October 9, 2025 School Board Meeting
Meeting Open: Chair Bethany Zecher-Sutton opened the meeting, which was attended by Kathleen Clark, Miranda Turner, Mary Kadera with Zuraya Tapia-Hadley attending remotely for personal reasons.
Consent Agenda Unanimously Adopted
New hires highlighted who were unanimously approved
Approved Dominion Energy right of way agreement required for the installation and maintenance of electrical infrastructure for the Grace Hopper Center.
Announcements:
Upcoming Meetings:
October 15 - Policy Subcommittee Meeting 8:30am Board Conference Room
October 23 - Closed Meeting 5:30pm
October 23 - School Board Meeting 7:00pm
Complete the Advisory Board Committee Working Group survey through October 15. Feedback will help shape recommendations School Board will make in December. Changes will take place 26-27 School Year. See School Board Advisory Committee working group page on the APS website.
Board Member Announcements:
Kathleen Clark visited liaison schools - Kenmore, Taylor, Montessori. Meeting with rest of liasion schools in the coming week
Mary Kadera - Integration Station preparing for Halloween parade that will include Langston Community Center building. Campbell Elementary doing expeditionary learning projects
Zuraya Tapia-Hadley - on Round 2 of liaison school visits and now reaching out to PTA presidents of liaison schools. Nominations for George Mason’s Early Identification Program for students who will be the first to graduate from college in the US. Contact your school for more information.
Student Performance: Wakefield High-School Chamber Orchestra
Update on the litigation with the US Department of Education related to Title 9. Upheld Grimm case which gives student access to bathroom access matching gender identity. Currently appealing the District’s jurisdictional ruling we are asking the court to send the case back to the District to reverse high risk designation so funds are not jeopardized. Given urgent nature and irreparable harm potentially placed on our students and family, APS looks forward to ultimate removal of high risk designation.
Video on Readers Rise Program which connects to volunteer update for monitoring report. Program invites community volunteers to work in small groups with students. Initial schools include: Hoffman Boston, Long Branch and Barrett.
Arlington Community High School unveiling. Amazon Partnership co-locating high school with Amazon.
Thank you to volunteers and partners.
September 30 student count numbers in: 27,589 students in APS. Increase of 43 students in PreK. Decrease of 330 elementary students. Increase of 124 students for middle school and decrease of 148 students for high-school. PreK-12 enrollment decreased 311 students. APS reduced budgeted full-time employees by 17.52 positions with a cost savings of approximately $2 million.
Supporting Community affected by Government Shutdown. Families can apply for free or reduced price lunches any time. Extended Day team is working on solutions with families. Free virtual mental health sessions are available for all secondary students. APS holding virtual job fair for substitutes and instructional assistants Oct. 23 & Oct. 30. Additional County resources are also available.
Federal Impact Aid Survey is now open. Provides important funding by identifying military and federally connected families in Arlington.
Health Benefits Request for Proposal Timeline - RFP informed by staff input. Current Healthcare Benefits contract expires December 2026.
APS Safety & Emergency Management Week Oct 27 - Nov 1.
Concluded Fall 2025 visits. Talked to teachers, visited classrooms, talked with parents. Beginning substituting tomorrow teaching Spanish for the day.
Bright Spot: Interlude team at Campbell Elementary. Meet the need of students with challenges.
Questions?
Ms. Kadera - Interlude site also at Nottingham Elementary. Health care process - during open enrollment next fall one or more new providers will be offering plans to employees which will then go into effect in Jan 2027. Federal Impact Aid Survey - how much funding? Last year was $100,000 in federal revenue.
Ms. Turner - What standard was applied to classroom efforts with right-sizing? Team met daily to review and went case by case by school. Are we going to put in place a standard approach? Durán: yes a process will be put in place with a range.
Ms. Sutton - At a meeting for Western Interstate Compact for Higher Education. Predicting a decline in college in future years, aligns with APS numbers.
Ms. Kadera - Following Ms. Turner’s question on right-sizing. We didn’t hit what we had built out for right-sizing - up to $5M. Would like total soup to nuts estimates for next round of budgeting.
Ms. Kadera - Recruiting members for Early Childhood Working Group. Information will come out next week.
Public Comment:
APS Teacher - Employee health rate sheet showed 40% increase then a revised sheet when out. Need a chief humanity offer to prevent this heart-ache. Alternative paths to success - Langston program: those who go don’t regret it. APS needs to continue to support this life-changing program. CIP process - Board needs to make tough choices. Not more seats but HVAC that works. It’s 86 at W&L.
APS Parent - twice exceptional child. Speaking on the Interlude program. Before Interlude experience was isolating - had to pick him up from school early often. Interlude at Campbell has given him the supports he needs to regulate himself, socio-emotional support, counseling and communication with family has been great.
APS Parent - Alarmed about AI being used at school. Negative impact on critical thinking. Act of writing, editing has positive long-term impacts. Why is APS rolling out AI when there is negative data out there.
Hoffman Boston PTA president - HVAC and roofing project needs to proceed even with tightening budgets.
Hoffman Boston teacher - Work on phase one was supposed to begin last summer. This fall the AC stopped working. APS had no estimation when it would be fixed. Worried with CIP looming, project will not be completed.
Monitoring Item: Strategic Plan - Volunteers and Community Partnerships
Staff Contact: Catherine Ashby, Assistant Superintendent, School & Community Relations
Team has been restructured. Sharing progress towards Strategic Plan goal of strengthening student, family and community partnerships. Focus tonight is on community.
Created new policies and new legal agreements for partnership parties for consistency across schools and departments.
Did an inventory of all partnerships to learn what existed. Drafting new rubric to assess partnerships for efficacy.
Needs Assessment Survey - showed schools want partnerships but didn’t have resources or knowledge to create on their own. Nearly all showed interest in an adopt-a-school program, especially noting programs after the school day and low-income or non-English speaking students.
Currently 70 partnerships across 70% of APS schools. More than 4,000 volunteers have been approved since July.
Schoollinks online platform that can track partners who provide work-based learning opportunities and community service opportunities.
Readers Rise Pilot Launch: Pilot schools are Hoffman Boston, Barrett and Long Branch. More than 190 interested volunteers in 2 weeks. Onboarding volunteers now. Program launches October 21.
Opportunities:
Engage with Central Departments to assess partnerships that align with strategic plan
More robust matching system for volunteers to sign up for specific opportunities at schools
Adopt-s-School model for businesses and organizations
Donations Hub to streamline process for donations at schools
Questions:
Ms. Tapia-Hadley: Report recognizes two important issues. Inventory of existing partnerships and metrics. Clarifying classification system and ability to classify opportunities for volunteers.
Ms. Kadera: Glad to see program getting off the ground. 30% of schools said they don’t have robust volunteers and perhaps parents from other schools could volunteer at those schools. Especially when parents have specific expertise - would be great to see a system that could match those opportunities. For sustainability, has the working group looked at how sustainable volunteer issue needs to be? It’s a main barrier. What helps is having adopt-a-school because businesses and organization would return and be an anchored group for an entire school year.
Ms. Clark: Was a pleasure to sit in some of the preliminary meetings. Can you remind everyone how they can get involved and the steps to take to volunteer? Visit website and complete volunteer application, select schools, take safe schools training, get volunteer certificate.
Ms. Turner: Thank you for the robust presentation. With Readers Rise, I understand it was recommended by community members a few years ago. How can we take these kinds of ideas and implement them more quickly? Ms. Ashby, yes - Sheila Kelly suggested program and we connected with her before it launched. Question is who to go to? Now you can email partnerships@apsva.us and there is a procedure for evaluating ideas. Other ideas already include after school mentoring, Everybody Wins DC wants to expand to Arlington, building lots of momentum.
Ms. Turner: Workplace learning slides, what is the overlap between CTE in the office of academics? Where is it appropriately placed? Appropriate in Career and Technical Education. For student to get credit, they have to be enrolled in a CTE course. Ongoing partnership between community partnerships and CTE - we’ve now come together and have standard operating procedures. For example, we now don’t contact the same partner multiple times.
Ms. Kadera: Referring to presentation that covered all types of opportunities from job-shadowing to apprenticeships. Where is APS with apprenticeships and what support is needed from Board? Moving forward with apprenticeship. Put in a grant to work on apprenticeships in trades. Also working with Amazon. Teachers for Tomorrorw program also. Job shadowing is a great way to get a business in the door and then when students perform build to bigger opportunities.
Ms. Sutton: What happens with existing partnerships? Spoke with each principal - overall they want more support. Existing partnerships can continue and will now formalized and be tracked centrally. No interfering.
Ms. Sutton: Has there been engagement with PTAs and CCPTA? Gap that we need to address. We talk with PTAs but model has not be formally shared with them. Will schedule with CCPTA.
Ms. Sanders: What about when PTAs bring in outside businesses? Is there a vetting process? Background checks, etc? What is responsibility of PTA vs. APS? Can we provide guidance?
Action Item:
Ms. Sutton says there were small tweaks made to the budget. Everyone has read them. Clarifying questions? None. Motion to adopt FY 2027 Budget Direction. No comments. Summarizes process taken since July on budget.
Superintendent will propose budget in February and School Board proposed budget will be issued later in the spring. Motion passes 5-0.
Information Items:
2026 Legislative Package and Memo to the APS Chief of Staff presented bu Steven Marku
Annual process. In general, the School Board opposes legislation that imposes new unfunded mandates. The School Board supports streamlining requirements for state-mandated teaching training that relieves teacher burdens and opposes teacher training mandates while processes are ongoing. Supports development of content-area learning assessments in native languages. Working at the state level to accurately set the state budget levels for the county. Supports increased funding to help reduce chronic absenteeism, more social workers, reducing bullying and support Students with limited or Interrupted Formal Education. Opposes diversion of funds to non-public schools. Supports backstopping federal funding cuts. Supports reducing barriers to licensure and admission to higher education teacher training programs. Supports increasing evidence-based incentives for potential teacher candidates to enter or re-enter profession. Supports application of licensure reciprocity for endorsements to a teaching license. Supports policies and practices that protect individual rights on gender expression or identity. Supports legislation of safe gun storage. Opposes schools being required to audit libraries.
Ms. Sutton: Could you please take us through how a bill becomes a law at the state level? Mr. Marku explains process.
Ms. Turner: Thank you for tracking legislative positions and prioritizing positions.
Ms. Tapia-Hadley: In reference to gun safety, this follows the APS memo combating gun violence. Thank you for that. When APS supports modifying state’s accountability and accreditation and School Performance and Support Framework. Inherent inequity presented because SOLs are only offered in the English language.
Dr. Durán answer: SOLs measure acquisition of state standards. Previously, we did item by item analysis of content on the test to see if questions were connected to grade-level content. Aggregated these numbers which was correlated to cut scores. Looked at progress of growth and mastery. Board has discussed what is growth and what is mastery. Teachers work hard to align lessons to state standards. Showing progress supports teachers. Current state Board wanted alignment of NAEP results with SOL results. Current state board wants to look at NAEP for accountability. Debate taking place. At next meeting State Board looking at this. Many School Boards talking about cut scores. May want to meet and discuss additional language on this for Legislative Package.
Ms. Tapia-Hadley: To my understanding there has not been a clear argument as to how these changes are closing gaps and no additional funding has been provided to support changes.
Dr. Durán: When accreditation changes are made in the same year as implementation, it should not be done that way. Yes, we need to constantly evaluate standards but changes should not be made in the middle of the year. Think about impact for 12th graders.
Ms. Kadera: Wants to underscore that state has not provided funding to support the changes and improve outcomes, these are unfunded mandates. LCI cap for 0.5% - could a subject matter expert explain what this means for the Virginia Preschool Initiative and why it's a problem? Mr. Marku: When it was put in place, it was so smaller divisions could get more money. Without the cap it’s 80/20 and with the cap its 50/50. Expressing wish for Virginia School Boards Association following litigation with federal government. Made the argument that VBSA should support position of Arlington because it’s local and compliant. Developed through a very transparent process. VBSA needs to support Arlington because it’s a concern for every School Board in the State. It’s a local control issue regardless of your position on the issue.
Legislative package will be voted on at October 23 School Board Meeting.
Revisions to School Board Policy J-8.3.8.30 Food and Nutrition Services-Unpaid Meal Charges and new School Board Policy D-2.37 Financial Management-Other Post-Employment Benefits Fund.
In regards to post-employment benefits, there was a lack of awareness regarding the nature of the OPEB fund. New policy requires that the board be updated on the details of the fund annually so it isn’t forgotten.
Ms. Turner: Additional suggestions for policy. Consider adding principal to the policy. Some members think they are ongoing revenues. I think they are one-time. Marku has suggested hybrid. Important to clarify expectations of the fund. Future School Boards will need to make decisions down the road and intent should be put in place. Not treating it as an ongoing revenue source should be incorporated into the policy.
Ms. Kadera: We would like to be able to pull funds down and reimburse ourselves to reduce balance over time. Standard operating procedure to check-in on what is going in and what is coming out.
Ms. Sutton: These are in the policy. Let’s discuss it at the next policy subcommittee meeting.
Regarding unpaid meal charges, changing notification of meal debt to happen when it reaches art least $20 or falls below $10. Change email reminder from daily to twice per week. Clarify that SPD will reimburse the program, rather than the School Board operating budget itself.
New Business: none.
Meeting Adjourned.
