Please sign petition to Arlington County and School Boards to address high school capacity crisis

[Anonymous]

Are the parents who started the petition planning to start a facebook page or a website of any sort? I'm interested in following this issue and hope they expand their efforts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And I *did* read your petition. It's poorly written and poorly focused. You spent more time criticizing the non-capital solutions and rehashing the past than you did articulating a specific alternative. This may explain your lack of response.

There's over 250 signatures

Petition was launched roughly 24hrs ago and is just shy of 400 signatures already.

[Anonymous]

https://www.change.org/p/arlington-county-board-aps-should-build-new-high-school-space-not-make-schools-bigger-and-double-shift-students?recruiter=113822210&utm_source=petitions_show_components_action_panel_wrapper&utm_medium=copylink


Link again.
Let's hit 500 before the end of the day!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.change.org/p/arlington-county-board-aps-should-build-new-high-school-space-not-make-schools-bigger-and-double-shift-students?recruiter=113822210&utm_source=petitions_show_components_action_panel_wrapper&utm_medium=copylink


Link again.
Let's hit 500 before the end of the day!

Over 500 now, but I think the window to avoid a disaster is closing fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.change.org/p/arlington-county-board-aps-should-build-new-high-school-space-not-make-schools-bigger-and-double-shift-students?recruiter=113822210&utm_source=petitions_show_components_action_panel_wrapper&utm_medium=copylink


Link again.
Let's hit 500 before the end of the day!

Over 500 now, but I think the window to avoid a disaster is closing fast.

School Board meeting tonight is still ongoing. They haven't yet taken up the CIP although it was on the agenda. Public comment session on June 7th. Please consider going and speaking, or continuing email outreach.

[Anonymous]

I think they are talking about the CIP now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they are talking about the CIP now.

Just finished.

[Anonymous]

So . . . what happened?

[Anonymous]

The School Board said that they believe they have a plan to address the seat deficit at the high school level, which involves two smaller high school programs rather than one large, comprehensive high school. One would be at the Career Center, which they now listed as having a 1400 seat capacity (formerly it was 600 seats - the jump to 1400 seats was not well explained), and another would be a 1,000 seat program on a site TBD (possibly a second HB Woodlawn-type school). Dr. Kanninen admitted the Board needed to do a better job in communicating its plans and said the Board would have another work session next week to try to further develop and refine its plans. They are aware of the petition, have been reading the comments, and it appears they are taking the feedback into account. It was encouraging, but there is still a lot to be done. Dr. Kanninen acknowledged they will need to work with the County Board this summer to identify sites for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The School Board said that they believe they have a plan to address the seat deficit at the high school level, which involves two smaller high school programs rather than one large, comprehensive high school. One would be at the Career Center, which they now listed as having a 1400 seat capacity (formerly it was 600 seats - the jump to 1400 seats was not well explained), and another would be a 1,000 seat program on a site TBD (possibly a second HB Woodlawn-type school). Dr. Kanninen admitted the Board needed to do a better job in communicating its plans and said the Board would have another work session next week to try to further develop and refine its plans. They are aware of the petition, have been reading the comments, and it appears they are taking the feedback into account. It was encouraging, but there is still a lot to be done. Dr. Kanninen acknowledged they will need to work with the County Board this summer to identify sites for schools.

This is all presented in the school board's CIP plan, which was posted on Board Docs at the beginning of the week:

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=AABK8B4F9909

Some of those projects are pretty far out in the future (the 1,000 secondary seats TBD are in the 2022 bond, six years from now)

[Anonymous]

I said it in the other thread. Use eminent domain and take Bishop O'Connell. Already built and ready to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The School Board said that they believe they have a plan to address the seat deficit at the high school level, which involves two smaller high school programs rather than one large, comprehensive high school. One would be at the Career Center, which they now listed as having a 1400 seat capacity (formerly it was 600 seats - the jump to 1400 seats was not well explained), and another would be a 1,000 seat program on a site TBD (possibly a second HB Woodlawn-type school). Dr. Kanninen admitted the Board needed to do a better job in communicating its plans and said the Board would have another work session next week to try to further develop and refine its plans. They are aware of the petition, have been reading the comments, and it appears they are taking the feedback into account. It was encouraging, but there is still a lot to be done. Dr. Kanninen acknowledged they will need to work with the County Board this summer to identify sites for schools.

So they are going to have to abandon the vocational nature of this program and turn it into our own TJ if they want to grow this school that quickly. I really doubt they will be able to encourage enough parents to opt into a VoTech school (even if it's VoTech for the 20th Century).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I said it in the other thread. Use eminent domain and take Bishop O'Connell. Already built and ready to go.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Fine on using eminent domain, but idiotic to displace a private school -- where are those kids going to go?

Use eminent domain and take a block near some residential property. It's a twofer -- you get the land you need for a school and you kick a couple of hundred families out of the county, reducing the number of students at the margins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The School Board said that they believe they have a plan to address the seat deficit at the high school level, which involves two smaller high school programs rather than one large, comprehensive high school. One would be at the Career Center, which they now listed as having a 1400 seat capacity (formerly it was 600 seats - the jump to 1400 seats was not well explained), and another would be a 1,000 seat program on a site TBD (possibly a second HB Woodlawn-type school). Dr. Kanninen admitted the Board needed to do a better job in communicating its plans and said the Board would have another work session next week to try to further develop and refine its plans. They are aware of the petition, have been reading the comments, and it appears they are taking the feedback into account. It was encouraging, but there is still a lot to be done. Dr. Kanninen acknowledged they will need to work with the County Board this summer to identify sites for schools.

So they are going to have to abandon the vocational nature of this program and turn it into our own TJ if they want to grow this school that quickly. I really doubt they will be able to encourage enough parents to opt into a VoTech school (even if it's VoTech for the 20th Century).

They need to explain the concept between Arlington Tech in a more coherent way. I actually think there are enough STEM-crazed parents to fill an Arlington version of TJ high school, but they have definitely not communicated that as the plan for the school. Its come across as VoTech for non-college bound kids.

If we are now building out 1400 seat choice high schools though as the solution, why the heck aren't they increasing the capacity at H-B?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I said it in the other thread. Use eminent domain and take Bishop O'Connell. Already built and ready to go.

That'll be great. It can absorb all of the kids who were displaced from Bishop O'Connell- on the county's dime.