From vaping, the cost of school supplies to cellphone policies, the WTOP team is studying up on hot-button topics in education across the D.C. region. Follow on air and online in our series “WTOP Goes Back to School” this August and September.
The first bells of the 2024-2025 school year rung for hundreds of thousands of students across Northern Virginia on Monday morning.
Public schools in Alexandria, Fairfax City, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Manassas Park City and Prince William County welcomed students back, some attending for the first time.
Fairfax County
“I am thrilled to welcome our students, our staff and our families back to another fantastic year of learning,” Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid told WTOP, standing outside James Madison High School in Vienna.
Fairfax County Public Schools is Virginia’s largest school district, with 180,970 students enrolled last year.
Reid said the new school year is an “opportunity to really focus on teaching and learning,” with a “distraction-free” classroom pilot program at seven middle schools and eight high schools across the county.
Students at those schools will place their cellphones in either a hanging pouch or storage locker during class time. They will still be allowed to use them during lunch and between classes.
“It’s really important that during class time we really stay focused on the teaching and learning task at hand,” Reid said. “We need to think about how we can use cellphones and technology in general as a tool to support, rather than distract.”
The school system has seven early-release Mondays scheduled for this school year. Reid said that allows an opportunity for teachers and other staffers to ensure they have the early-literacy training required by the Virginia Department of Education, plus “enabling them to have planning time to support quality instruction.”
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Prince William County
In neighboring Prince William County, students at Gainesville High School were greeted by excited teachers and other school employees.
“The energy that you have on the first day of school is hard to match,” principal Neil Beech told WTOP.
He said this is the first year all four grade levels at Gainesville High School will be filled.
“I’m excited to see all of the things that we can do as a result of having a full staff and a full student body. The graduating class this year, the class of 2025, is the first class to have gone through all four years at Gainesville High School. That’s a big deal for our school and our community,” Beech said.
Gainesville senior Maddy Lis could feel the excitement of the first day and filed in to the school before 6 a.m. for back-to-school festivities.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s our senior year. We thought we might as well continue to get involved and just make a good memory out of this,” she said.
Prince William County Public Schools expanded its restrictions on cellphone usage to all middle and high schools this year. But Beech said he doesn’t believe it will become a huge issue.
“Last year, we asked our students to put their cellphones away during each of our class periods … the students were responsive to that,” Beech said. “And again, I think the students understand why it’s a good idea. It’s just to reduce distractions in our classrooms.”
Babur Lateef, chairman at-large of the Prince William County School Board, told WTOP the first day of school is “the most optimistic day of the year.”
Lateef said the school system hit a graduation rate of 94.3% back in June, and he’s hopeful that rate will reach 95% this school year.
DC
There’s less than a week to go now before kids go back to classes in D.C.’s public school system, and at Alice Deal Middle School in Northwest, the teachers were welcomed back with go-go music, pep talks from the chancellor and mayor, and tables full of snacks to keep them going on a busy day.
As teachers entered the gym, they stepped through a blue-tinged tinsel curtain and walked in between lines of staffers waving pom-poms who cheered and applauded as seventh grade music teacher Denny d’Alelio led the “Deal Go-Go” band in a cover version of the Junkyard Band’s hit, “Sardines.”
Lewis Ferebee, chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, told WTOP that the school system would continue its Capital Commitment initiative.
He said, “We’re going to dig deeper in implementation this year,” in the program that emphasizes academic excellence, building strong connections to the school community and preparing students to graduate on time with a “postsecondary pathway” to their future plans.
There’s also been an effort at making sure students are ready to make the leap from elementary to middle school, said Ferebee.
“Our sixth graders here and across the District have already had a chance to get to know each other before opening day,” he said.
The Summer Bridge Program is offered to sixth and ninth graders ahead of the first day of classes.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser joined Deal Principal Diedre Neal in welcoming the teachers to the Ward 3 school. Bowser thanked the teachers for doing “double duty” during the height of the pandemic as students learned from home.
Now, that students have been back, Bowser congratulated teachers on the gains students have made since the return to full-time in-school learning: “We want to make sure that you have everything you need from us downtown, and we’re going to get out of your way and teach wonderful Washingtonians.”
WTOP’s Kate Ryan, Neal Augenstein and Luke Lukert contributed to this report.
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