July 11, 2002
In its last meeting of the year, the Alexandria School Board elected a chairman and vice chairman, dealt with some old business and set the calendar for the upcoming school year.
Mark Eaton will remain the Board's chairman, and Susan Johnson will remain the vice chair, despite a challenge from Board member Mark Wilkoff. Johnson was re-elected on a 5-4 vote.
The Board did not adopt a policy on placing the national motto, "In God We Trust," in all school facilities. "This is a matter of state law, so I have already ordered it to be placed in the buildings," said Superintendent Rebecca Perry. "If the Board does not adopt a policy, not placing the motto in buildings would not be a violation of Board policy, but it would still be a violation of state law."
Eaton was unable to get a member of the Board to make a motion to adopt the policy. "Having no motion, we cannot adopt the policy," he said.
Perry asked if the Board was telling her to violate state law. "That is not what we are saying," Eaton said. "What we are saying is that no member of the Board is willing to move adoption of this policy at this time."
Dr. Sally Ann Baynard had a comment. "I do think that it is important to note that ‘conspicuous’ has never been legally defined here," she said.
THE BOARD also discussed the matter of secondary expansion. The Secondary Expansion Steering Committee will meet on Aug. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the library at Minnie Howard.
"The goal, I believe, is for this group to come to some consensus on what option they prefer," Eaton said.
Dr. Stephen Kenealy suggested that it was important for the committee to share this consensus with the Board before the public hearing in September and before the Board meets with City Council. "Otherwise, you have this consensus just sitting out there, not having been discussed by the Board," he said.
Eaton said that the Steering Committee recommendation would be discussed at the Board's retreat. "We will have an opportunity to discuss this at our retreat," he said. That retreat will be held at the end of August, just before the start of school.
Kenealy was also concerned about disseminating the information to the public. "It is very important that we get the information out into the community as to what these options are so that they can discuss them on Sept. 19," he said.
TRIENNIAL CENSUS forms are also in Alexandria households by now. These forms help the schools and the state to collect data on the number of children living in a given jurisdiction. The forms are used to calculate the sales tax revenue that school districts receive from the state.
"It is very important for people to complete these forms and return them," Eaton said. "I hope that everyone understands their importance and will get them back to us."
Barbara Hunter, the director of communications for the public school system, explained. "We have information on the children who attend our schools, but we also need information about those children who are in private school," she said. "The census form is a way for us to verify the data that we have and to update the information that we need on children who are not attending public schools."
Forms have been mailed to every household in Alexandria and are available on the school Web site at WWW.acps.k12.va.us.
CONSTRUCTION AT George Washington Middle School is moving ahead. V. Rodger Digilio, the chairman of the facilities committee, gave a report.
"The pad for the new tennis court is in place, dirt is being moved for the new athletic fields, work for the foundations for the sixth-grade house and the other buildings is well on its way," he said. "There is a lot of work to be done before the students return to school, but if the weather holds, we should be in very good shape. I am very pleased that we are returning this school to its previous condition and enhancing it."
Construction is slated to be completed by the fall of 2003.
Cora Kelly School for Math Technology and Science has a new principal. He is Darren Reed. He was selected from a large pool of applicants by a committee of parents, teachers and administrators. He is currently an associate principal at Silverbrook Elementary School in Fairfax County, a position that he has held for the past three years. Before that, he worked as a teacher in grades three, five, six and eight in the Newport News public school system.
Reed received his bachelor's degree in education from Hiram College in Ohio and his master's in education from William and Mary.