Thousands Of Alexandria Students Start Hybrid Learning

ALEXANDRIA, VA — On Tuesday, Alexandria City Public Schools brought back its largest group of students to the classrooms for hybrid learning. Smaller groups of students had returned on March 2 and 9.

Students enrolled in hybrid learning are receiving two days of in-person instruction per week and the rest through virtual means. T.C. Williams High School Principal Peter Balas told reporters about 475 students were expected to return to the high school on Tuesday. For the school district as a whole, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings Jr. said just below 4,000 students returned to classrooms on Tuesday.

Alexandria School Board Chair Meagan Alderton and Mayor Justin Wilson joined the superintendent and principal to welcome students back to the high school. Officials took a tour of the school, observing measures such as spaced-out desks fitted with shields as well as hand sanitizer and wipes in classrooms. In hallways, social distancing markers remind students to maintain six feet from others. Masked students, teachers and staff could be seen in classrooms and in hallways.

"Today is a day of celebration," remarked Wilson, who has two children who attend ACPS schools. "We're finally at a place where we have this very, very large group of students coming back into our schools. It's also an opportunity for us to pay tribute to our educators, our support staff as well as our families who have sacrificed so much over the last year but have worked so hard for this day."

"And we got more work to do, no question about it, as we go forward until we get everyone back as normal as we possibly can," Wilson continued.

"As an educator, I've had a lot of first days of school, and this month of starting school just felt really, really special, really exciting," said Alderton. "There's nothing better than seeing kids back in school."

Hutchings said about 60 percent of ACPS staff overall are back in school buildings, but the percentage can vary among individuals. Staff who cannot return due to concerns such as medical conditions or child care concerns provided documentation to ACPS.

ACPS polled staff in February on their vaccination status but will get an updated picture with a new poll on March 22. Hutchings said the Alexandria Health Department provided specific days for ACPS staff to receive the vaccination earlier in phase 1b.

The return of students on Tuesday and on March 2 and 9 included students who opted into hybrid learning on their Family Choice Form in December. Hutchings acknowledged other families may want to come back as they see students return to classrooms.

"One thing we are trying to work with first is to get all of our families who selected the hybrid option back in December, we're striving to get them back into our school buildings so we can begin to gauge what is possible," said Hutchings. "We're going to revisit the possibility of allowing other students to transition in. We're not going to revisit that until April after spring break."

Bringing additional students back requires logistical planning involving transportation, social distancing in classrooms, the number of desks in classrooms.

"We want to make sure that if we make any transitions moving forward, that we're able to accommodate that and not cause more challenges for the school division in regards to operations," said Hutchings.

Hutchings also said planning is underway for summer, and conversations have started on what school will look like in the fall.