Arlington Public Schools (APS), like many school divisions, has had a substantial decline in enrollment since the pandemic began. But APS has not yet factored this into its estimates of future enrollment.
Enrollment projections are used for the APS budget, its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), and boundary decisions. Because overestimating enrollment has significant financial implications, APS should base its next enrollment projections in part on actual enrollment for this year and last year.
“A backward situation.” That’s how Arlington School Board Chair Barbara Kanninen described the planning process for the expansion of the Career Center during the Board’s Sept. 21 work session on the upcoming Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).
What’s backward is staff’s proposed timeline that has the School Board voting in October to set a budget and the number of seats for the Career Center project. Instead, these decisions should not be made until the School Board votes on its next CIP in June.
The Virginia Department of Education has released the results of the 2020-21 Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. It is no surprise that pass rates for Arlington Public Schools (APS) students have declined significantly and gaps in student achievement between different groups have increased. These test results are consistent with trends in Virginia and nationwide.
In a recent APS press release, Superintendent Francisco Duran stated that the results show “where we need to focus our attention.”
In recent months, parents across the country have disrupted school board meetings and threatened school board members.
The issues drawing the ire of parents include wearing masks, school reopening, transgender student policies, and critical race theory.
Ed Talk is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
Tonight, the Arlington School Board is likely to vote to remove School Resource Officers (SROs) as a daily presence in schools.
Ed Talk is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
On April 12, the Arlington School Board presented its nearly $700 million proposed FY 2022 budget to the Arlington County Board. The proposed budget includes a deficit of $14.9 million.
Ed Talk is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
Arlington Public Schools (APS) has opened for hybrid learning for students from pre-kindergarten through 12 grade whose families have chosen that option, one year after it closed its doors due to the pandemic.
The political divide in the United States in the wake of the 2020 presidential election is palpable. In a recent Pew Research poll, 90% of Biden supporters and 89% of Trump supporters said that the election of the other candidate would lead to lasting harm to the country.
For the next generation of leaders to find common ground and advance solutions to pressing national issues, we must teach students how to engage in civil dialogue.
School divisions and local governments in the region and across the country are providing child care while students are learning online.
These programs recognize that many parents cannot work from home and that low-income students in particular benefit from the adult supervision, help with technology, and food provided.
As the school year begins online for students across the country, parents face the challenge of supporting the educational needs of their children while working at their own jobs.
This challenge is real for all working parents. But the opportunities that parents have to meet their children’s needs vary greatly depending on socio-economic status.
Last week, as our nation celebrated Independence Day, protests continued across America for racial equity and justice. The dissonance between the promise of the Declaration of Independence — that all are created equal with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — and the failure to live up to that promise, has a long history.
In a speech on July 5, 1852, abolitionist Frederick Douglass praised the founding fathers. He also laid bare the simple truth that slaves, as well as free Black people like him, did not have the rights that the framers declared, saying:
