The Del Ray
Education Committee will hold its annual State of the Schools meeting
on Monday, February 13. It will offer prospective and current Del Ray
parents to meet the local prinicipals and PTAs, and will feature
comments from Assistant Superintendant Cathy David.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
January 22nd Family Festival and Krupika Campaign Kickoff
January 22, 2006: Krupicka City Council Campaign Kick-Off and Family Festival, featuring moon bounces, food, live music, games for kids, and more. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Mount Vernon Recreation Center, 2701 Commonwealth Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22301. For more information, call Amy Beal at (703) 549-0187.
In his first term on City Council, Krupicka has strongly supported policies and decisions that make Alexandria a great place to raise a family, with an emphasis on quality public schools and increased access to preschool. Among his goals are creating and maintaining safe, walk-able, appealing neighborhoods for a mix of income levels, promoting long-term, creative solutions to regional transportation challenges and ensuring Alexandria is a city of opportunity for everybody. His campaign will highlight the work he has done to make this happen in Alexandria, while also supporting small businesses, the arts and the environment, stressing fiscal responsibility, and pushing for a more efficient, approachable and accountable government.
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Monday, January 09, 2006
Mt. Vernon Open Enrollment Proposal
To Del Ray Education Committee members: attached is a copy of the Mount Vernon PTA's suggestions for how the city should handle open enrollment -- allowing any student from the city a chance to attend Mount Vernon.
> Hey all - here is the draft position on Open Enrollment at MVCS that
> PTA President Peter Heimberg put together. Get any questions, comments
> or suggestions to him:
> heimberg1@netzero.com
> He wants to get the formal statement to Supt. Perry by Dec. 7
> Spanish translation coming.
> Discussion of this issue can be found on the MVCS yahoo web site.
> To join:
> go to www.yahoo.com
> click on Groups
> Search for MVCS PTA
> Click Join This Group Now
> To view PTA Minutes (thanks to Secy Marianne Bailey). Click on FILES
> on the left side of the screen. Scroll down to the PTA Minutes folder.
> Open the folder. Click on the Nov. 9 meeting.
> *_
>
> PTA Position on Open Enrollment at Mt. Vernon Community School
>
> _*
>
> DRAFT2/ PCH 12/1/2005
>
> The Mount Vernon Community School PTA recognizes the benefits that open enrollment would bring to children within the school district at large and to MVCS itself and therefore supports the superintendent’s effort to implement it for the 2006-2007 academic year. The PTA also feels strongly, however, that certain guidelines, many of which are in alignment with the stated views of the superintendent’s office, should be adhered to during this process.
>
> First, families within the MVCS zone should always be guaranteed enrollment in the school. Families outside the zone would then participate in a lottery to fill the excess capacity of the school as determined by the Superintendent’s office and the MVCS principal. The fact that MVCS has almost 70% title-1 students and that more than half of the students are learning English as a second language should temper the estimates of available capacity since these demographic groups require more than the average amount of individualized teaching.
>
> Second, families within the zone should be given priority access to the dual language program when demand for the program exceeds its classroom capacity. This should be accomplished through a lottery open only to zone residents. Should there be additional capacity after zone resident requests have been met, a lottery should be used to place those students from outside the zone.
>
> Although unwritten, it has been the policy of MVCS to automatically accept siblings of dual language students into the dual language program. This enhances the dual language experience for the students as they are able to interact in the second language at home as well as in school. Some families came to MVCS with the understanding that this would be the case. Therefore, the "sibling rule" should be kept in place and, in fact, should become written policy at MVCS. The sibling rule should also apply to families outside the zone when one child has gotten into the program during a year when additional capacity was available.
>
> Eventually expanding the dual language program by adding a classroom to accommodate more students should be done only in concert with expanding the traditional program. Maintaining MVCS as a school which truly services the needs of the /community/ is a high priority and we recognize that a dual-language program is not for everybody.
>
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Sunday, January 08, 2006
Testing
Testing
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Some jots from an education/journalism panel today in Washington DC
Hello listservers --
I've been attending a series of seminars on early childhood education (as
part of a journalism fellowship I'm participating in) and it just struck me
that several people on these listservs might be interested in a couple of
insights that have emerged. I'm biased, of course, but I can't help but
think that these points reflect well on our public schools:
1) Student/teacher ratios: An elementary principal from Seattle, the New
School of South Shore, was part of a panel of exemplary public schools. His
school, which is new and funded partly with foundation money, has ratios of
17 children per classroom teacher. And in kindergarten classrooms, he touted
that he has two adults for that many children. These are ratios that many
envy and that seem impossible to achieve in many schools. But here in
Alexandria, some schools have similar ratios and all kindergarten classrooms
have two adults. At Jefferson-Houston last year, some regular classes were
made up of 14 students each -- giving children an enormous amount of
individualized attention.
2) Social workers: An elementary principal at a charter school in Boston
talked about having a part-time social worker dedicated to his school -- and
how that was an anomaly because so many schools have to share social workers
among several schools. But here in Alexandria, I know of several schools
(like JHAA, and I believe Maury too, and in fact maybe this is the case for
all of them?) that have full-time social workers that work closely with
teachers and principals every week.
3) Preschool and/or pre-K outreach: This is the big topic that is being
discussed at this seminar, and several schools were on display to talk about
how they integrate pre-K with their programs, often with pre-K classrooms
being part of their school facilities. At Jefferson-Houston, pre-K has been
part of the picture for a while. There is a preK program in the building,
though it serves mostly special ed kids at the moment. Mrs. Shupe, the new
JHAA principal, and ACPS superintendent Becky Perry have talked about
expanding and deepening the pre-K commitment at JHAA -- a concept that makes
a lot of sense to parents and community members involved there.
Anyway, I just thought I'd throw this out there as fodder for thought, and
perhaps as a way to keep up and continue discussion about how best to spread
the word about the strengths of ACPS while still acknowledging its needs.
Thanks,
Lisa Krupicka
P.S. If anyone's interested, the seminar series is part of the University of
Maryland's journalism fellowship program in child and family policy.
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Sunday, December 04, 2005
Mt. Vernon PTA Meeting, 12/5
Agenda for 12/5 PTA meeting:
Teaching Excellence Award (Ruth Brannigan)
Overview of PTA position on open enrollment - see attachment (Peter)
Principal's Report
Announcements - Prepare for the MVCS PTA Holiday Cookie Exchange! Bake
an extra dozen (or buy one!) and bring them to school on Tuesday, Dec.
20. PTA Volunteers (yes that's you) will divide the cookies/ treats into
festive bags - one for every single member of the MVCS staff, from
teachers to our hard-working maintenance man - and deliver them on the
last day of school, Wed., Dec. 21. Bring your kids to the PTA meeting
Monday to decorate the bags!
Holiday Coffee
We will have simultaneous translation and childcare
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The
Del Ray Education Committee offers information about the fine public schools that serve Del Ray. For more information, or to join
the committee, please e-mail Brian Reid at breid@nasw.org.
"Our
Schools," frequently asked questions about Del Ray Schools
(PDF)
"Our Schools," in Spanish (coming soon)
"Why Go Public": The top reasons to consider Alexandria public schools
(coming soon)
The
public schools that serve our neighborhood:
* Mount Vernon Community School
*
Jefferson-Houston Elementary
* Cora Kelly
Elementary
* Lyles-Crouch
Elementary
* Minnie Howard
9th Grade Center
* George
Washington Middle School
* T. C. Williams
High School
Details
on attendance areas |