At their business meeting last week, the Albemarle County School Board approved Learning for All, the school division’s new five-year strategic plan. Among the updates to the division’s previous plan is the adoption of equity, excellence, family and community, and wellness as our core values.
In keeping with this commitment, the board also improved its policy on the use of tobacco and nicotine vapor products. Continue reading
At midnight on June 30, Governor Ralph Northam’s declared state of emergency for the Commonwealth expired, relaxing several of the public health requirements associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Among those provisions was the wearing of face masks in public settings.
In anticipation of this action and following significant declines in the spread of the virus in our community, the Albemarle County School Board reviewed several updates to our mask wearing policy during their June 10 business meeting. Those updates and additional revisions will come up for a vote during the board meeting this evening, Thursday, July 8. Continue reading
At their meeting next week on Thursday, July 8, the Albemarle County School Board will receive for information a proposed policy to protect transgender and gender-expansive students. All public school divisions in the Commonwealth are required by Virginia statutory law to have such a policy in place by the start of the 2021-22 school year.
To learn more about this, please read our July 2 news release: In Order to Meet State Legal Requirement, School Board to Review Proposed Policy to Protect Transgender, Gender-Expansive Students on July 8.
As you are aware, ACPS adopted a Policy on Masks and Acceptable Face Coverings approved by the school board on August 27, 2020. After publication, some of our educators voiced concerns about students removing masks in the classroom and school buildings under the circumstances identified in the policy.
In response, we met with principals, teachers, COVID-19 Coordinator Eileen Gomez, and others to address the concerns, modify the policy, and develop a standard operating procedure for designating mask removal spaces in the school and articulating criteria for mask removal for relief, if and when a student needs it, and for eating. Continue reading
On August 27, 2020, in consideration of the recommendations issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and the Thomas Jefferson Health District (TJHD), the Albemarle County School Board adopted an emergency Policy on Masks and Acceptable Face Coverings for all students, staff, visitors and vendors, and children and staff in ACPS child care programs. Continue reading
At their January 23 meeting, School Board members formally voted to change the name of Cale Elementary School to Mountain View Elementary School, effective July 1.
Cale is the first of 14 schools to be reviewed following a directive from the School Board to the Superintendent that school communities review the names of all schools named for individuals. Continue reading
The Albemarle County School Board recently adopted an update to Policy EBAC, Environmental Management, to discontinue the use of scented products (plug-in or spray air fresheners, reed diffusers, etc.) in ACPS facilities and buses. The policy was updated out of concern for our students, employees and visitors, as strong scents and fragrances can contribute to poor indoor air quality that can be unhealthy to building occupants. Continue reading
Albemarle County Public Schools maintains over 600 policies. Our policies are locally developed through our work with the Virginia School Boards Association and they are tied to Virginia Code. Several are locally developed. Our policies translate our core values of excellence, young people, community, and respect into the backbone of our daily operations and aspirations for students.
You can stay up-to-date on policy revisions, additions and deletions through the ACPS website! View the policy updates for August 8 and September 12, 2019, including 39 revisited policies and three new policies.
You may know that the children of Albemarle County Public Schools and Albemarle County Local Government employees who live outside of the county are eligible to attend Albemarle County public schools on a tuition basis. Did you know, though, that the School Board reduced the annual tuition from half of the local cost to $1,000 per pupil? Policy JEC, School Admission, reflects this change and states that the Superintendent will set the tuition each academic year.
Questions? Please contact Anne Breeden at 434-296-5877.
The start of a new school year brings increased requests from financial services vendors who wish to have access to our employees. They may indicate that they are “official” County vendors and have Human Resources Department approval to present information about their products to staff. Unless information about these presentations comes directly from the Human Resources Department, you should be aware that none of these vendors has such an endorsement. Continue reading