Monday, May 20, 2013
The lights, the glamour, the Kennedy Center...
They built sets, sang and danced and moved audiences with their performances. A number of local high school theater students have been nominated in the 14th Annual Cappies Gala awards at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on June 9. The Cappies (the Critics and Awards program) program preps high school theatre and journalism students in the world of theater by publishing their reviews with publications like The Washington Post. At the end of the year, the student critics vote for 200 student winners with 35 awards that are presented at the Gala. The Nominees "Hairspray" at Robinson Secondary School "Singin' in the Rain" at Hayfield Secondary School "THE Music Man" at South County High School Are you following us on …
Friday, May 17, 2013
Fairfax County School Board will hold listening sessions next week to help develop a strategic plan for digital learning.
Teachers, students and parents in Fairfax County didn't have the smoothest experience with digital learning in 2012-2013. As Fairfax County Public Schools rolled out a new online math program in Fall 2012, students and teachers complained they had difficulty navigating the books, saying there were publisher errors and inconsistencies, technology roadblocks and student difficulty in accessing the information, among other complaints, like a lack of teacher buy-in to the program. They said the program, instead of advancing learning and achievement, was pushing it back, calling the $10.4 million initiative "a big disaster" with no clear solution. The short-term solution was to re-negotiate contracts to get some hard copy books back in the …
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Teacher pay and foreign language cutbacks are also concerns as Fairfax County School Board looks for another $30 million in reductions for next year's budget.
If push came to shove, Jane Lipp would give her right kidney to keep an instructional coach at her school. The principal of South County High School, which has a 49 percent minority population, said that's the kind of sacrifice she'd make, drama aside, to keep a position that's been 'instrumental" in helping her teachers push the school's diverse student body to succeed. More than a dozen of the 40 speakers who addressed the school board Tuesday night in a public hearing about Fairfax County Public Schools' budget spoke about the role coaches play in the day to day lives of teachers and students, including their help toward narrowing student achievement gaps. The public hearing comes as the school board prepares to adopt a $2.5 billion …
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Officials say no funding for consultant as school board members say there is a "facilities crisis and a capacity crisis."
The Fairfax County School Board decided Monday to postpone re-evaluating how to determine the order in which county schools are renovated. Heeding the recommendation of the county’s Facilities Planning Advisory Council, Board members agreed they need more time to discuss the matter to implement any real changes. The board develops its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) every five years, which includes new schools, renovations, capacity enhancements, additions and infrastructure management. Schools currently receive improvements in the order in which they're ranked on the system's renovation queue, driven by a list of weighted criteria ranging from how the buildings serve "Fundamental Educational Requirements (FER)," to their age and physical …
Monday, May 13, 2013
Some school board members say "disconnect," mistrust still exists between principals, parents.
As the Fairfax County School Board prepares to vote on another round of changes in a years-long push for reform of its discipline policies, board members are struggling to find common ground on when parents should be notified if their child could be suspended or expelled. Fairfax County Public Schools staff returned to the school board Monday with a number of proposed changes to the Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, some of them based on a list of 52 recommendations to overhaul discipline practices systemwide a community committee put forth earlier this spring. See all proposed changes here. But parental notification — an issue on which there has been little agreement since the push for reform began following the suicide of two…
Superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools had surgery for an aortic aneurysm May 7.
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale was released from the hospital Sunday after emergency heart surgery May 7. FCPS spokesman John Torre told Patch in an email Monday that Dale had been released from the hospital to recover from surgery at home. Dale was taken to INOVA Fairfax Hospital on May 7 after telling coworkers he hadn’t been feeling well that day. He had surgery after suffering an aortic aneurysm that night. Torre said Dale was expected to return to work sometime in early June. “He is making progress and is not expected to return to work until early June on a part time basis,” he wrote in his email. Dale is planning to retire this summer. Deputy Superintendent Richard Moniuszko is managing superintendent duties …
Hundreds of students will be shifted to different school attendance pyramids after Thursday night's vote by the FCPS board.
The Fairfax County School Board voted Thursday evening to approve adjustments to school attendance areas in an effort to alleviate overcrowding at Fairfax High School and Lanier Middle School in Fairfax City. Students in the Fairfax Station, Fairview Woods, and Fairfax Manor subdivisions of the Oak View Elementary School attendance area will move from Frost Middle and Woodson High schools to Robinson Secondary School, eliminating an attendance area "island" at the middle and high school levels and sending these students "to a much closer school," officials said. The boundary changes will be phased in beginning in the 2014-15 school year, with an option for families to move their rising seventh-grade students and rising ninth-grade …
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Dale underwent surgery for an aortic aneurism Tuesday evening.
Jack Dale, the outgoing Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent, underwent emergency heart surgery Tuesday evening after suffering an aortic aneurism. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Dale, 64, was conscious and resting at the intensive care unit of Fairfax Inova Hospital in Falls Church. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance Tuesday evening after telling coworkers he was feeling unwell, the Post reported. As of Wednesday afternoon, he was in stable condition. Hospital officials were unable to comment further on Dale’s condition Thursday afternoon. Dale is planning to retire this summer but it’s unclear whether he will return to his post after recovering from surgery. FCPS spokesman John Torre told Patch on …
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Students Natalie Pasquel and Connor Shaffer both took home awards.
South County High School students took home some accolades at the International DECA Competition. DECA prepares students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management, according to their website. The nonprofit’s annual conference took place last week in Anaheim, Calif. There were 41 Fairfax County students who were winners or finalists. Some of from Fairfax County Public Schools were: A complete list of FCPS winners is available online.
Rebecca Donlon died unexpectedly Monday.
Liberty Middle School is mourning the loss of eighth-grade civics teacher Rebecca Donlon, who died unexpectedly Monday. Donlon, an award-winning teacher, had also worked with Centreville High School students as a cheer coach and teacher cadet sponsor. "Mrs. Donlon was a wonderful and talented teacher who had the ability to make positive connections with each child in her class. She was loved and admired by her colleagues, parents and especially her students," Principal Catherine Cipperly wrote in a message to parents. "We were all privileged to know and work with her since her arrival at Liberty Middle School in 2006, and she will be greatly missed." In 2011, Donlon won the Virginia Historical Society's Brenton S. Halsey Teaching …
Sandra
3:44 pm on Friday, May 17, 2013
The online programs they support should be tailored to what teachers and students can use. The online math books were nothing more than regular texts that were scanned and put online. They were hard to use (especially if you needed to page back and forth to find topics), and they were not downloadable and pages could not be printed. That meant that students could only access their texts in … more ›