Why doesn’t APS make a second HB or an ATS secondary school?
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Anonymous
Yeah it definitely seems like there are a lot of rec centers. Barcroft seems like it would make a good high school location. But only a small share of people in Arlington have schools and property values aren't that tied to schools, so I don't think the politics work. |
Anonymous
It looks like it might be to expand the Career Center program, which is great for those secondary students on this track, but doesn't provide relief for overcrowding in the high schools. Maybe (I hope) I'm wrong? Seems like if you are building then why not build for both capacities (HS and career/ tech programs)? https://www.arlnow.com/2022/02/02/aps-relaunches-career-center-expansion-project-after-delaying-it-due-to-cost-overruns/ |
Anonymous
Why do you think extra seats at Career center/tech wont relive crowding at other schools? |
Anonymous
This. Arlington Tech is a college-prep program. Expanding the Career Center is at least in part to grow that program. |
Anonymous
College like NOVA or JMU — it’s much more prepping to be a nurse or technician than professor at Stanford |
Anonymous
| There will NEVER be HB2 or Mini-TJ in Arlington. An additional program would cannibalize the neighborhood schools almost completely of their top students and all would crater in the ratings. We already have students going to Fairfax because it is so close, making another “private school in public dollar” would leave the neighborhood schools GS4 or so. |
Anonymous
Kids were accepted to Duke and Harvard from Arlington Tech last year, so I don’t think this take is entirely accurate. |
Anonymous
I don’t think APS publicizes the programs at the career center well, they need to step that up. |
Anonymous
Were the URM from SA? |
Anonymous
I have no idea but what does it matter if they are URM from SA or legacies from NA? It's still mostly students planning to go to 4-year colleges. This year so far their Instagram account shows kids going to schools like UVA, W&M, VT, U of Chicago, UT Austin, BU, Alabama, GMU, Penn State, GW, Bucknell. |
Anonymous
It's going on the existing Career Center site and will run along S. Walter Reed Dr. They are adding some new seats here -- maybe 300? -- but mainly just fixing the screw-up they made when they created AT, because the building it is in with the CC programs did not have that many open seats and is not really designed for full time students. Plus those labs are all 50 years old. So they are updating all of that and giving Tech a real home. The cost is really high. Open question what happens to the current building, which they've already spent $16 million on trying to solve for Tech. Likely MPSA moving in at a cost of many more millions. They've floated adding middle school Arlington Tech seats to that site, but I personally think that's dumb. Tech is a good program, and I think it will grow once it has a real building. Better to plan for more HS capacity if we need it. |
Anonymous
You have no idea what the Arlington Tech program is. It is not the same as the Career Center with specific career training/certifications. Arlington Tech program is a FOUR-YEAR college prep program with a bunch of dual-enrollment classes and a required senior year internship in the real world. |
Anonymous
| They have a robotics program. APS does a crappy job or promoting the school. Hopefully the building will be nice and the school will grow. |
Anonymous
The problem with using rec centers is that the sites are held by the county, not APS, and the county historically has strictly refused to transfer its property to APS without getting a different property in exchange (but since APS is using all of the sites it currently holds, there is nothing it could give in a trade without creating different capacity problems). Many of the current community centers used to be schools, but APS transferred the properties to the county when enrollment was too low to sustain them because the cost of maintaining the buildings was too much for APS to bear. Now that APS needs the land again, the county will not transfer them back. Also, building code requirements are different for schools than for community centers, and most (if not all) of the current community centers would not meet the building code requirements for schools (particularly elementary schools), so the cost to convert them into schools would be massive. |
Anonymous
If APS ever has an FAQ (and I wish it would because I am so very tired of people's Groundbreaking Ideas That Only They Are Smart Enough to Have Thought Of, such as a second HB or renting office space for a school), I hope it hires you to write it |