Table of Contents
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Alexandria City School Board will meet in closed session Thursday to consider candidates to become the next superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools, according to the meeting notice.
The board will convene the closed meeting under Virginia Code § 2.2-3711(A)(1), the state Freedom of Information Act's personnel exemption. The notice says members will discuss and consider prospective candidates for employment as superintendent, including their qualifications, experience, references, suitability, potential appointment, compensation, and other terms and conditions of employment.
The notice also invokes § 22.1-69 to dispense with the attendance of the superintendent or her designee during a portion or all of the closed session. Acting Superintendent Grace Taylor has said she does not intend to seek the permanent job.
School board notices in Alexandria more often describe closed personnel sessions in general terms. Thursday's notice names the superintendent search specifically and is the only item listed for the closed meeting.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the School Board Meeting Room at 1340 Braddock Place.
Where the search stands
The board is conducting a national search with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, an executive search firm. The application deadline was Aug. 12, according to the division's search webpage — the same evening the board voted to end former Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt's tenure seven weeks early and appoint Taylor to lead the division on an acting basis.
The published timeline calls for finalist interviews in September and an announcement of the new superintendent in October. The division notes that dates and milestones may change.
ACPS says those interviews will be confidential, describing the approach on its search page as standard in executive searches and as a way to attract top candidates. The Alexandria Brief asked ACPS communications whether a list of candidates is publicly available. The division had not responded as of publication.
Virginia law does not require school boards to identify superintendent finalists before a vote, and practice varies across the state. ACPS took a different approach in its search for a principal at Alexandria City High School this spring, publishing a leadership profile, holding virtual community meet-and-greet sessions with candidates in May and bringing the finalist to the board for a public vote.
The superintendent search included a community survey that closed June 14, focus groups and community meetings. HYA produced a leadership profile from that feedback, which ACPS published in English, Amharic, Arabic, Dari and Spanish.
$1.1 million for staff bonuses
In open session, the board will vote on a revised fiscal 2027 combined funds budget that adds $1.1 million in state revenue and appropriates $1.1 million for what the division calls anticipated staff bonus payments.
A memo from Robert Easley, director of budget and financial systems and reporting, attributes the change to the Commonwealth's fiscal 2026-2028 adopted budget in late June and an updated Virginia Department of Education allocation to ACPS. The memo went to the board through Chief Financial Officer Dominic Turner and Taylor. The board granted the superintendent authority to make minor changes consistent with its intent when it adopted the budget June 11.
The memo does not say which employees would receive bonuses, how much each would receive, or whether the payments would recur. It does not say whether the state directed the money toward compensation or the division chose that use. The division's revised fund statements do not show the June 11 figures alongside the new ones, so the packet does not display what is being changed.
State revenue across the three funds is set to rise by $3.9 million, or 5.1%, in fiscal 2027. The $1.1 million is one part of that increase.
The revised budget totals $372.2 million in the operating fund, $19.1 million in grants and special projects and $12.6 million in school nutrition services, with a city appropriation of $286.6 million and 2,686.6 full-time-equivalent positions across the three funds. Combined expenditures of $402.3 million exceed combined revenues of $393.6 million, and the budget draws $7,457,400 from fund balance — up from $6.3 million in the operating fund the year before.
Also on the agenda
The board is scheduled to approve draft minutes from its Aug. 12 special meeting. The minutes show the board voted 6-0 to move Kay-Wyatt's resignation date from Oct. 1 to Aug. 12 and 6-0 to designate Taylor as acting superintendent, with members Kelly Carmichael Booz, Alexander Crider Scioscia and Ashley Simpson Baird absent. Tim Beaty participated virtually from Dulles because of personal travel and joined after the board went into closed session. The meeting lasted 33 minutes. Taylor took the oath of office afterward.
Also on the agenda are board member assignments for the 2026-27 school year and the division's policies on public donations.
See the full agenda and supporting documents here.
