisdictions, such as Fairfax County Public Schools, and others suggested reducing the number of cultural and religious holidays, per presentation materials for the upcoming School Board meeting this Thursday.
“It is important to align with neighboring districts for holidays and start day… so that our schools can be fully staffed with your teachers,” one respondent said, per a presentation.
Another said they “support the spirit of inclusiveness, but do not support APS adopting so many religious holidays.”
Durán’s proposal has the same start date for students as the proposed or approved calendars for many neighboring jurisdictions, except FCPS, which appears not to have a proposal yet.
Calendars for Arlington Public Schools and nearby jurisdictions (via APS)
Durán’s calendar starts a full week before the preference of many survey respondents and a calendar committee comprised of a group of principals, PTA members, teachers union representatives and central office staff. It has a longer winter break than these two calendars as well.
APS 2023-24 calendar options (via APS)
The School Board will receive more information on the preferred calendar and alternatives on Thursday. It is then slated to vote on Durán’s proposed 2023-24 calendar on Thursday, Dec. 15.
The proposed increase would mark a return to aspects of pre-pandemic calendars, something for which watchdog group Arlington Parents for Education has advocated over the last year. It says this is one way to address its focal point of learning loss.
“Abandoning our longstanding commitment to providing at least 180 days of school, especially given the historic learning loss currently facing APS students, is the wrong approach,” the group said in a recent calendar analysis. “Our students deserve for their school system to return to its historical practice of meeting both the 180-day and 990-hour Virginia state standards.”
Over the last 10 years, the APE says, 181 days has been the norm for student attendance days. APS dipped under 180 days during the 2020-21 school year, at the onset of the pandemic, and has not returned to 180 days since, it said.
APS calendars over the last 10 years (via Arlington Parents for Education)
A few years ago, APS began starting the school year before Labor Day after former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam authorized schools to start up to two weeks before the September holiday.
“Despite that change, APS has tended to start later than neighboring divisions,” the group said. “The result is fewer days of school for Arlington children.”
Comparative calendars for D.C. area public school systems for the 2022-23 school year (via Arlington Parents for Education)
The proposed 2023-24 calendar would observe Yom Kippur (Sept. 25) and Eid al-Fitr (April 10). This fall, APS took days off for Rosh Hashanah and Diwali, but those are not included in next year’s calendar, possibly because they are set to occur on weekends next fall.
“This look-back at 10 years of calendar history and the comparison of the current APS calendar with that of our neighbors indicates that whether it is an earlier start, later finish, use of federal holidays, or different patterns around winter break, APS has options for how it can meet 180 days,” APE said.
Durán proposes 31 days off for federal holidays, winter break, and religious holidays, as well as grade and reporting days.
Proposed days off for students in Arlington Public Schools (via APS)
Sometimes, there is a theme — like wearing costumes on Halloween — as well as the occasional sweet treat or freebie, like bicycle lights from the county program Bike Arlington.
“I am not above bribing children,” says Gillian Burgess, who leads a group of children to the dual-language elementary school Escuela Key. “Donuts are definitely a big help.”
Burgess is a volunteer conductor of a bicibús (Spanish for “bike bus”) — a weekly bicycling group with a set route that makes two stops to pick up kids on the way to Escuela Key. It has a Spanish name because the concept started in Vic, Spain, to provide safety in numbers to kids intimidated by traffic, per a Duolingo podcast with the woman who started the bicibús.
It has since spread to larger Spanish cities, such as Barcelona, and throughout Europe. And it has gone stateside to Portland, Seattle and now Arlington.
In Portland, Oregon, a group of parents and one teacher came together to create an alternative way of getting kids to school while clearing road congestion.@byjacobward shares more details about the “bike bus” where hundreds of students ride together through the neighborhood. pic.twitter.com/LPdFK2gHyJ
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) October 12, 2022
Burgess started the Escuela Key route when APS provided hybrid education in spring 2021, and some parents worried about Covid transmission on buses. Now, families stick with it because they have noticed improvements to their child’s mood and focus in school, she said.
“It’s fun,” says fourth-grader Billy Schnell. “I like biking to school with my friends in the morning. It makes me happy. The regular bus is hot and stuffy, but I feel cool on the Bicibús.”
Burgess said there are two great things about the program: “Kids can go even if caretakers can’t go with them and there is safety in numbers.”
In greater numbers, Escuela Key riders feel safer navigating unlit crossings and getting from the intersection of the Bluemont Trail with N. George Mason Drive to Escuela Key a block away, she said. It also helps families break from their driving routines and gives kids independence.
“We take our kids to all these places. We sit and wait for them to finish their activities. We drive them there and home,” Burgess said. “It sucks for us as parents because we’re spending all this time chauffeuring, and kids are not learning how to be independent and confident.”
Meanwhile, the Campbell bike train, which started this year, provides a bi-monthly alternate route home now that parents cannot drive to pick up their kids directly from school, a decision Burgess said was made to improve student safety.
Burgess has taken other steps to help kids feel comfortable on bikes, such as helping install traffic gardens where kids could learn the rules of the road in miniature two years ago.
At the time, that had support from APS, but she is hoping for more coordination with the schools system now. That’s especially so in the wake of a number of high-profile crashes that involved students or happened near schools and have prompted the community and the Arlington County Board to call for swifter action on traffic safety and drunk driving.
“We don’t have a partner in APS right now,” she said, adding that she has reached out for help but hasn’t gotten much of a response. “We need someone who can come at it as a professional in the school system in terms of what is appropriate for adolescents, children and teenagers. What is the right messaging? What works?”
Braylon Meade playing basketball (courtesy of James McIntyre)
Brian Weiser and Braylon Meade (courtesy of James McIntyre)
James McIntyre and Braylon Meade doing their special handshake at the start of W-L basketball games (courtesy of James McIntyre)
Scenes from a candlelight vigil at Washington-Liberty High School for Braylon Meade (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Scene from a candlelight vigil at Washington-Liberty High School for Braylon Meade (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Braylon Meade’s father speaks at the candlelight vigil in his memory at Washington-Liberty High School (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Candlelight vigil at Washington-Liberty High School (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
(Updated at 7:30 p.m.) Braylon Meade’s classmates would know he was already seated by whether his basketball shoes were outside the door.
“He’d get up at 5 a.m. and after a workout, go to class at 7:30. Everyone said he would smell horrible. He would leave his shoes outside the classroom because he smelled so bad,” his teammate, James McIntyre, said with a laugh.
Shoes aside, his hustle garnered the admiration of his teammates, who agreed to him being their leader, overseeing drills and shouting out encouragement and direction during games.
“All the kids respected him because of how much work he put in… he worked so hard this summer to compete and play this season’s games,” W-L Head Coach Robert Dobson said. “He became our glue.”
McIntyre, who has known Meade since the third grade, says he was energetic but quick to share the ball. While not the tallest team member, he always ran to guard the opposing team’s best player.
“He went above and beyond to make himself the best athlete that he could be,” said Mark Weiser, a W-L parent who coached Meade in travel basketball. “He was the kind of player that, if you asked him to run through a brick wall, he’d do it and not complain.”
Meade died just before the start of the season this week and before he could show players across the region and state all the work he put in over the summer and fall. The 17-year-old was killed early Friday morning in a car crash, and a teen driver involved in the crash was charged with a DUI and involuntary manslaughter. On Sunday, hundreds of people turned out at the high school for a candlelight vigil organized in his memory.
In the wake of his death, family and community members are finding ways to honor his legacy. This morning (Wednesday), a scholarship fund in his name for Arlington Public Schools alumni went live on the Arlington Community Foundation website.
“The fund will provide need-based scholarships to graduates of Arlington County’s public high schools,” according to the foundation. “Braylon’s siblings, Bryan and Kerry, and his parents firmly believe that this scholarship fund will perpetuate one of Braylon’s passions, which was to lift up those in need.”
His coach is retiring Meade’s jersey number, 22, and before every game, his teammates will carry out the special handshakes he had for every player and hug his parents.
Dobson says he has already noticed teammates stepping up to try to do what Braylon did for the team.
“Kids who never said a word are now leading the huddle and calling out drills,” he said. “Everybody is doing it as a team.”
But Meade was more than just his sport. His friends and coaches tell ARLnow he worked hard off the court, had a sense of humor and a nerdy side. His girlfriend of three years, Christine Wilson, remembers him as a loyal, communicative boyfriend and a great conversationalist.
“He was such a gentleman and always held the door for me, paid for me, drove, and we would get food somewhere and have great conversation as always,” Wilson said. “Our conversations never got boring and we never ran out of things to talk about, even after three years.”
Weiser said Meade was smart, opinionated and enjoyed lively conversations. He watched basketball closely and often had the same insight into a play as a coach would.
“He was right more often than he was wrong,” Weiser said.
Meade tackled academics and basketball with the same intensity. He took all International Baccalaureate classes and tutored teammates if they asked.
“He had the brightest future of all of us, he never did anything wrong and was always there for me,” McIntyre said. “He was the most hardworking dude I knew for sure, whether it was school, basketball, or beating me in ping pong, he would always practice a lot.”
The Water Pollution Control Plant in South Arlington (via DES/Flickr)
Your poop could give Arlington County natural gas to power buildings or buses.
The county is developing plans to upgrade its Water Pollution Control Plant, where local sewage goes. One change involves installing technology that can harness the methane emitted when human solid waste is processed, turning it into renewable natural gas, a process some municipalities have already implemented.
The energy could be used to power the wastewater plant, homes and commercial buildings or become an alternate fuel for ART buses. The “sludge” created through this process can also be used as a fertilizer for gardens, forests, farms and lawns. (If you’ve ever used Milorganite brand fertilizer, you’ve used dried sewage sludge from Milwaukee.)
How sewage can become power (via Arlington County)
Improvements to the wastewater treatment facility, to the tune of $156 million, are part of a $177 million bond request for utilities upgrades, which also includes improvements the regional Washington Aqueduct system ($15 million) and new gravity transmission mains ($3 million).
Funding for this work would come from a half-billion dollar bond referenda that voters will be considering on Election Day tomorrow (Tuesday). Over $510 million will go toward this work as well as a host of initiatives, upgrades and maintenance projects that Arlington County adopted as part of its 2023-32 Capital Improvement Plan.
Some big-ticket items have already grabbed headlines, like the $136 million requested to build a new Arlington Career Center campus and $2 million to design a proposed Arlington Boathouse on the Potomac River near Rosslyn. But there are dozens of other upgrades proposed for facilities that Arlingtonians of all ages use on a regular, and sometimes daily, basis.
Renovations to existing county buildings and the construction of new ones surpass $53 million.
Highlights include:
$13.1 million for various renovations to Arlington’s police headquarters and, for the county’s courts building, technology upgrades, new finishes, a redesigned entrance and a relocated Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts division.
$12 million to fund the construction and renovation of some floors of 2020 14th Street N. to make room for ACFD Fire Marshal and Battalion Chiefs offices and other public safety staff and functions. It will also see the replacement of the building’s 60-year-old HVAC system.
$7.5 million to acquire land next to the Serrano Apartments to build a fire station there and improve response times on the west end of Columbia Pike, given the pace of development along the Pike.
Overall, Arlington Public Schools is asking for$165 million. Of that, some $12.24 million would pay for safer school entrances, a measure many school systems nationwide are implementing in the wake of high-profile shootings, and new kitchens to allow more meals to be made in-house.
“Upgraded kitchens will allow students to eat high-quality meals that include more fresh fruits and vegetables that are prepared on-site,” according to APS. “The entrance and security vestibule updates will comply with current safety and security standards while ensuring all visitors check in at the main office.”
Existing and modernized school kitchens (via APS)
Another $16.8 million would pay for a new roof for Escuela Key, the Spanish-language immersion elementary school, HVAC replacement at Hoffman-Boston Elementary School and lighting upgrades across schools.
The Arlington Dept. of Parks and Recreation is asking for nearly $22.5 million for a dozen projects.
That includes some funding $1.5 million to replace and renovate some stretches of the county’s nearly 40 miles of off-street, multi-purpose trails, 56 pedestrian bridges and 11 low-water fords.
Preschool- and school-aged kids could have new playgrounds at Bailey’s Branch, Monroe and Woodmont parks sometime in 2024 ($2.8 million). Douglas Park will see $2 million in improvements, including a new picnic shelter, pedestrian bridge, stormwater management, invasive species removal and reforestation.
Athletes who play at Kenmore Middle School could have new turf fields ($300,000).
There’s $1.1 million in funding to design new facilities at Short Bridge Park, near the border of the City of Alexandria, as well as $1.8 million to redesign Gateway Park in Rosslyn, which the budget says is “difficult and dangerous to access due to the surrounding high-speed roadways” and is “under-utilized.”
People who live in the Ballston and Virginia Square areas would be able to get in on the ground floor of master planning processes ($1.5 million) next year to upgrade Maury, Herselle Milliken and Gum Ball parks starting as early as 2025.
The second, $4.4 million phase of work on Jennie Dean Park will move forward, including demolishing the existing WETA building, two parking lots and a portion of 27th Street S., installing a lighted basketball court and converting the existing court for tennis use.
The growing pickleball population, sometimes at odds with neighbors, and the dirt trail-less mountain bike enthusiasts could get new facilities through $2 million to convert tennis courts at Walter Reed Community Center for pickleball use, draw pickleball lines on some multi-use courts and fund “design improvements to natural surface trails and mountain biking improvements.”
Counterfeit OxyContin with fentanyl, also known as ‘blues’ (via Drug Enforcement Agency/Flickr)
(Updated 11/02/22 at 9:20 a.m.) “Do you know how it feels to look at your daughter when she can’t move her eyes?”
That’s an Arlington mother, who spoke to ARLnow on the condition of anonymity, about a recent fentanyl overdose her 13-year-old daughter survived. It happened off school grounds, but the mother believes her daughter took the drugs during school hours.
Parents and school community leaders who have spoken with ARLnow say that students in middle and high school are able to access counterfeit prescription oxycodone laced with fentanyl at or near schools.
The mother who spoke to ARLnow said her daughter started vaping nicotine and marijuana in middle school, and by the end of eighth grade, got a hold of counterfeit Percocet — a mixture of oxycodone and acetaminophen — cut with fentanyl.
“The only thing I want is for the parents to know that kids can get every kind of drug inside the schools,” she said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “I want them to be conscious and aware of what’s going on in the school. I don’t want other parents to go through what I went through and I want the schools to pay more attention.”
It has been difficult to quantify drug use among Arlington students. Parents fear parent-shaming — but the mother who spoke with ARLnow did say three other moms she knows are struggling with the same problems — and ARLnow couldn’t get data specific to drug overdoses involving minors.
The Arlington County Police Department provided the number of calls for service to Arlington Public Schools buildings involving reports of an overdose, which encompasses use of prescription drugs, illegal substances or alcohol.
The data shows there has been a relatively small but steady number of calls to buildings since 2018. Although there was a brief drop when schools were closed during the early stages of the pandemic, the rate hasn’t changed despite the decision to remove School Resource Officers from school grounds.
Overdose calls to Arlington Public Schools buildings (courtesy of ACPD)
“Overall, the volume of juvenile-involved opioid cases remains limited across Arlington, however, all cases involving opioids are taken seriously and thoroughly investigated,” ACPD spokeswoman Ashley Savage said.
Anecdotally, there were three overdoses last academic year, according to Elder Julio Basurto and Janeth Valenzuela, who founded Juntos en Justicia, an advocacy group representing Arlington’s Latino population. This school year, they have only heard of the overdose involving the 13-year-old girl mentioned earlier.
Basurto and Valenzuela noted that they have heard teens take the drugs in the bathrooms and distribute them in nearby parks and by vape shops near the schools.
“It’s getting out of hand,” Valenzuela said. “If we don’t do anything to correct this we’ll lose a generation.”
Basurto said he has heard different descriptions of what kids are taking, and that ambiguity is part of the problem.
“We can’t confirm exactly what it is,” he said. “Something they smoke, something square in their mouth, they get high off that.”
He described some students obtaining blue pills that are then crushed into aluminum foil. Those are counterfeit oxycodone pills, known as “blues” or “M30s.”
“The real concern, the real worry, is these counterfeit pressed pills,” says Jim Dooley, who has taught more than 900 Arlingtonians how to administer Narcan through the Arlington Addiction Recovery Initiative. “What kids are getting — and adults — in a large number of cases, are pills that look identical to commercially manufactured pills: Adderall for attention, Xanax for anxiety.”
June Prakash, president of Arlington Education Association (via Arlington Public Schools)
Teachers who are part of the Arlington Education Association say there has been a communication breakdown since the School Board authorized collective bargaining in May.
Arlington Public Schools became the second school district in Virginia to do so, after the General Assembly in 2020 repealed a ban on school employees bargaining collectively.
Before that, AEA advocated for public school employees but could not guarantee benefits through legally binding contracts. This month, organization members told the School Board that its approval of the collective bargaining resolution shut out staff, and since then, communication has worsened between employees and APS’s top leaders.
“The collective bargaining resolution that passed in May does not create a fair process,” Arlington Career Center employee Javonnia Hill said at the School Board meeting on Oct. 13. “It is not what you thought it would be.”
As of now, only school administrators have chosen a bargaining unit and elected a representative. Two other employee groups are taking more time to review the resolution language. In the interim, AEA members report not being able to raise concerns directly with Superintendent Francisco Durán and his deputies.
June Prakash, AEA’s new president, said she was prevented from discussing “troubling trends and concerns” with leadership last month because employee groups are still choosing representative bargaining units. She said APS told her that staff should be going to their supervisors or Human Resources instead.
That is not the process AEA members are accustomed to, according to teacher Josh Folb.
“For AEA members, bringing concerns to their union president, who gathers that list to calmly discuss those concerns with the superintendent’s cabinet was the way that we would resolve employee concerns,” Folb said during the meeting. “It prevented the airing of dirty laundry in the public forum.”
He asked the School Board about the appropriate forum to discuss a substitute shortage at the high school level — one so acute that teachers are asked to use their planning periods to teach other courses.
Prakash, who took the helm after AEA’s executive board was ousted following two years of financial difficulties and a drop in membership, said she turned to the Board’s public comment period because of the walls APS put up.
“Did you know our bus drivers, who are required to wear a uniform, are rationed two T-shirts for a five-day work week? Did you know that summer school staff didn’t have keys to the classrooms they were in, leaving our students vulnerable in the event of a lockdown?” she asked. “I look forward to sharing so much more in the coming years. I will not be deterred… I will not fail our members, employees or students.”
APS counters that the collective bargaining resolution was forged with ample feedback, that employees need to move forward with standing up bargaining units, and that employees should discuss concerns with supervisors or Human Resources.
“APS remains committed to working with the Arlington Education Association. AEA continues to voice concerns over the collective bargaining resolution wherein APS met on numerous occasions with AEA and the Virginia Education Association (VEA) to discuss concerns that were brought forth from the associations prior to the final resolution being passed in May 2022,” APS spokesman Frank Bellavia said. “More than half of the requests from AEA/VEA were implemented into the approved resolution.”
Longtime teacher Danielle Anctil told the School Board that its vote in the spring has effectively shut employees out.
Arlington Public Schools headquarters lobby (staff photo)
There are rising regrets about the extended closure of public schools as a result of Covid, the Associated Press reports.
A lengthy article published by the newswire this morning discusses the wide-ranging impacts of pandemic-era learning loss and the inefficacy of “Zoom school.”
From the AP:
But her daughter became depressed and stopped doing school work or paying attention to online classes. The former honor-roll student failed nearly all of her eighth grade courses.
“She’s behind,” said Kargbo, whose daughter is now in tenth grade. “It didn’t work at all. Knowing what I know now, I would say they should have put them in school.”
Preliminary test scores around the country confirm what Kargbo witnessed: The longer many students studied remotely, the less they learned. Some educators and parents are questioning decisions in cities from Boston to Chicago to Los Angeles to remain online long after clear evidence emerged that schools weren’t COVID-19 super-spreaders — and months after life-saving adult vaccines became widely available.
There are fears for the futures of students who don’t catch up. They run the risk of never learning to read, long a precursor for dropping out of school. They might never master simple algebra, putting science and tech fields out of reach. The pandemic decline in college attendance could continue to accelerate, crippling the U.S. economy.
Arlington Public Schools closed in March 2020 at the outset of the pandemic and did not start to reopen, on a two-day-a-week hybrid basis, until March 2021 when mandated by the state and Gov. Ralph Northam (D). During that time, dueling Arlington parent groups formed to alternately push for and urge caution about a return to classrooms.
Most Arlington private schools resumed some degree of in-person learning in the fall of 2020. The Sun Gazette reported this week that APS enrollment is still below pre-pandemic levels; many public schools in the wealthier parts of northern Arlington in particular saw enrollment drop as parents sent students to private schools.
While APS opened classrooms sooner than many school districts in California, for instance, it took awhile to even get most students back in classrooms part time, with the School Board pushing the superintendent later in March 2021 to accelerate the return.
APS finally reverted back to full-time, in-person learning in the fall of 2021 and stuck with it through the Omicron surge that winter. A small minority of students and parents opted for a new full-time virtual learning option, which ended up being beset by problems.
Given what we know now about the health impacts of Covid and about pandemic-era learning loss, do you think — with the benefit of hindsight — APS should have resumed in-person school sooner than it did?
The Board made its move after the Virginia legislature allowed municipalities to install them in these locations in 2020.
But the Arlington County Police Department is still working on finding a vendor to implement the cameras, says Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Katie O’Brien.
“ACPD is in the process of launching a procurement for a vendor, which is estimated to wrap up in spring 2023,” she tells ARLnow.
Once a vendor is chosen, the pace toward implementation could speed up. O’Brien says the county will have a better idea of where the cameras will go and when they’ll be installed “once vendor procurement is complete.”
The same is true for community updates.
“We will begin further community outreach and education once we are closer to procuring a vendor and beginning implementation, which will likely be in spring 2023,” she said.
Camera locations have not yet been chosen, said O’Brien. But Arlington schools have been close to a number of notable crashes, including a fatal crash involving a motorcyclist in front of Drew Elementary School, a fatal crash involving a pedestrian and a driver near Nottingham Elementary School, a fatal pedestrian crash near Thomas Jefferson Middle School, and a less serious crash involving a cyclist near Kenmore Middle School.
Locations will be chosen based on guidelines that DES has worked on with a consultant. That effort, funded by a Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments grant, is wrapping up, O’Brien said.
“The County (ACPD, APS, and DES) will then collaborate to refine and finalize specifications and guidelines, using the information from the grant project combined with local needs and knowledge,” she said.
Future progress, such as approving the vendor or camera locations, won’t need County Board approval, O’Brien said.
Once installed, cameras will identify and ticket speeding vehicles using radar, and police officers review footage to confirm the speeding violations. Tickets will be issued by mail to drivers traveling at least 10 mph over the speed limit, per state law.
The tickets will cost $50 and won’t result in a points reduction on your driver’s license or impact insurance rates.
“Speed camera fines are intended to encourage people to drive the speed limit,” the county says. “Fines do not generate revenue for police or transportation programs. Rather, fines issued will be distributed to the County’s General Fund. Therefore, there is no incentive to use speed cameras to fund department budgets.”
Community engagement is not set to begin until spring 2023. Previous outreach conducted as part of Arlington’s Vision Zero initiative, which reached more than 1,000 community members, indicated support for the cameras, according to the county.
Likewise, some supported speed cameras during online forums facilitated by Arlington’s Police Practices Work Group, as a way to reduce race- and ethnicity-based disparities in traffic enforcement.
Innovation Elementary School fifth-graders make solar ovens outside (via APS/Twitter)
A few hundred parents say Arlington Public Schools should prioritize recreating pre-Covid normalcy in the classroom and evaluating the use of electronic devices.
Since schools reopened, APE has evolved into a School Board watchdog group, with priorities such as reversing pandemic-era learning loss. The group says the survey will inform what APE should advocate for, in addition to ending Covid protocols. The priorities don’t surprise School Board candidates and other education advocacy groups, but some groups say the survey does not speak for the parents they represent.
The survey netted a few hundred responses, about 70% of which reside in North Arlington and a little under 30% in South Arlington, with some respondents living outside the county. Most have elementary-aged children, followed by children in middle and high school. Some also indicated they had children in area private schools, which saw an influx in public school families when they returned for in-person school before APS.
“We recently surveyed hundreds of our parents to see how their students are doing in a post-pandemic world at APS and what they want APS and APE to focus on,” APE said in a statement. “Overwhelmingly, parents want a return to normalcy for their students — full resumption of field trips, in-person orientations, back-to-school events and other parental involvement opportunities in all APS buildings.”
“This also means returning to the pre-pandemic golden rule applicable to any illness: if you’re sick, stay home,” the group added.
APS is, in fact, returning to pre-Covid procedures for field trips and events, APS spokesman Frank Bellavia said.
Masks became optional as of March 1, but students, visitors and teachers have some Covid protocols to follow.
Those with Covid-like symptoms must present a negative test or alternative diagnosis from a medical provider or isolate at home for five days before returning to class. Meanwhile, volunteers, like APS employees, must have proof of vaccination or undergo weekly testing to volunteer, Bellavia said.
For APE, that’s not normal. But for Smart Restart APS, a parent group that started to push for protocols such as outdoor lunch and improved ventilation, said there is no return to life pre-2020.
“Smart Restart APS believes we are living in a new reality, and APS should continue to have appropriate, common-sense measures to adapt to living in this new reality, one which includes the ever-present possibility of COVID-19 infection spreading through our schools,” the group said in a statement. “We have to adapt — not ignore — the new situation.”
The spread of Covid still impacts families, whether a parent misses work or a child brings home Covid to a high-risk family member, the group continued.
“Everyone has a right to access a safe and healthy school environment,” the Smart Restart statement said. “COVID-19 in the air should not be a part of that.”
Students walked out of Washington-Liberty High School on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022 to protest new state education guidelines regarding transgender students (staff photo)
Students walked out of Washington-Liberty High School on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022 to protest new state education guidelines regarding transgender students (staff photo)
A transgender Washington-Liberty High School student addresses his peers during a walkout on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022 protesting new state education guidelines regarding transgender students (staff photo)
Groups of Arlington Public Schools students walked out today (Tuesday) to protest model policies the Commonwealth says local school boards should adopt regarding the treatment of transgender children.
Released last week, the draft policies from the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), among other things, direct schools only to affirm a transgender student’s identity if parents request it. The document is perceived as a rebuttal to last year’s Democratic-led policies, which advised schools to affirm the child’s gender expression regardless of their family’s support.
In less than a week, a student-led LGBTQIA+ advocacy organization in Virginia mobilized kids across the state to protest the proposed revisions. The group said these changes would allow students and teachers to misgender transgender students while forcing those students to use restrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.
In Arlington, walkouts were scheduled at Wakefield and Washington-Liberty high schools, the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program, and Thomas Jefferson and Kenmore middle schools, according to the student group, Pride Liberation Project.
A few dozen W-L teens gathered this morning in nearby Quincy Park (1021 N. Quincy Street), and some — including a few transgender students — made speeches and spoke to the media. The walkout was not school-sponsored, per an email to W-L parents.
“It’s just so bad. I don’t understand why [Gov. Glenn Youngkin] wants to bully these kids, including myself, I don’t see what’s so scary about using the name Matteo, using he/him pronouns, and why that threatens him so much, but it’s really sad that it does,” W-L junior Matteo Hope, a transgender boy, told ARLnow.
Mars Cirtain, a W-L junior, said politicians and family members cannot override how transgender students choose to express themselves.
“For a parent to tell a child that they are not the person they identify as is the same as their parents telling them, ‘You are not the person I raised you to be,'” Cirtain said. “It’s not about what your parents think you are, and it’s not about what your family thinks you can be. It’s about who you are and you get to decide that for yourself, not Gov. Youngkin, or your parents.”
Under the draft, teachers could not be compelled to use a student’s preferred pronouns, and students would use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth. Schools would only accommodate students who identify as transgender at the written request of their parents. The document says these changes respect parents’ rights and beliefs and reverse Democrats’ attempts to “promot[e] a specific viewpoint aimed at achieving cultural and social transformation in schools.”
Waltz Fellone, W-L senior and a school organizer for Pride Liberation Project, told participants that Youngkin’s policies were “cruel and evil.”
“All of you have made a difference,” they said. “I know it may not feel like it because we are just a small school in Arlington. We might not even be affected by this, but it still means a lot.”
Generally, the W-L students in attendance expressed optimism that Arlington Public Schools would continue to affirm transgender students’ right to self-expression, with support from residents of Arlington, which runs deep blue. W-L junior Sophia Braier said she has “several” friends who would be affected by this decision if they lived in more conservative, rural areas.
“Beyond just protecting people here, we’re doing it to garner attention all over Virginia,” Braier said.
The walkout drew a large crowd at Wakefield this morning, according to Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-49), who posted about it on social media.
APS and neighbor Fairfax County Public Schools are adhering to their current policies while they review the updates, ARLnow previously reported. FCPS students also held walkouts at a number of schools today.
Yesterday (Monday) marked the start of a 30-day public comment period in which people can respond to the policies and potentially change VDOE’s approach. APS says it is currently reviewing the draft policies and would not take action until it has reviewed the final document.
