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Empty Desks as School Dragged On and On Fairfax County, Va. Sophomore Brooke Smith was seated in Falls Church High School this week when she sent her mom a text message: “With all my best friends in class!” The photo she sent along with it showed rows of empty desks. Across Fairfax County, Va., the school year extended into summer this week, the result of an unusually harsh winter that left the system needing to make up school days. Though the schools were required to stay open to meet state instructional minimums, classes often strayed far from normal lessons, and many students skipped out. Fairfax officials said atten-
“Neither teachers or students want to be in school at the end of June … We need a master calendar change.” — STE V EN GREENBERG, PRESIDENT OF THE FAIRFA X COUNTY FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, ON A PROPOSAL TO BUILD AN EXTRA 13 SNOW DAYS INTO THE SCHEDULE TO HELP PREVENT THE NEED TO EXTEND THE SCHOOL YEAR AGAIN IN THE FUTURE
dance was 64 percent on Monday in the county’s high schools and dropped to 62 percent on Tuesday, meaning more than 20,000 teens didn’t come to school each day. Some schools, like Chantilly High, had empty hallways, as just 200 of the school’s remaining 2,000 students came on Monday. A Chantilly chemistry class made ice cream in a lab while biol-
ogy classes dissected cow eyeballs and sheep hearts. At Langley High School, students took part in a series of volunteer projects. At McLean High School, teachers had ballroom dancing classes, knitting and crocheting seminars, guitar lessons, a Pac-Man video game tournament, a session on building kites and a tutorial on protest songs titled: “How to write
them with success and sincerity.” Teachers also had a class on sea turtles and “The Lord of the Rings” creator J.R.R. Tolkien. Principals across the county acknowledged that school attendance policies are difficult to enforce during the final days of classes. Teresa Johnson, principal of Chantilly High, said that since grades were submitted last Friday, it’s hard to motivate students to come to school when there is nothing at stake. “We have already submitted final grades for the year — and kids know that — so trying to do actual work would be pretty tough,” Mount Vernon teacher Sam Hedenberg said. T. REES SHAPIRO (THE WASHINGTON POST )
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Liquor Store, It Is Two-and-a-half years after D.C. started its regulatory tango with Uber, another tech upstart is running into similar troubles. Ultra, a Web-based alcohol delivery service, was ordered to cease and desist operations Thursday by the D.C. Alcohol Beverage Control Board. Although Ultra partners with a licensed booze purveyor to fulfill orders, the board found it needed a license. (THE WASHINGTON POST )