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 March & April 2015 policy updates (ACPS user name and password required).
Consolidation of Google Domains
Albemarle County Public Schools currently maintains two Google domains, one for staff (@k12albemarle.org) and one for students (@student.k12albemarle.org). Over the course of this year, DART will consolidate these into a single domain. The current staff domain (@k12albemarle.org) will become the only one in use.
All ACPS staff using Google Apps for Education (GAFE) will be affected by this consolidation. Students and staff (.g accounts) currently using the student domain (@student.k12albemarle.org) will need to move content and function from their current Google location. Continue reading
ACPS Alumna Credits Destination Imagination (and Jim Asher!) for Her Success
Kate Bishop, ACPS alumna and current PhD student in Anthropology at the University of California, has received the National Geographic Young Explorers Grant, a prestigious grant designed to support our world’s most promising explorers. In an article posted earlier this month by Destination Imagination (DI), Kate took the opportunity to attribute who she is as a person and an archaeologist to her DI experience. She specifically thanked our own Burley Middle School principal, Jim Asher, for being a fabulous DI team manager and “the world’s most patient, supportive man.” Kate went on to say, “As a child, I had no idea the impact Destination Imagination was having on my life. Today, I can’t imagine where I would be without it.” Read the DI blog post »
Library of Congress Offers Teacher Resources
Teachers: Senator Mark Warner wants to bring to your attention an important resource that is currently available to all teachers across Virginia. As you may know, the Library of Congress, located in Washington, D.C., is accessible worldwide through its website and offers an amazing array of educational resources for teachers and students. Continue reading
Chesapeake Bay Trust Mini Grants (up to $5,000) – Apply by June 12
The Chesapeake Bay Trust Mini Grant Program was established to provide accessible funds to schools, organizations and agencies to educate students about their local watersheds and how they can become environmental stewards and make a difference in watershed health. To accomplish this goal, the program supports meaningful outdoor learning experiences around a watershed issue investigation, including field trips, fieldwork, student-led action projects and schoolyard habitat projects, as well as building teacher capacity to implement environmental education, including professional development trainings and programs to advance environmental literacy in the Chesapeake Bay region. The deadline is June 12 at 5 p.m. Get the scoop»
Crozet Elementary School Recognized for Environmental Excellence
Congratulations to Crozet Elementary for being named a Green Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education, one of only four K-12 schools in Virginia this year! Out of more than 135,000 schools and universities in the nation, Crozet joins only 57 others in receiving this distinction. Way to be stewards of our environment! Read our news release »
Free Office Supplies!
The Reusable Office Supply Exchange (ROSE) Program collects gently or never-used office supplies from departments throughout the University of Virginia and makes them available to the community. Teachers: Visit the Recycling Office Warehouse and take whatever supplies you like! The ROSE Program is located in the Recycling building at the end of Leake Drive (map below), and is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Typical materials are pictured below, and additional materials are expected after May 11. If accessing the facility during operating hours is an issue for an interested teacher, contact Lindsay Snoddy (lcsnoddy@k12albemarle.org) with request details. Continue reading
Writing Workshop: A Secondary Pilot
Writing workshop provides an authentic writing experience for students, while allowing teachers to create a method of organizing classroom time that fosters differentiation in composition and feedback. However, it poses several organizational challenges that are not manifest in the more traditional ‘prompt’ model of delivering writing instruction. Several of us at the secondary level undertook to pilot the implementation of an Atwell workshop in varying degrees to wrestle with these challenges, with the hope of raising the efficacy of our writing instruction. Here’s what happened: Continue reading
6 Grants for Putting More Technology in Your Classroom
Each month, eSchool News compiles a list of new education grant opportunities. This month’s grants focus on improving access to technology for students, teachers, and schools. Included are grants for eco-tech, adding more computers, classroom makeovers, attending tech conferences, and more: Continue reading
Operating Budget Adoption
Dear Colleagues:
At their meeting on Thursday, April 23, our School Board voted to adopt an operating budget of $167 million for the 2015-16 school year. This is slightly above the $166.98 million operating budget I proposed in my original funding request this past January. Continue reading