The First Day of School Year 2026-2027
- Aug 28
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
This year, on August 24, the first day of school was a city wide celebration of our public schools and the 26-27 school year.
School Board Leadership, Board members, the Mayor, City Council members, ACPS Central Office leadership, and community members all came out to welcome back our students and wish them a great start to the year.
In honor of this, we wanted to share a few photos from the day.
School Board Chair Chris Harris, Mayor Alyia Gaskins, Acting Superintendent Grace Taylor, ACHS Principle Michael Burch, City Manager Jim Parajon, and Police Chief Tarrick McGuire kicked off the day at ACHS.
Chair Harris then went to his alma mater William Ramsay and met with the students
School, City and Community leaders also visited our elementary and middle schools:
Board Vice Chair Alex Scioscia visited three schools:
Polk Elementary School
Minnie Howard with head of HR Kamika Valmond and ACHS Satellite Campus with the Campus Administrator Fredericka Smith
Board Member Ryan Reyna, Councilwoman Sandy Marks and ACPS CFO Dominic Turner went to George Washington Middle School
Board Member Reyna also went to Mount Vernon Community School
Board Member Donna Kenley visited Lyles Crouch with Principal Laura Burkart and talked with students
She also went to Samuel Tucker Elementary School for their first day back on July 27th.
The Alexandria-Fairfax Alumni Chapter Kappa Alpha Psi visited Patrick Henry and Jefferson Houston and welcomed in students with a line of high fives
The visits and welcomes did not stop there! Across the rest of Alexandria’s schools we had:
Councilman John Chapman at Douglas MacArthur
Councilman Canek Aguirre at Patrick Henry
Board Member Michelle Rief at William Ramsay
Board Member Tim Beaty at Charles Barrett and Cora Kelly
Board Member Abdullahi Abdallah at FT Day and John Adams
Sheriff Sean Casey at Patrick Henry
Police Chief McGuire also took on extra duties as crossing guard for our students
