Let’s Talk APS High Schools: 4th one or no?
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Anonymous
| Have a 4th high school that is choice (maybe arts or STEM) but use empty office space in Rosslyn for it...don't need to spend lots of money to build. Who cares about fields? use local parks or if you want that choice school you understand what you are getting |
Anonymous
Sounds good. SB just needs to get something done and stop waiting for the perfect circumstances that will never arise. Rosslyn, the Kenmore site, I don't care where, just do it. |
Anonymous
x1,000,000 |
Anonymous
Small programs everywhere means all those students still need to go back to neighborhood schools, or go somewhere to come together with all the other program schools, for extracurriculars and amenities. We can't keep sending hundreds and hundreds of students back to the existing already-overburdened fields and courts and such. Students who have to go back to a neighborhood school for marching band are getting shafted. They don't go to school with those kids; but they see them only in band and have to give-up time at their own school and classes in order to do so (for an example). Much more efficient and effective to build a larger campus - whether of all the little programs or a comprehensive high school - and give them at least most of the amenities on site. A lot less traveling around, bussing around, and wasting students' time traveling around the County for the basic things Yorktown, WL and Wakefield students get to take for granted. The Kenmore site is amply big enough to house both a middle school and high school. If you can talk about cramming 3000 high school students on 12 acres at the Career Center site, you can certainly fit 3,000 on well over 30 acres at Kenmore. If you can legitimately talk about renovating and adding on to the existing Career Center building and making it work, you can certainly work with the existing middle school building and make a 6-12 campus work whether in one building or two. Where is it carved that 6-8 graders "need a dedicated building and curriculum"? Did somebody forget to tell HB Woodlawn that? Or Lake Braddock (or is it Robinson?) that is 7-12, operating 7-8 with its own administration and cordoned off within the 7-12 campus? Kenmore campus is bigger than Wakefield's and they were considering building another elementary school on that campus (and new elementaries are now almost as large as our middle schools and require more outdoor space, apparently). Traffic issues come with any site. SB just doesn't have the courage to do what they are elected to do: make decisions in the interest of the school system. Glencarlyn has scared them off with their tails between their legs twice. They deserve to have their biggest fear realized and lose their precious W-L when they are redistricted to Wakefield with a new high school at the Career Center instead. A high school at the Career Center site can be a fabulous institution. But Kenmore offers the "easier" vision with what people in Arlington are more comfortable with - the sprawling campus rather than the urban institution. And boundaries would be much simpler and more flexible as needed to balance enrollment over time. And wouldn't make Wakefield 80% FRL like a "Career Center High School" will -- but, nobody gives a r's a-- about that. Smaller programs do not provide the guarantees of enrollment control evenly across schools like boundaries do. All of the high schools are crowded; so we need to address overall capacity and be able to balance enrollment through boundaries. Projections show more than enough overcrowding to fill a full-sized high school. That's the most efficient way to deal with the problem, even if it is expensive. |
Anonymous
And exactly which parents are going to pick that? That's the problem. If you want the seats filled, they have to be appealing. Stuffig some kids into some retrofitted office space and making up some half-thought out program isn't going to cut it. |
Anonymous
ANY new high school ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTY will have the same effect. |
Anonymous
| Yes, better to have it at Kenmore. That will ensure that many families north of 50 will attend, and hopefully mean families south of the Pike stay at Wakefield. That would probably even things out a little better as long as Buckingham stays at WL. That spreads out to Poot communities among 3 schools, each with a strong enough cohort that everyone is welcomed. But not a majority. Maybe that would force the county do some serious traffic control on glen Carlin. The middle school could go on the vhc site. I know the community opposes this, but they need to stop and think. |
Anonymous
| Poor, not poot. |
Anonymous
At least it wasn’t poop. |
Anonymous
|
Kenmore is the only realistic site for a comprehensive high school but remember there is also an elementary school there. Not sure how it works having an elementary adjacent to high school.
Could be similar demographics to W-L if they redrew boundaries to include a big swathe north of 50 and/or straddling the neighborhoods just north and south of 50 which include many UMC families. But I do think it would be difficult to not pull UMC from Wakefield for these boundaries. It's just so tough with limited options/geography to come up with a balanced solution. Middle school could remain on the site, share field space, and maybe the elementary (Carlin Springs) could even move to VHC site to give more space. That would put it right next door to Campbell but if one is neighborhood school and one is choice it could work. |
Anonymous
| I 100% support a 4th comprehensive high school. Anything else is just a bandaid. |
Anonymous
You guys are coming to this party a few months too late. Did you not watch the complete farce of a presentation where the aps staff put in a presentatom why Kenmore wasn't possible? Some piss poor excuse that they didn't have enough time to get Fairfax to sign off on constructionand that's why the sb claimed to vote for the stupid ed and career center split. |
Anonymous
Nope, it wouldn't. A 4th high school at kenmore probably wouldn't include Oakridge as a feeder. It's a huge, mostly well to do area that helps keep Wakefield at "only" 50% farms. |
Anonymous
| Kenmore is not on the table. Career Center is. |
Anonymous
But why? Kenmore has a ton more room. And moving an ES is much easier than finding land for a high school. |