Alexandria City Public Schools Board Meeting

Alexandria City Public Schools Board Meeting

Childhood obesity was requested to be among the top priorities of the Fiscal Year 2012 budget spending. Members of the community kept repeating the importance of preventing and decreasing obesity among children. The childhood obesity solutions suggested better funding of the school cafeterias which means installation of snack machines with healthy snacks excluding sodas and chips, and hourly increase in Physical Education classes for middle and high school students.

Thursday, September 23, 2010 Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) Meeting was the first of many opportunities for members of the community to ask Board members and Superintendent Morton Sherman to consider their requests for the FY 2012 budget. The FY 2012 budget is currently under development and will be presented to the Board in January 2011.

“Running, the answer is running,” said Garry Car, representative of George Washington middle school Parent-Teacher Association. Car asked the Board members to build new running tracks for the GW middle school to fight children obesity. “Children need a place to run safely,” said Mr. Car.

Inspired by the ideas of her father, 9-year-old Lesley Car wrote a song “I want to run” which she sang in front of the Board. Applause and approving nodding followed her mini-performance.

“Capacity, capacity, capacity,” announced her main request Kerry Sullivan, the president of George Mason Parent-Teacher Association. Concerned about increased enrollment for 2010-2011 school year, Sullivan asked the Board to consider capacity of George Mason Elementary School. Sullivan said the school was never designed to have as many as 400 students. This year, the enrolment reached 439 students. As a result of an excessive number of students the access to cafeteria and the only hall bathroom is complicated. “Please, do not create another struggling school by adding more students to George Mason,” said Sullivan.

Among other requests from the members of the Alexandria community were new playgrounds and increase in funding for school field trips. While the members of the community handed in their written requests and implementation plans, the ACPS Board promised to review the requests before the November 2010 meeting where the spending of the FY 2012 budget will be forecast.

After the public hearing of the requests from the community members for the FY 2012 school budget, followed the hearing on the start of 2010-2011 school year. Morton Sherman, Superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools, reported on work done over the summer period. Mr. Morton presented a Power Point presentation featuring painted schools, renewed stairways and floors, installed new air conditioning systems and lighting in ACPS. As a major work done over the summer, solar panels were set up on the side of Patrick Henry Elementary School.

The total teacher hires for 2010-2011 school year are 236 people, the majority are white females with bachelor`s degrees, announced Stephen M. Wilkins, Executive Director for Human Resources. A follow-on report covering recruiting analysis will be provided to the committee in the upcoming weeks.

Staffing updates for Alexandria secondary school showed that three schools have 8% higher enrollment than last year. The report given by Dr. Margee Walsh, Executive Director of Elementary and Secondary Programs indicates that the increase in enrollment in George Washington First (1) Middle School and George Washington Second (2) Middle School as well as T.C. Williams High School might lead to hires of new teachers and addition of classes such as Math, Physical Education, and Science and Social Studies. The final decision on class additions and hires of teachers will be made the following week.

Yet the FY 2012 budget is to be developed, the ACPS Board will have time to listen to the requests from the community members every first and last Thursday of the month. The final FY 2012 Budget Presentation will be held on January 13, 2011.