4
24
CANDIDATES SQUARE OFF AT CIVIC FEDERATION
FOOTBALL: YORKTOWN HANDLES WAKEFIELD
6 6 20 21 27 31 31
Highs & Lows Letters Real Estate Police Beat Classified Crossword 55+ News
WETBASEMENT? Stella & Jesse Waltz, P.E., Owners
FOUNDATION REPAIR•BASEMENT WATERPROOFING CRAWL SPACE MOISTURE CONTROL 1993-2013
Trust The Na me Y ou K now! /JESFoundationRepair
th 20 Anniversary
888-579-7454
www.jeswork.com
Owned & Operated by Professional Engineers!
FREE INSPECTION & ESTIMATE! FINANCING AVAILABLE •LIFETIME WARRANTIES
$500 Off!*
*Any job over $3000. Good only when presented at time of free inspection. Not to be combined with any other offer. MC46166-01
Sun Gazette
VOLUME 81 NO. 43 SEPTEMBER 15-21, 2016
ARLINGTON’S SOURCE FOR HOMETOWN NEWS SINCE 1935
Adjusted Boundaries On Horizon
High-School Growth Will Lead to Changes in 2017 SCOTT McCAFFREY Staff Writer
Second-grader Gazel Derer, shown working on a math problem at Barcroft Elementary School, was one of 26,193 students on hand when Arlington Public Schools kicked off the 2016-17 school year. That’s nearly 900 more students than last year. PHOTO BY DEB KOLT
Student Population Is Still on Rise SCOTT McCAFFREY Staff Writer
Arlington Public Schools started the school year with higher enrollment than a year before, but remains below – for now at least – previous projections of the number of lads and lasses with their keisters in classes. The first-day-of-school enrollment of 26,193 students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade was 886 students more than at the start of the 2015-16 school year, yet 221 shy of projections, Superintendent Patrick Murphy told School Board members on Sept. 8. But the story is not yet complete; a “final” count is taken and forwarded to
the Virginia Department of Education based on enrollment recorded Sept. 30. “It will fluctuate as we go through the month,” Murphy said of the enrollment figures. “You’re going to have more students beginning to register,” while others will drop off for a variety of reasons, he said. County school officials expect the growth to continue, if perhaps not at the rates seen a few years ago, and are continuing to plan for enrollment surpassing 30,000 sometime in the 2020s. That will be even higher than Arlington’s student population at the height of the Baby Boom; even so,
about eight in 10 county households have no children in the school system, a percentage that is not expected to vary much in coming years. The 2016-17 school year began for most Arlington students on Sept. 6, with 354 new teachers joining the veteran educators on hand to greet them. The school system also has 19 new buses joining its fleet and helping to transport 16,000 students per day across 846 routes. In a first-day wrapup to School Board members, Murphy thanked maintenance workers throughout the school system for extra work to create “positive, bright learning environments” for the returning students.
Arlington school officials expect to have a plan in place before Christmas for highschool boundary changes set to take effect in the fall of 2017. “This is not going to affect current highschool students; this will be for those entering as rising ninth-graders,” said Superintendent Patrick Murphy, anticipating the first question parents and students might ask. A final decision While details re- on who is going main sketchy, the where is slated plan takes aim at to be made by Wa s h i n g t o n - L e e mid-December. High School, which is projected to see Parents will be ongoing and accel- able to weigh erating overcrowd- in online and ing unless boundar- at local forums. ies can be adjusted. As a result, some elementary- and middleschool students currently in the W-L attendance area might end up shifted to Yorktown and Wakefield high schools, where the crowding is less severe. At a Sept. 8 School Board meeting, Murphy said he expects to have a boundary-adjustment package in place by Dec. 12. The deadline is not an arbitrary one: That Continued on Page 22
www.insidenova.com l Like us on Facebook: sungazettenews l Follow us on Twitter: @sungazettenews @sungazettespts
PAID
PRSRT STD ECRWSS U.S. POSTAGE
703.528.2288
www.BuckRealtors.com
PERMITNO.1371
Years
LAUREL, MD
40
Local Postal Customer
ONLINE