Arlington School Board Asks Superintendent for More Aggressive Return Plan arlnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from arlnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
March 16, 2021 at 3:55pm
For the past year, Arlington Public Schools students have been learning from home to varying degrees of success.
As of this morning (Tuesday), all grade levels have access to two days a week of in-person instruction. Some have struggled during remote learning as is evidenced by dropping GPAs and rising rates of students failing classes. But others, according to APS officials, are excelling.
“We know right now that some students are really thriving in this virtual environment so we want to be able to keep that option open to those students,” said Sarah Putnam, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for APS, during a virtual open house last month.
Return to School, Inequity Top of Mind for Arlington School Board Hopefuls arlnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from arlnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
January 21, 2021 at 10:40am
School Board Chair Monique O’Grady will not be seeking reelection after her term ends this December, according to an announcement on her website.
The chair said on Sunday that she will work for a better future for all students through her term, which ends on Dec. 31, 2021. In her announcement, she said she wrote “with a heavy heart” after “much thought, consultation with my family, and careful consideration.” She declined to comment for this story.
O’Grady joined the School Board in 2018 and became chair in July 2020. She said she needs to spend her last six months as chair and her last year on the board working to reopen schools.
But there are some hiccups.
âThereâs a lot of pieces involved,â said county elections chief Gretchen Reinemeyer, who aims to convene a summit of involved parties â county staff, Virginia Department of Elections, equipment vendors â early in the new year to âhash out all the details.â
At the request of Del. Patrick Hope (D-Arlington), the General Assembly earlier this year voted to allow Arlington to serve as an instant-runoff guinea pig before other localities have the option to implement it a year from now.
The instant-runoff process already is in use when the Arlington County Democratic Committee selects its nominees for local office through a caucus, though not in state-run primaries. When filling out ballots, voters are allowed (but not required) to rank candidates in order of preference; should no candidate receive 50 percent of the vote on the first ballot, the lowest scoring candidate is eliminated, and his/her votes are reallocated based