APS - new CIP proposal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did APS do any outreach to families to see if they would actually send their kids to Arlington Tech for middle school?

Probably not, but why wouldn’t they? I would. My one kid is absolutely dreading traditional MS and is interested in applying to Tech for HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS presented updated CIP plans for the Career Center tonight:
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-05-24-WS-2-Inst-messages-FINAL.pdf

Tonight's work session is available for viewing here:
https://www.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/school-board-work-sessions-meetings/

The plan is a 1,700 seat building for the new Career Center:
- 450 middle school Arl Tech seats
- 950 high school Arl Tech seats (I think - this number isn't spelled out, but based on the total of 1,700)
- 300 part-time CTE seats (to accommodate 900 students from other high schools coming to CC for classes in three blocks)

Montessori gets a new building and grows to 775 seats (it's 460 now). All satellite preschool Montessori classes from around the County will move to the campus, as well as the middle school seats (which are now about 70 Gunston students).

Total students at the Career Center campus at any time will be 2,475.

Costs aren't broken down but total costs are estimated at $185 million.

My first reaction is that it's so many option seats. I hope families will apply for all these seats.

Does Arl Tech allow students to take the full range of AP classes, languages, etc?

LOL, the County needs 10 years to get Carlin Springs Road ready for Kenmore to be turned into a high school. And it sounds like APS and the County have taken zero steps toward this since this issue was discussed and debated in 2017 (52.30 minute mark).

They should go ahead and build the buildings while they work on the road issues - whatever they are. At least then the school will be ready to open when the roads are built instead of waiting another ten years for the construction of the buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS presented updated CIP plans for the Career Center tonight:
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-05-24-WS-2-Inst-messages-FINAL.pdf

Tonight's work session is available for viewing here:
https://www.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/school-board-work-sessions-meetings/

The plan is a 1,700 seat building for the new Career Center:
- 450 middle school Arl Tech seats
- 950 high school Arl Tech seats (I think - this number isn't spelled out, but based on the total of 1,700)
- 300 part-time CTE seats (to accommodate 900 students from other high schools coming to CC for classes in three blocks)

Montessori gets a new building and grows to 775 seats (it's 460 now). All satellite preschool Montessori classes from around the County will move to the campus, as well as the middle school seats (which are now about 70 Gunston students).

Total students at the Career Center campus at any time will be 2,475.

Costs aren't broken down but total costs are estimated at $185 million.

My first reaction is that it's so many option seats. I hope families will apply for all these seats.

Does Arl Tech allow students to take the full range of AP classes, languages, etc?

LOL, the County needs 10 years to get Carlin Springs Road ready for Kenmore to be turned into a high school. And it sounds like APS and the County have taken zero steps toward this since this issue was discussed and debated in 2017 (52.30 minute mark).

I think it's a clever bit of politics. The neighborhood leaned on the fact that the existing transportation infrastructure couldn't support a high school there back in 2017, when really what they wanted was just to veto the whole project so they could stay zoned to W-L. Now APS is trying to get the county to just offer them transportation improvements, no strings attached. What neighborhood would refuse that? Then, when the project is complete, the neighborhood won't have that argument to fall back on to stop the high school from being built.

The immediate neighborhood is zoned Wakefield. But its northern neighbor neighborhood definitely wanted to stay at WL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS presented updated CIP plans for the Career Center tonight:
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-05-24-WS-2-Inst-messages-FINAL.pdf

Tonight's work session is available for viewing here:
https://www.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/school-board-work-sessions-meetings/

The plan is a 1,700 seat building for the new Career Center:
- 450 middle school Arl Tech seats
- 950 high school Arl Tech seats (I think - this number isn't spelled out, but based on the total of 1,700)
- 300 part-time CTE seats (to accommodate 900 students from other high schools coming to CC for classes in three blocks)

Montessori gets a new building and grows to 775 seats (it's 460 now). [b]All satellite preschool Montessori classes from around the County will move to the campus, as well as the middle school seats (which are now about 70 Gunston students).

Total students at the Career Center campus at any time will be 2,475.

Costs aren't broken down but total costs are estimated at $185 million.

My first reaction is that it's so many option seats. I hope families will apply for all these seats.

Does Arl Tech allow students to take the full range of AP classes, languages, etc?

New building or renovated current CC building? Also, I don’t think Tech students do have access, on site, for all AP or Language courses offered at the comprehensive HS, but that’s part of the calculation families make when opting for this school, which has access to other different courses that aren’t offered at the comprehensive schools, I believe.

Correct. AT does not have AP classes. They have a ton of DE (dual enrollment) classes which provide them the opportunity to graduate high school with a lot of college credits. The comprehensive schools only have a handful of those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS presented updated CIP plans for the Career Center tonight:
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-05-24-WS-2-Inst-messages-FINAL.pdf

Tonight's work session is available for viewing here:
https://www.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/school-board-work-sessions-meetings/

The plan is a 1,700 seat building for the new Career Center:
- 450 middle school Arl Tech seats
- 950 high school Arl Tech seats (I think - this number isn't spelled out, but based on the total of 1,700)
- 300 part-time CTE seats (to accommodate 900 students from other high schools coming to CC for classes in three blocks)

Montessori gets a new building and grows to 775 seats (it's 460 now). [b]All satellite preschool Montessori classes from around the County will move to the campus, as well as the middle school seats (which are now about 70 Gunston students).

Total students at the Career Center campus at any time will be 2,475.

Costs aren't broken down but total costs are estimated at $185 million.

My first reaction is that it's so many option seats. I hope families will apply for all these seats.

Does Arl Tech allow students to take the full range of AP classes, languages, etc?

New building or renovated current CC building? Also, I don’t think Tech students do have access, on site, for all AP or Language courses offered at the comprehensive HS, but that’s part of the calculation families make when opting for this school, which has access to other different courses that aren’t offered at the comprehensive schools, I believe.

APS is proposing to renovate the existing CC building for Montessori but I imagine the renovations will have to be substantial to work for a PreK and up program vs a high school. APS hasn't estimated the real costs yet. $185 million is just a placeholder.

They said that currently 304 of the 513 Arlington Tech students are in trailers and it will stay that way until this building is completed in 5 years. That sounds awful for those kids. What is the plan for where all those trailers and students will go during construction of the new CC?

I don't agree that we can plan on excess elementary capacity (if we actually get that, which seems unlikely) to solve our problems with secondary capacity, but I wonder about putting all the eggs in one basket with the CC project. It's so expensive, requires so many phases, and isn't flexible at all. We urgently need middle school seats by 2024. Why not focus on one or two smaller and quicker additions to our middle schools - Kenmore? And build the current CC out so that it adequately serves the current Arl Tech students but not more than that for now. And leave Montessori and ACHS where they are. They don't need to move - it is unnecessary extra cost that we can't afford.

Because Kenmore is the highest poverty middle school and shouldn’t be the one to take on the burden of 300 additional students, to boot. That’s not equitable in the least. I like the idea of adding MS seats to Tech, just wish it were sooner. I think the not bad/riskiest part of this plan is that it’s adding so many seats to Montessori, which hasn’t proven to be that popular, or attractive beyond Pre-K. Especially to diverse communities. Not sure that spending so much to grow Montessori is the wisest choice, or one based on data, rather it seems to be based on their small and very vocal lobby.

Montessori's small and very vocal lobby - that elected their spokeswoman Monique O'Grady to the school board, who is leaving now that she's gotten this plan in place and won't have to field all the criticism and questions.

[Anonymous]

Wasn't Hamm originally supposed to be bigger? Why can't we add more seats there if what we need is MS seats?

It's ridiculous APS is moving forward on this without even a real cost estimate. Insulting to the community.

[Anonymous]

So let me get this straight. APS's 10 year CIP is only going to focus on options programs? And not even the right ones?

Key will be in a building way too small for them, even without 2 K classes. And Claremont is overcrowded too. It's likely Claremont is moving too, but maybe one person (Lisa Stengle) knows where yet. Will it be enough though to deal with their capacity?

Immersion would be the ideal program to move into one building, from elementary to high school. Take it out of Gunston and Wakefield. And give Claremont building back to the neighborhood, because that's where APS needs capacity. ATS probably could be a neighborhood school too, easing overcrowding mid-county

But what do I know? Montessori is a very special program, apparently.

[Anonymous]

ATS is on a huge plot of land. Actually, that would be a great place to build a middle school. Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight. APS's 10 year CIP is only going to focus on options programs? And not even the right ones?

Key will be in a building way too small for them, even without 2 K classes. And Claremont is overcrowded too. It's likely Claremont is moving too, but maybe one person (Lisa Stengle) knows where yet. Will it be enough though to deal with their capacity?

Immersion would be the ideal program to move into one building, from elementary to high school. Take it out of Gunston and Wakefield. And give Claremont building back to the neighborhood, because that's where APS needs capacity. ATS probably could be a neighborhood school too, easing overcrowding mid-county

But what do I know? Montessori is a very special program, apparently.

+1000
I agree, PP. Though I'd be fine with moving Montessori middle out of Gunston. They could add a wing to the existing Montessori buiding and have a K-8 program.
I'm not an immersion advocate; but it definitely makes more sense to merge the elementary immersion programs and create one pre-K to 12 immersion program somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ATS is on a huge plot of land. Actually, that would be a great place to build a middle school. Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. ATS is the new site for Key immersion program. But, that doesn't mean the facility can't be expanded to include the middle school immersion program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight. APS's 10 year CIP is only going to focus on options programs? And not even the right ones?

Key will be in a building way too small for them, even without 2 K classes. And Claremont is overcrowded too. It's likely Claremont is moving too, but maybe one person (Lisa Stengle) knows where yet. Will it be enough though to deal with their capacity?

Immersion would be the ideal program to move into one building, from elementary to high school. Take it out of Gunston and Wakefield. And give Claremont building back to the neighborhood, because that's where APS needs capacity. ATS probably could be a neighborhood school too, easing overcrowding mid-county

But what do I know? Montessori is a very special program, apparently.

I don't know a lot about the CIP process or the immersion program, but I do think moving Key and Claremont into a new structure is a great idea.

More so than tearing down and rebuilding Montessori.

[Anonymous]

I hope you all are emailing Duran about this. There is every reason to think APS is going to spend all it's money on this project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
LOL, the County needs 10 years to get Carlin Springs Road ready for Kenmore to be turned into a high school. And it sounds like APS and the County have taken zero steps toward this since this issue was discussed and debated in 2017 (52.30 minute mark).

I think it's a clever bit of politics. The neighborhood leaned on the fact that the existing transportation infrastructure couldn't support a high school there back in 2017, when really what they wanted was just to veto the whole project so they could stay zoned to W-L. Now APS is trying to get the county to just offer them transportation improvements, no strings attached. What neighborhood would refuse that? Then, when the project is complete, the neighborhood won't have that argument to fall back on to stop the high school from being built.

Fixing transportation to the Kenmore/Carlin Springs site requires cooperation from Fairfax both because of the access from 50 that the site needs to be really efficient and for improvements to flow on S. Carlin Springs, which becomes FFX County right before you get to Columbia Pike.

As long as the problems only inconvenience Arlington, Fairfax won't do anything. Start work on the school, though, and watch Fairfax take notice.

[Anonymous]

Someone needs to explain to me why Carlin Springs can't handle a HS, yet S Walter Reed Dr can? What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS presented updated CIP plans for the Career Center tonight:
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-05-24-WS-2-Inst-messages-FINAL.pdf

Tonight's work session is available for viewing here:
https://www.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/school-board-work-sessions-meetings/

The plan is a 1,700 seat building for the new Career Center:
- 450 middle school Arl Tech seats
- 950 high school Arl Tech seats (I think - this number isn't spelled out, but based on the total of 1,700)
- 300 part-time CTE seats (to accommodate 900 students from other high schools coming to CC for classes in three blocks)

Montessori gets a new building and grows to 775 seats (it's 460 now). All satellite preschool Montessori classes from around the County will move to the campus, as well as the middle school seats (which are now about 70 Gunston students).

Total students at the Career Center campus at any time will be 2,475.

Costs aren't broken down but total costs are estimated at $185 million.

My first reaction is that it's so many option seats. I hope families will apply for all these seats.

Does Arl Tech allow students to take the full range of AP classes, languages, etc?

LOL, the County needs 10 years to get Carlin Springs Road ready for Kenmore to be turned into a high school. And it sounds like APS and the County have taken zero steps toward this since this issue was discussed and debated in 2017 (52.30 minute mark).

I think it's a clever bit of politics. The neighborhood leaned on the fact that the existing transportation infrastructure couldn't support a high school there back in 2017, when really what they wanted was just to veto the whole project so they could stay zoned to W-L. Now APS is trying to get the county to just offer them transportation improvements, no strings attached. What neighborhood would refuse that? Then, when the project is complete, the neighborhood won't have that argument to fall back on to stop the high school from being built.

The immediate neighborhood is zoned Wakefield. But its northern neighbor neighborhood definitely wanted to stay at WL.

Incorrect. PUs N of Columbia Pike and W of the 4 Mile Run Trail are zoned to W-L.