Dear Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Members of City Council,

We write as Alexandria parents who have reached a breaking point. We have attended meetings, submitted public comments, and engaged with the School Board in good faith for years. We are not writing because we have given up on ACPS — we have not. We are writing because we believe the School Board’s governance failures now require the City Council’s attention.

The ACPS School Board has demonstrated a persistent pattern of making consequential decisions behind closed doors and without meaningful community engagement. Time and again, parents and community members have shown up, provided data, and asked hard questions — only to watch the Board proceed with what seem like predetermined outcomes, leaving families to absorb the consequences of decisions made without their input on matters that directly affect their children's education. Below are examples of this:

Lack of Data Driven Decisions and Strategic Oversight

While ACPS’ budget increased by 20% since FY2023, longstanding issues such as overcrowding and staff turnover remain unaddressed. A far greater emphasis is needed on hiring teachers to address over-capacity classrooms in order to better support our students, instead of adding to an already bloated central office.

The impact of the above can be seen at ACHS, where despite growing English Language Learner and Special Education enrollment, the school received only a fraction of requested staffing. The Executive Principal role also sat vacant for eight months, leaving the school without consistent leadership or a strong advocate at the district level. Moreover, seven veteran principals left the school system in two years — two of them immediately after winning Principal of the Year awards.

Ineffective Community Engagement 

The Board voted in December 2024 to abolish the K-8 model, despite a public survey in which 58% of respondents favored its preservation and only 7% supported the Board’s choice as their top preference. Families were given no direct notice that a binding vote would occur at this meeting, and $40 million in conversion funds were quietly embedded in the capital improvement budget even as officials insisted no decision had been made. 

In another example, the latest redistricting process relied on flawed, inconsistent data that was pointed out multiple times by parents. The final maps were issued, without meaningfully incorporating feedback provided by the public.

Utilization planning has been equally poor. MacArthur Elementary has had 150-200 seats vacant for three years, while neighboring Patrick Henry remained well above capacity with class sizes that exceed 30 students. Instead of cross-leveling the student body between the two, capacity transferred students were sent to other West End schools already dealing with their own overcrowding issues. Even post-redistricting, utilization at a number of schools will remain well above 100%, while others can expect to be at 70-80% of capacity.

In spite of engaged parents, committed teachers, and a healthy budget, ACPS scores fall well below the state average in every subject: 12 percentage points lower in Reading, 17 in Math, 18 in Science, and 4 in History. Under the state's new system for evaluating schools, nine ACPS schools were rated "Off Track," and four were flagged for intensive support. Only one school — Lyles-Crouch — earned the top rating of "Distinguished."

We will be direct: as ACPS parents, we have lost confidence in the School Board and no longer have the desire or energy to continue engaging with it directly. We simply do not believe our voices matter to this body. That conclusion is not emotional — it is the product of years of good-faith participation that has yielded nothing. 

We recognize how alarming it should be to the Council that engaged Alexandria families feel this way. We also believe that the repeated failures of the School Board are the result of how the Board is constructed and held accountable — and they will persist regardless of who sits on it, unless structural changes are made. With the 2027 School Board elections in view, we urge the Council to pursue two specific reforms, designed to increase accountability and grow the pool of School Board candidates:

• Reduce the Size of the Board. Since 2009, School Board candidates in at least one of Alexandria’s three districts have run unopposed in each election (except the 2018 cycle) leading to a large, anemic body that is incapable of driving change. The current structure diffuses responsibility and produces “manage by committee” dynamics that obscure individual accountability and neutralize any reform efforts. Among the jurisdictions in our region with student enrollment over 10,000, Alexandria has the largest board to student ratio. Reducing the size of the Board would bring Alexandria more in line with neighboring divisions.
• Increase Compensation to Attract New Candidates. ACPS Board member pay significantly lags behind Fairfax, Arlington, and other nearby districts. Meaningful compensation signals that Board service is a serious civic role, expands the candidate pool, and is a precondition for the more competitive elections Alexandria needs.

We are prepared to support the Council as it considers these reforms. What we are no longer prepared to do is wait.