The Falls Church City Tree Commission on June 15 expressed strong opposition to a six-story Hilton Garden Inn to be located at 706 West Broad Street, describing an initial sketch as woefully lacking in plantings.
“They’re calling it a Hilton Garden Inn and it’s anything but a garden,” Tree Commission Chair Larry Dorr said. “The concept includes virtually no landscaping. They’re asking for a waiver of every single requirement that’s intended to reduce storm-water runoff and improve the aesthetics of the city.”
City Arborist Benjamin Thompson had earlier declined to support a preliminary concept for the new hotel. “The proposed development does not satisfy the intents and purposes of the City’s landscaping codes,” Thompson wrote on April 4. Those codes include screening and buffering elements as well as strategies for mitigating environmental impacts in accordance with federal rules for protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, he explained.
The Tree Commission approved a motion this week to echo Thompson’s opinion that the project should not be eligible for exceptions to the city’s usual requirements.
“We’re disconcerted by the lack of landscaping and the amount of landscaping waivers being requested by the Hilton Garden Inn developers,” the group said. “We strongly share the City Arborist’s concerns about the lack of street trees and other landscaping under the plan as it currently stands. We will submit further comments soon.”
On June 13, City Council members completed a first reading of the developer’s special exception request and then referred the matter to relevant boards and commissions for review. A second reading of the plan and final adoption are scheduled for July 25, pending a public hearing and other input.
Developers Jefferson Park LLC and Gosnell-Palmer Holdings LLC are seeking an exception to building-height limits on 1.12-acres of property located immediately west of the Burger King on West Broad Street, extending to Park Avenue.
They have also requested rezoning of 0.68 acres currently classified as T-1, or transitional, in favor of the B-1, limited business designation.
Further, the developers have asked to shift authority for review and approval of their plans from the Board of Zoning Appeals to the Planning Commission and the City Council. Such a shift would effectively cut the Arborist out of the loop, Dorr said.
The developer’s prior plans called for the hotel as well as a 5,439-square foot adjacent office building and parking garage. A resubmitted plan subsequently eliminated the proposed office space. Color drawings of the current plan show no trees or other plantings along the front of the property on West Broad, looking west.
Materials submitted to the City Council by James Snyder, Director of Planning and Development Services, suggested that the setback along West Broad Street may be too narrow to accommodate street-scape components as well as essential access for the Fire Marshal and other emergency responders.
In exchange for exceptions, voluntary concessions by the developer would place a portion of utility wires underground along West Broad Street, Snyder reported. Further, the developer has announced plans to seek LEED Silver certification by installing a “vegetated rooftop” and fulfilling other “green building” requirements. If Silver certification cannot be achieved, the developers have pledged to pay $20,000 to the City.
Revenue to be generated by the project when it included an office building had previously been estimated at $568,000 annually. Some residents such as Betty Pitera, who wrote a letter to the Mayor on March 5, have suggested that “revenue projections are inflated.” Others expressing a range of concerns about the proposal have included Thomas P. Matecki, president of the Parent Teacher Organization of St. James Catholic Church, who raised questions about the safety of nearby schoolchildren.
From the Tree Commission’s perspective, Dorr said, “The most distressing thing is, on Broad Street, there are virtually no plantings being proposed there at all.”
The Tree Commission had said April 27 that utilities on the development site should be moved underground so that canopy trees can be planted along West Broad as well as Park Avenue. Street-scape also should be “fully implemented” on the site, the commission said at its April meeting. Developers subsequently offered to underground a portion of utility lines on West Broad only.
If the hotel plan is approved as it stands, Dorr said, other property owners could wind up shouldering a disproportionate burden to ensure that the City remains in compliance overall with federal rules related to protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
Also during the June 15 Tree Commission meeting, Thompson shared plans by the owners of Old Dominion Jewelry to renovate the building now occupied by the El Zunzal restaurant at 917 West Broad Street. The current plan calls for the removal and replanting of buffer trees but Thompson said new plantings should in fact be an improvement to the site. Dorr asked Thompson to speak again with the property owners about preserving a green island in the parking lot. Also discussed was the need to protect an adjacent pair of holly trees and a willow oak during construction.
In other business, Thompson updated the Tree Commission on plantings for the Northgate project on North Washington at East Jefferson Street. Developers are working to implement street-scape by installing willow oaks and London planes, for example.
Thompson further reported that he will work with Virginia Tech students who have offered to inventory street trees as part of their statewide research efforts.
Finally, the Arborist said he had received an interesting call from Urban Forest Conservationist Jim McGlone. It seems that one of McGlone’s students recently completed a survey of the Falls Church City tree canopy by using the i-Tree software program. The accuracy of the student’s survey can’t be assessed, Thompson said. But a printout of the results suggested that non-shrub trees still cover nearly half of Falls Church City (49 percent), while impervious surfaces, roads, parking lots and buildings cover 37 percent.
The Falls Church Tree Commission expressed concern April 27 about a developer’s plan to add an office building and modify a parking garage attached to the previously approved Hilton Garden Inn project.
Utilities on the development site, located at 706 West Broad Street, should be moved underground so that canopy trees can be planted along West Broad as well as Park Avenue, the Commission said.
Moreover, Commission Chair Larry Dorr added, street-scaping should be “fully implemented” on West Broad Street—from North Oak Street on the west side of the property, to the Burger King on the east.
“It’s incredibly important to introduce mature trees into this plan,” Dorr said.
City Arborist Ben Thompson said he has recommended landscaping to make the structure more compatible with other plantings and the scale of development along Park Avenue. He further had recommended plantings atop the proposed parking structure.
Thompson and Tree Commission members expressed concerns about whether the plan provided sufficient space for appropriate types of trees.
The Hilton Garden Inn development plan had received prior approval. But in March, developers Jefferson Park LLC and Gosnell-Palmer Holdings LLC submitted a special exception amendment and rezoning application to the City, asking to have part of the property rezoned from T-1 to B-1. The developers also requested to include a 5,439-square foot office building, while modifying the parking garage by adding an entrance from Park Avenue, in exchange for certain voluntary concessions.
As reported March 9 in the Falls Church Times, the project is expected to generate $568,000 in revenue for the City. The plan calls for a 110-room hotel and now also a two-story office building facing Park Avenue.
“From a Tree Commission perspective, it’s a flawed plan,” Dorr said.
The Tree Commission had unofficially examined the plan at their April 27 meeting. The group will be asked to submit formal comments soon, said Elizabeth Perry of the Falls Church Planning Division.
Trees Injured During Sidewalk Renovation
The Commission strongly decried the “unfortunate and unnecessary damage to City trees” that resulted from a sidewalk renovation project. All such projects must in future be supervised by the City Arborist before work begins, and contractors should be fully bonded to cover any tree damage, the group said.
Dorr questioned the City’s April 11 announcement that it was launching a city-wide sidewalk improvement project that same week to repair 516 locations with defects including cracks, heaves, and non-ADA-compliant pedestrian ramps. He pointed out that the proposal had never come to the attention of the Tree Commission, although the work clearly affects City trees.
Thompson, who is new to his position, said a grant proposal apparently was written before the City had replaced its arborist. He was brought into the project two weeks before the contractor was scheduled to begin work and reviewed approximately 24 sites where “tree conflicts” had been identified by city engineers. Of those 24 sites, Thompson said, he recommended the removal of only a handful of trees, most of which had already been “utility-pruned.” Thompson reported that he had recommended no renovations to a segment of sidewalk on Cherry Street where a large elm could potentially be damaged by the work.
Thompson showed the Tree Commission a large damaged segment of a cherry tree from Roosevelt Street. He said the tree was injured during the renovation project when the segment was “jack hammered out.” He said he had expressed strong concerns to the contractor.
Dorr said that contractors in such cases should be bonded for tree protection/preservation, and therefore responsible for any such damage to City trees. “We have an enormous investment in City trees,” he noted.
In a news release, the City said that “the project is fully funded by a $300,000 federal grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and is expected to be completed in November 2011.”
City staff had conducted a condition assessment of sidewalks along the main streets in December 2009, identifying approximately 33,250 square feet of sidewalk in need of replacement. Repairs will be limited to existing sidewalks on collector and arterial roads within the City, according to the news release, which noted that “the monies from this grant award cannot be used for other projects.”
Among other business, Dorr asked about the subdivision plan at Fulton Avenue and North Lee Street, where a giant tulip tree is likely doomed. Thompson noted that there is little the City can do, other than buying the property, which is obviously not feasible. As previously reported, the Tree Commission had passed a motion October 27, 2010 urging the City Council “to investigate all options” for saving the huge tulip tree, which measures 70- to 74 inches in diameter.
Funding for an updated computer-based system to inventory and manage city trees should be considered “a screaming priority,” veteran arborist Shirley Street said February 19 during a packed Falls Church City Tree Commission meeting.
Unfortunately, Street and Urban Forestry Crew Leader David Jantzen reported, the most recent data set on City-owned trees is now 10 years old.
“You can’t manage what you don’t know, and if you don’t know what’s there, you can’t be successful in managing the urban forest,” said Bill Hicks, director of Engineering and Construction.
Street, who agreed to reprise her role as long-time tree expert while officials search for a permanent arborist, said trees can cost hundreds of dollars each, depending on the species. Managing the information needed to maintain these trees would be easier if each tree could be tracked in an electronic database, she said.
Tree Commission Chair Larry Dorr said city-owned trees could represent an investment of “hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.” Moreover, Dorr said, nurturing each tree to maturity represents “a huge investment on the part of the City.”
To protect that investment, a digital tree management program such as i-Tree should be considered an urgent priority, Street said.
Liabilities can result when the City can’t assess its tree inventory, Street said. For example, data from the 1980s suggest that maple trees comprised 33% of the City’s canopy at that time. “That is terrifying,” she said.
Planting too many maples, or any other single type of tree, increases risks, Dorr explained. Maples, in particular, are weak-wooded and therefore susceptible to storms, Jantzen noted. Dorr said maples also are allelopathic, releasing chemicals that suppress the growth of plants around them.
“What you want is diversity because every tree is a target,” Dorr said. “We have a serious problem in the Northeast with maples and introduced long-horned beetles, for example. Also, the invasive emerald ash borer, another beetle introduced from Asia, was found near Wolf Trap and it was successfully quarantined, but if it comes here and attacks City plantings, the City and private property owners will be legally obligated to remove their ash trees.”
Hicks expressed dismay at the financial prospect of dealing with such a potentially catastrophic tree blight. By comparison, Street estimated the cost of updating the City’s tree inventory to be minimal. She said the work would need to be outsourced to professionals since part of the job involves assessing “hazard trees,” which may pose a threat to homes and/or residents.
Other Tree Commission priorities proposed by Street and Jantzen included ramping up public information efforts. For instance, Street said, tree care “summits” for homeowners’ associations could go a long way toward preventing unnecessary costs. “All over town, I still see these `mulch volcanoes’ around trees that can’t grow because their roots are in mulch,” Street said. “Once-a-year summits could cover the basics of tree care to help people avoid having to remove and replace trees.”
Assisting with the Falls Church celebration of Arbor Day, promoting the City’s status as a Tree City USA, and generally advocating for trees were among the other goals outlined by Street and Jantzen.
In other business during the Tree Commission meeting February 19:
TREE OF THE YEAR
The tulip tree, or yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera Linnaeus), a species native to the Commonwealth of Virginia, was unanimously recommended as the City’s “Tree of the Year.” The tree can reach 90 to 110 feet in height, and two to three feet in diameter at maturity, according to the Virginia Department of Forestry book, Common Trees of Virginia. “Yellow-poplar is one of the largest and most valuable hardwood trees in the United States,” the book reports. “The wood is light, soft, easily worked, with wide cream-colored sapwood and greenish-yellow heartwood. It is used for lumber, trim, veneers, flake and chip boards, plywood, core stock of furniture, paper pulp and fuel. Sprouts and buds are a major food of deer, and birds and squirrels eat the seeds. The flowers are an important nectar source of honey production. Yellow-poplar makes an impressive shade tree for large landscapes.”
Tulip trees will be planted to celebrate 2011 Arbor Day, Dorr said.
COMMENDATION OF STREET AND JANTZEN
The Tree Commission officially commended extensive efforts by Street and Jantzen to complete application materials to have Falls Church continue to be recognized as a “Tree City USA.” The program, sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters, “provides direction, technical assistance, public attention, and national recognition for urban and community forestry programs,” according to its Web site.
CITY CENTER SITE PLAN EXPECTED
Developers of the proposed City Center development, to be located on the site currently occupied by Bowl America on South Maple Avenue, met last week with City planners, Hicks reported. “Looks to be that they’re going to come in with a site plan in a few weeks,” he said. “They are actively working on this project.”
From the Tree Commission’s perspective, Dorr said environmental impacts to the City’s Big Chimneys Park would need to be evaluated.
IDENTIFYING NEW SPECIMEN TREES
Also during the meeting, the Tree Commission reiterated its intention to identify new specimen trees. If approved by City Council in agreement with the property owner, remarkable trees can be designated as “specimens,” worthy of protection. It was noted that long-time City resident Lou Olom recently offered to have two trees on his property evaluated for specimen tree status. Street promised to follow-up with Olom.
PROPOSAL FOR GOATS
Finally, Hicks reported that a resident had submitted a proposal to bring goats into the City to assist with the removal of invasive species. Under the proposal, Hicks said, goats would eat invasive plant species within a confined area for a couple of days, tended by a goat herder by day, and a night watchman by night. Commission members asked questions about the potential environmental impacts of goats, which don’t discriminate between invasive versus non-invasive species.
The Falls Church Tree Commission meets at 7:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month in City Hall.
Forget about losing five pounds or never sweating the small stuff.
Residents of Falls Church, otherwise known as “Tree City, U.S.A.,” should learn more about trees, Tree Commission Chair Larry Dorr said.
Need a good “Trees for Dummies” book?
Dorr noted, first of all, that identifying native species and recognizing cultivars—species such as hybrids that have been cultivated to withstand specific environmental threats—are two different challenges
“The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees in the Eastern Region is pretty good and readily available in retail bookstores,” he said.
Here are a few of his other picks for tree primers:
1) Common Native Trees of Virginia: Tree Identification Guide
Copies are readily available from the Virginia Department of Forestry. The price is right, at $2. Read more
The “Race to Nowhere” is how concerned parent Vicki Abeles describes the seemingly never-ending and increasing demands on high school students. Local parents and educators viewed a screening of her acclaimed film of the same title December 14 at George Mason High School.
“The film portrays the pressures when schools pile on hours of homework and coaches turn sports into year-round obligations,” according to the New York Times.
Abeles interviewed U.S. K-12 students, parents, and educators who said they feel pressured by young people’s increasingly hectic, high-stakes schedules.
Some educators interviewed for the film—including Stanford University Dean of Education Deborah Stipek—said the connection between student performance and homework is non-existent at the elementary-school level, “negligible” at the middle-school level, and somewhat correlated at the high-school level. Yet, with an increasing emphasis on standardized-test performance and parents’ concerns about getting their children into “good colleges,” students are being assigned more and more homework.
The George Mason High School PTSA arranged for a panel discussion after the screening. Some of the students on the panel and several audience members seemed to echo the sentiments of people featured in the film.
One senior reflected on his experiences: “What does it mean to be a successful student at George Mason?” he asked. “It’s involved in grades, how much you’re challenging yourself . . . it’s involved in efficiency—not whether you’re enjoying it, or whether it’s fulfilling you . . . Even if you do have a stretch of time when you don’t have anything you need to do immediately, you’re always thinking, `I could be doing something else.’”
But another panelist, the mother of a high-school student, said parents must take control of their children’s schedules. “You can’t do everything,” she said. “Teenagers inherently have trouble saying no.”
A father on the panel said a busy schedule is “just part of a middle-class suburban life.”
A student said: “With any extra-curriculars, that’s extra stress. You want to be recruited. You’re competing.”
An audience member said the film focused too much on an “us-versus-them” attitude,” and he noted that Falls Church City students are lucky because of the extraordinary teachers and staff in the schools. Similarly, a young person in the audience said some of the students in the film should “suck it up.”
But another audience member said American K-12 education is in trouble. “The risk of living in this type of community is, we don’t see the extent of the problems [elsewhere] in this country,” he said.
When asked whether the film and discussion might prompt any changes, the school’s IB Coordinator Asheesh Misra said he had tried to establish a group to talk about student stress, but “they didn’t come because they said they had no time.”
School Principal Tyrone Byrd said the school emphasizes “celebrating the whole child.” He said students’ standardized test scores are generally excellent, but the school’s goal is to help nurture “well-rounded individuals.” He added that the school is “committed to a 100% pass rate” on the Virginia Standards of Learning tests.
Although Byrd had not responded by press time to a follow-up query, Schools Superintendent Lois Berlin said local educators have been actively discussing homework and students’ schedules.
“The high school has had substantive discussions over the past two years regarding homework and assignment due dates,” she wrote in an e-mail. “They’ve also been engaged in conversations regarding grades and homework. In most cases, homework is designed to strengthen skills learned in a class or [to] prepare for an instructional activity the next day (reading assignments, etc.). The high school is making efforts to stagger assignments so that students who take a number of IB and/or AP classes in a year are not facing due dates that coincide for two or more of their classes.”
While Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields is contracting for an outside efficiency study on City operations and possible consolidation of services, including with City schools, the School Board has declined to participate in the efficiency study.
At the December 14 School Board meeting, Board member Greg Rasnake said he had been contacted by a member of City Council regarding the Board’s decision not to participate. Rasnake emphasized that, in his view, the Board’s problem with the efficiency study is related solely to concerns about timing — late in the year, when the Board is preparing its next budget.
“Rushing a study in front of this budget whose purpose is to look at consolidations will be tantamount to recommending consolidations, and I think to do so would be a mistake,” he said.
The Falls Church Timesreported earlier this month that while Shields has the authority to proceed on his own with an efficiency study, Mayor Nader Baroukh has recommended that both the City/School Board liaison group and the Council’s Government Operations Committee review the proposals.
SPECIAL EDUCATION PENALTY
Superintendent Lois Berlin reported that the Schools were being penalized $185,000 for failure to comply with complex federal and state laws concerning special education.
The issue relates to the “maintenance of effort” requirement, Berlin said, which stipulates that local funds spent on special education must not be less than the prior year. The City spent less in 2010 because an employee moved away, she said.
Most Virginia school districts receive a 50-percent waiver of this requirement. Falls Church did not, because it was deemed “disproportionate”—meaning the number of ethnically diverse students taking part in its special education programs is too high, according to the state.
Ultimately, Berlin said, “We were $185,176 out of effort.” Most of this expense will be covered by contingency funds, but money from the stimulus bill will pay $57,000 of the tab.
According to Board chair Joan Wodiska, “The state is saying, `You are serving too many students, some kids within a certain group, you shouldn’t be helping, [but] we’re going to help those kids because it’s the right thing to do. We have done our due diligence to reduce expenses, and in turn, we are being told we must send a check for $185,000, and these are funds we could use in Falls Church to reduce taxes, cover salaries or services to students, but our hands will be tied by the special education law.
“The federal special education law tied the School Board’s hands and dictated our spending levels on special education services, and to make matters worse, the federal law, designed to protect and ensure the education of students with disabilities, is actually hindering our ability to serve students, and even our taxpayers. It is deeply frustrating,” Wodiska stressed.
The Board has made a number of appeals, including outreach to representatives in the Senate and House, she said.
RELOCATE GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL?
Board member Susan Kearney asked whether the Board should consider moving George Mason High School from its current location, but no one on the Board responded.
“At some point, I’d like to see this group take a substantive look at what could happen in this City if we did something other than have a high school on the George Mason campus property, which would include an evaluation of the value of that property, what kinds of development we might put there, how that might change our perspective on other land in the city, and its usability for school facilities and so on,” Kearney said. “I’m not sure when that fits in the timeframe, but I feel like this group taking a look at that might change the way people think about what we’re doing here to the benefit of both the school board and the kids.”
After a pause, Wodiska moved on to other business. In September, Wodiska had strongly refuted speculation that the school division might tear down Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School, which is located adjacent to the high school. Wodiska had emphasized at that time that there are no such plans.
COMING SOON — HIGH-TECH-HIGH?
Technology—including Internet access for students in need and online learning opportunities for those outside Falls Church City—took center stage at the meeting.
Board members approved a five-year strategic technology plan and also hinted at two special initiatives on the horizon: A public-private partnership with Milestone Communication to extend Internet access beyond the classroom, and electronic learning resources that could be offered to students in other communities.
When students face a digital divide between their school and home, “we can’t improve student achievement the way we want to,” said Board chair Wodiska. A key goal of the proposed revenue-generating partnership with Milestone Communication, initiated as a result of Wodiska’s role as president-elect of the Virginia School Boards Association, would be “to provide Internet access to students in need,” she said.
Board vice chair Pat Riccards had described the proposal in a November 21 Falls Church Times commentary. “The plan is simple,” he wrote. “Milestone can replace a light pole currently on our school property with a new pole that allows for cellular service. Telecomm companies would then pay an annual fee to host an antenna on our light pole. Each year, our school division could collect approximately $30,000 per pole for such use. Through this partnership, we will be able to improve Internet access at [Thomas Jefferson Elementary School] . . . As an added benefit, the Falls Church City Public Schools is able to use this partnership to provide an Internet connection to students throughout the City.”
The School Board is currently “reviewing contract language to formalize this innovative public-private partnership,” Wodiska said in an e-mail exchange following the December 14 meeting. “It’s a win-win for everyone. It can provide a steady source of revenue, expand Internet access, bridge the digital divide for low-income students, and even help expand our city’s digital infrastructure to support public safety.”
Further public dialogue will take place before plans are finalized, she said.
ONLINE LEARNING
Educators also have begun to talk about boosting electronic learning resources and “embracing kids who don’t necessarily attend our schools to do some of their learning with us,” Board member Kearney reported.
Currently, Wodiska explained after the meeting, students have access to e-learning opportunities via outside providers and teachers, sometimes at a cost to the school division. Online learning can be leveraged to enhance course offerings, academic rigor, and the student experience, but the current approach is “piecemeal” and “can be cumbersome,” she said.
“Today, non-resident students pay tuition to attend our brick and mortar classes,” Wodiska said. “In the future, the School Board envisions a day when it may be possible for non-resident students to pay a fee to attend an online course at George Mason High School taught by our very own George Mason teachers as a way to raise revenue for the district.”
So far, she said, the Board has held work sessions with high-school staff to discuss, for example, establishing a new e-learning policy, common rules for students, grading, length of offerings, assessment, and more. Site visits for Board members and high-school staff may be planned to learn more about online schools in Virginia and Florida.
FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
The Five-Year Strategic Plan for 2012-2016, unanimously approved by the Board, outlines five goals, starting with the need to “provide a safe, flexible, and effective learning environment for all students.” The plan includes a strategy for implementing fiber and 1 Gbps Ethernet as well as wireless access to every school. It also emphasizes “just-in-time,” or on-demand technical assistance for users.
Wodiska and others commended technologist Steve Knight for his hard work and vision in preparing the strategic plan.
Knight fielded comments by Board members Rosaura Aguerrebere and Charlotte Hyland concerning the Access technology, which among other features, allows parents to log into a secure system to track their children’s daily grades. Hyland said she felt the previous technology, Angel, “was easier,” and she wondered whether most teachers have been able to master the Access system. Aguerrebere reported problems with logging into the Access system. “The logon is just impossible,” she said. “I gave up, after a month.”
Knight acknowledged that some users have experienced a learning curve with Access, but he said professional development for teachers is continuing. He also noted that mastery of the previous Angel technology took several years.
Board member Rasnake asked, “Are we squaring the use of technology with the components that make for a well-rounded education?” he asked, with a nod to Thomas Jefferson Elementary School music teacher Marie Harbison, who was in the audience. “Are we making sure we won’t plug our students into the Hal 2000 and then spit them out on the other side?”
Berlin said the question went beyond the scope of Knight’s mandate, and then Wodiska added, “Art and music are safe in our district.”
Kearney recommended keeping an eye on “cyber-bullying as it’s changing over time with new tools and platforms and technology.” Knight said division leadership recently took part in a panel on cyber-bullying, and he hopes the division can soon pull together a task force and a summit to address the issue.
Also during the meeting, the Board approved a new English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) plan, covering 2010 through 2015.
The 181 English language learners (ELL) who enrolled in Falls Church schools for the 2009-2010 year represent about 9% of the total enrollment of 1,991, a slight decline compared with the prior year. As of January 2010, ESOL staff consisted of five full-time teachers, three part-time teachers and two full-time and one part-time paraprofessional. Goals emphasized within the new ESOL plan include efforts to “close the persistent academic gap between the ELL student population and the mainstream population as measured by standardized test scores,” and to increase the participation of those students in advanced programs and classes. See http://tinyurl.com/FCCPS-ESOL.
Wodiska commended Jennifer Riccards, head of the ESOL advisory group, and Board liaison Aguerrebere. “This is a great example of how the School Board is reaching out to and engaging the public,” she said after the meeting. “The group has benefited from Jennifer and Rosaura’s rich knowledge and passion for the well-being of ESOL students, and in turn, our entire community.”
NEW CURRICULUM
Three new curriculum offerings were approved: A new two-year IB environmental systems and societies course, an intermediate band course, and a contract jazz ensemble course. An existing standard-level IB biology course will now be shelved, while the new IB environmental option will encompass the realms of both science and social studies. An existing jazz ensemble will now provide students with a half-credit, and the 150 high-school band students will be split into three groups, based on ability and experience.
OTHER BUSINESS
Rasnake also commended Falls Church Times staffer George Southern for his role in promoting public discourse about community issues. He said he hasn’t always agreed with Southern, who recently announced plans to forego writing opinion pieces (http://tinyurl.com/hadmysay ). But Rasnake said he looks forward to reading Southern’s news coverage of the city.
City Arborist Benjamin Thompson had earlier declined to support a preliminary concept for the new hotel. “The proposed development does not satisfy the intents and purposes of the City’s landscaping codes,” Thompson wrote on April 4. Those codes include screening and buffering elements as well as strategies for mitigating environmental impacts in accordance with federal rules for protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, he explained.
