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The Alexandria City School Board convenes Thursday at 6 p.m. at 1340 Braddock Place for its first regular meeting since the board voted March 26 to accept Superintendent Dr. Melanie Kay-Wyatt's resignation. Kay-Wyatt remains in her role while a separation agreement is finalized. The April 9 docket is relatively lean on action items but carries significant weight on two fronts: the public release of the revised agreement governing police in schools and a volunteer program update that tells a notable growth story.
The MOU arrives
The most closely watched item on Thursday is the APD/ACPS MOU Revision, listed as a monitoring item. The draft Memorandum of Understanding governing School Resource Officers will be presented to the board and posted publicly for the first time, giving the community its first look at the renegotiated agreement before a public hearing on April 16 at 5 p.m. in the School Board Meeting Room. Community members who wish to speak at the hearing must sign up by noon April 15. Written comments may also be submitted online.
The MOU governs the conduct of SROs stationed at Alexandria City High School and the city's middle schools, covering procedures for information sharing, investigations, questioning of students, searches, arrests and physical interventions. The agreement has been under renegotiation for nearly a year after the original 2023 version expired June 30, 2025. The board approved two extensions while deliberating — including a contentious debate over a proposed provision that would have granted SROs direct access to student records, a request APD ultimately withdrew. The board is expected to vote on final approval at its April 23 meeting.
The Governance Committee is also scheduled to take up the MOU at its April 17 meeting — one day after the public hearing — though it remains unclear whether that review will inform or follow the board's April 23 vote.
Ryan Belmore
Volunteer program surges
The second monitoring item is an update on the ACPS Volunteer Program for the 2025-26 school year — and the numbers are striking. The district now has more than 5,500 approved volunteers, of whom 3,222 were added in 2025-26 alone, representing a 10% year-over-year increase in approved applications. About 65% are family members and 26% are community partners or affiliated organizations.
The growth has been driven in part by monthly virtual open houses that allow 60 to 90 applicants at a time to complete ID verification, with the program processing more than 350 approvals in its busiest months. The district has worked with partners including PTAC, school PTAs, Volunteer Alexandria and the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium to fill specific needs.
The results have been concrete. At Alexandria City High School, 50 volunteer tutors were recruited this year to provide in-person after-school academic support, with tutors directly assisting students through Project Graduation, Youth in Progress and the ACHS Saturday learning program. More than 160 volunteer judges were placed across five schools for secondary science fairs — with all positions filled three weeks early for the 2026 ACPS Science and Engineering Fair. Volunteers also filled all judge roles for the National History Day competition and the We the People civics contest, and 10 volunteers supported ecology field trips for all ACPS seventh-grade students.
At the school level, the program has supported monthly food distribution at Francis C. Hammond Middle School and the assembly of 90 bikes at Ferdinand T. Day Elementary. School-specific outreach has also helped fill Career Day speaker slots at three schools.
The 2026 outstanding school volunteers — one per school, recognized in partnership with Volunteer Alexandria — were: Catie Brownback (James K. Polk Elementary), Joni Carlton (George Mason Elementary), Allyson Castillo (George Washington Middle), Tracy Dahl (Jefferson-Houston PreK-8), Luke Ferris (Alexandria City High School), Dr. Tiffany Latham (Francis C. Hammond Middle), Samantha Lee (Cora Kelly School), Barbara Lipsky (John Adams Elementary), Kara Macek (Naomi L. Brooks Elementary), Shannon Mills (Charles Barrett Elementary), Kristi Myers (Patrick Henry K-8), Beverly Proctor (William Ramsay Elementary), Kit Ruland (Lyles-Crouch Traditional Academy), Katherine Toughey (Douglas MacArthur Elementary), Sarah Walsh (Samuel W. Tucker Elementary), Henry Watkins (Early Childhood Center and Ferdinand T. Day Elementary) and Evan Wilson (Mount Vernon Community School). The program's volunteer coordinator also received the 2026 Volunteer Coordinator of the Year award from Volunteer Alexandria.
Looking ahead, ACPS is focused on streamlining the application process through the Raptor system, expanding multilingual outreach to families and potentially developing a staff training course in partnership with Volunteer Alexandria.
Consent calendar and closed sessions
On the consent calendar, the board will consider advisory committee appointments and approve the minutes of the March 26 meeting. The board has two closed sessions (if needed) on Thursday's agenda, with no subjects specified in the public docket.
There are no action items on Thursday's agenda yet.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m. and can be watched live on cable channel 71 or via Zoom. Public comment sign-up is open through noon on Wednesday at the ACPS website.
