To the Editor:
Alexandria City Public Schools’ (ACPS) pending betrayal of its students and parents: ACPS is planning on redistricting to deal with the ACPS and the City Council's poor management of the schools and failure to get developers to contribute fairly to building new schools for building their new housing units. In mid-May it will vote on limiting grandfathering to those in fourth and fifth grades, and their siblings and younger students will be discriminated against.
Many students and families at Alexandria City's highest performing schools like Lyles Crouch in Old Town, Maury in Del Ray and Cora Kelly in Del Ray are greatly invested in their schools, even moving to these districts to walk to or attend these schools, opting into them. So when many who moved into the districts for the schools are told: sorry your kids won't be able to go there — a hardship is created — how can they find equivalence to the schools they invested in? Particularly for Lyles Crouch whose core knowledge program is unique in ACPS (and in the state) and in combination with its great teachers, character counts program, uniforms and the excellent leadership of Dr. Zissios, there is no equivalence in ACPS.
Rather than voting on limiting grandfathering to 4th and 5th grades now, to be fair, they should be polling parents on who wants to stay at their school and wait until the planned 700 new seats are brought in before creating unnecessary hardships. To be fair, they should grandfather children already in the schools and their siblings and kids in preschool in that district, as they are likely to be families who are invested in these schools and opted in or moved to the district to be in that particular school. Then limit grandfathering, but don't create hardships for parents and students unnecessarily because of the mismanagement of the schools by the City Council and ACPS.
Chris Hubbard
Alexandria