As Kay-Wyatt's final months begin, a look back at a consequential year for ACPS

This story was originally published at 11:01 a.m. on Monday, June 22. It was updated on Wednesday, June 24 at 1 p.m.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Superintendent Dr. Melanie Kay-Wyatt will leave Alexandria City Public Schools on Oct. 1, closing out a tenure that saw the division enter its first collective bargaining process, weathered one of its tightest budget cycles in recent memory, and is ending amid overlapping searches for a new superintendent and new leadership at the city's only high school.

With the school year now finished, The Alexandria Brief sought to ask Dr. Kay-Wyatt to look back on it. On June 10, this publication emailed her office ten written questions — on the budget, collective bargaining, newcomer students, and the transition ahead — that she could answer on her own time, with her responses to run largely as provided. Follow-ups went out June 16, June 18, and June 19, and the original story reported that ACPS had not responded.

After publication, ACPS communications told The Alexandria Brief that it had no record of receiving the questions. In a June 24 phone conversation, Executive Director of Communications Daryl Johnson said the email never reached the division and that he had referred the matter to ACPS's head of information technology to determine what went wrong. Email between The Alexandria Brief and ACPS communications was working during the same period — including an exchange on June 16, the day several of the questions were sent, when the office provided a statement for a separate story — which is part of why the non-receipt is considered unexplained and is under review. The questions were sent from two email addresses without any delivery-failure notices. Because they did not reach ACPS, the division did not have an opportunity to respond before publication.

On June 24, separately, School Board Chair Dr. Michelle Rief announced that Dr. Kay-Wyatt is on leave due to "a matter that arose unexpectedly," with board-appointed designees overseeing the division's day-to-day operations. Given the leave, ACPS has offered to have School Board leadership respond to questions about the past several months, the transition, and the superintendent search. The Alexandria Brief plans to submit a revised set of questions to Rief.

What follows is a look back at the year, and the questions that went with it.

A first labor agreement, and a fight over how to pay for it

The defining development of Dr. Kay-Wyatt's final year was also its most contentious chapter. In March, ACPS and the Education Association of Alexandria announced a tentative agreement under the division's first collective bargaining process, covering roughly 2,530 licensed staff and education support professionals, with step increases and cost-of-living raises. For a division that had been the only one in Northern Virginia unable to offer a cost-of-living adjustment the prior year — dropping from first to seventh in regional starting teacher pay in a single year — it was a milestone. The agreement was contingent on city funding, however, and included a provision reopening wage terms for renegotiation if the council appropriated less than the deal required.

But the agreement carried a $12.7 million price tag and arrived contingent on City Council appropriating millions the city manager's proposed budget did not include. Mayor Gaskins said the city learned the deal's final cost from a press release issued the same day as a joint budget work session. The months that followed brought public friction: Council pressed for data on which employees the agreement covered, the city moved to change how it appropriates school funding by spending category, and the School Board protested.

In the end, the city's appropriation rose just 1.5 percent, and the compensation package the board adopted June 11 was narrower than the deal it had negotiated months earlier — a step increase for eligible employees, a 1.25 percent cost-of-living adjustment for licensed and education support staff, and a new top step. In a chaotic final add/delete session, the board abandoned most of its proposals to restore employee pay after staff warned that, having adopted a collective bargaining resolution in 2024, it had given up the authority to set compensation on its own — a legal interpretation that several members contested before the board ultimately accepted it. All nine members signed a public statement ahead of the vote explaining the decision.

Closing an operating gap of more than $13 million, the board cut or reduced 56 full-time-equivalent positions, raised facility-use fees and employee health care contributions, and trimmed non-personnel spending. Most affected staff were placed in other roles. The board restored both Afghan family liaison positions in its final add/delete session, at a cost of $150,600, after they had been among the roles slated for elimination.

The adopted budget passed 8-1. Public comment was pointed: one speaker called it "an effective pay cut" and faulted the board for leaving central office largely untouched while front-line staff absorbed reductions.

The questions The Alexandria Brief asked her: This was one of the tightest budget cycles in recent memory. What did it cost the division — in programs, people, or momentum — and what would you tell the community about the trade-offs the board had to make? Collective bargaining reshaped how compensation decisions got made this year. How do you think that's changed the relationship between the division and its employees, for better or worse?

Serving newcomer students

Alexandria has long served a substantial population of Afghan families and other newcomer students, and the division continued to enroll arriving students this year. Its Afghan family liaison positions were among the roles slated for elimination as the budget gap loomed, before the board restored them in its final budget. Alexandria serves one of the highest shares of English-learner students in Virginia, and Hispanic and Latino students make up the division's largest demographic group. The weight of these communities is reflected even in the superintendent search now underway, which lists dedicated focus groups for parents who speak Amharic, Dari, and Spanish.

The question, as posed to her: ACPS welcomed a significant number of Afghan and other newcomer students this year. What did the division learn about serving families arriving under difficult circumstances?

A transition still in motion

Dr. Kay-Wyatt's departure, announced in March, comes nearly two years before her contract was set to expire in June 2028. The School Board accepted her resignation in an 8-0 vote and approved a separation agreement paying her $37,500 for accrued sick leave. She has said she is leaving to turn toward her family.

She will remain through the start of the 2026-27 school year to oversee the implementation of new school attendance boundaries this fall — among the most consequential changes she leaves behind. The Board has hired the search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, which opened community engagement and a survey in early June, with a leadership profile to follow later in the month, an Aug. 12 application deadline, confidential finalist interviews in September, and a selection announcement targeted for October — on or around Oct. 1, the same day her retirement takes effect, aiming to avoid a leadership gap. The transition is unfolding alongside a long-running principal search at Alexandria City High School, which has operated without a permanent principal since July 2025.

Community engagement sessions held as part of the search surfaced recurring themes: a desire for greater trust and clearer communication between the central office and families, teachers, and the broader community.

One piece of the budget picture remains open even now. State lawmakers reached a budget deal on June 19, with both chambers scheduled to vote on the compromise June 22; the agreement includes 4 percent annual teacher raises statewide, though what reaches any given division depends on local funding formulas, and Alexandria draws among the lowest state per-pupil support in Virginia because its local wealth index is capped at the maximum. ACPS has said earlier that additional state money — anywhere from zero to roughly $3.1 million — would go first toward compensation, which would still have to be negotiated with the union.

The questions: Redistricting, capital needs, and enrollment shifts are all on the horizon. What's the hardest decision you'll be handing off to your successor? What's the work you most want to finish in the months you have left before October?

The questions we asked

In full, the ten questions The Alexandria Brief emailed to Dr. Kay-Wyatt's office on June 10, which ACPS says it did not receive:

1. As you look back on this school year, what are you proudest of, and what kept you up at night?
2. This was one of the tightest budget cycles in recent memory. What did it cost the division — in programs, people, or momentum — and what would you tell the community about the trade-offs the board had to make?
3. Collective bargaining reshaped how compensation decisions got made this year. How do you think that's changed the relationship between the division and its employees, for better or worse?
4. ACPS welcomed a significant number of Afghan and other newcomer students this year. What did the division learn about serving families arriving under difficult circumstances?
5. What's one thing you changed your mind about this year?
6. What's the work you most want to finish in the months you have left before October?
7. Redistricting, capital needs, and enrollment shifts are all on the horizon. What's the hardest decision you'll be handing off to your successor?
8. What do you wish the public understood better about how a school division actually runs?
9. Looking just at this year, where is ACPS measurably better off — and where is there still the most work to do?
10. What are you most looking forward to about the start of next school year, even if you won't see all of it through?

Correction, June 24: An earlier version of this story reported that ACPS did not respond to written questions sent to Superintendent Dr. Melanie Kay-Wyatt's office beginning June 10. ACPS subsequently said it had no record of receiving the questions and that the email did not reach the division, with the cause under review by its IT staff. The questions did not reach ACPS, and the division did not decline to respond. The headline and story have been updated to reflect this, and The Alexandria Brief is resubmitting questions to School Board leadership.

Clarification: This story has been updated to more precisely describe the status of ACPS's collective bargaining. What the division and the Education Association of Alexandria reached in March was a tentative agreement, contingent on city funding, with wage terms subject to reopener negotiations. Earlier wording referring to it as the division's first collective bargaining agreement could have implied a finalized, ratified contract; the ratification status remains subject to confirmation.