Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) hosted the first annual State of the Schools event on March 1, 2022 with Superintendent Dr. Gregory C. Hutchings, Jr. who shared updates on the school division’s work to fulfill goals of the ACPS 2025 Equity For All Strategic Plan and the 2021-22 Areas of Focus. Students, staff, elected officials and division leadership joined community members and partner organizations for the event that was live-streamed from the Alexandria City High School (ACHS), with simultaneous interpretation provided in Spanish, Amharic and Arabic.
“Our team is hard at work to fulfill the goals of our 2025 ACPS Strategic Plan: Equity for All, and we are excited about the progress we have made, while being mindful there is still much work to be done,” said Dr. Hutchings. “Our staff and students have shown great resilience throughout the past two years, and I want to thank them, as well as our families, School Board and City of Alexandria leadership for working together for the benefit of our students’ education and future.”
Dr. Hutchings underscored how the launch of the Equity Dashboard and Equity Climate Survey are vital to the success of the Strategic Plan. “We knew that in order for our Strategic Plan to be successful, we had to build in the accountability components to keep us on track and create transparency for all to monitor our work and our progress,” explained Dr. Hutchings.
Following his presentation, the superintendent answered questions that were submitted in advance of the webinar by students, staff and families, as well as those posed by students attending the event in person. The questions included such topics as Social Emotional Academic Learning (SEAL), strategies to curb truancy, equity within ACPS schools and division partnerships such as those with Virginia Tech and Amazon.
The recording of the webinar is available on the ACPS website, along with Dr. Hutchings’ slide presentation for this event and a new report on the 2020-21 school year, “Measuring What Matters.”