ACPS High School Academies

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:They have built a second giant highschool building at minnie Howard. Have you driven by lately? It is huge! The school board and superintendent is just refusing to separate the two schools and instead wants students to waste their time, be out in danger and commute back and forth. It makes NO sense.


Will there be a shuttle for the students between the buildings? Or some infrastructure like a pedestrian bridge. How long is the walk between the two school buildings? I hope they figure the logistics out so things run smoothly.


A pedestrian bridge? Someone must not be from Alexandria.
Anonymous
There are shuttles between two campus.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I still can’t believe they missed the opportunity to use Landmark Mall redevelopment for a second high school…


Because a hospital is such a poor use of that land...


The new hospital will have 30% less beds then the current inova hospital. The majority of the site will be more dense housing and an ice skating rink. There is no new school being built on the land. Read the news. Mayor Wilsons #1 priority is development. Our city council is failing us!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Will MH still be 9th grade only once the new building opens?


No, it will be 9-12
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I still can’t believe they missed the opportunity to use Landmark Mall redevelopment for a second high school…


Because a hospital is such a poor use of that land...


Well, they could have built a school *and* a hospital on Landmark. Or, negotiated a better agreement so that when the old hospital on Seminary is torn down Seminary, that land goes to the City for public use (to build a second school).
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Will MH still be 9th grade only once the new building opens?


No, it will be 9-12


So, will all kids be shuttling back and forth between the two buildings (that seems like a nightmare) or will things be housed by “academies” in one building or the other?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Will MH still be 9th grade only once the new building opens?


No, it will be 9-12


So, will all kids be shuttling back and forth between the two buildings (that seems like a nightmare) or will things be housed by “academies” in one building or the other?


YES! This is the superintendents plan. They have been discussing it all year at school board meetings. Please speak up and let them know what a stupid plan this is.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Will MH still be 9th grade only once the new building opens?


No, it will be 9-12


So, will all kids be shuttling back and forth between the two buildings (that seems like a nightmare) or will things be housed by “academies” in one building or the other?


YES! This is the superintendents plan. They have been discussing it all year at school board meetings. Please speak up and let them know what a stupid plan this is.


Would it be like college campus shuttles? Every 15 minutes or so, or only during breaks? And would the shuttles get traffic signal priority? Sounds expensive and complex.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Will MH still be 9th grade only once the new building opens?


No, it will be 9-12


So, will all kids be shuttling back and forth between the two buildings (that seems like a nightmare) or will things be housed by “academies” in one building or the other?


YES! This is the superintendents plan. They have been discussing it all year at school board meetings. Please speak up and let them know what a stupid plan this is.


Would it be like college campus shuttles? Every 15 minutes or so, or only during breaks? And would the shuttles get traffic signal priority? Sounds expensive and complex.


There will be so many fights on them that students will be walking the vast majority of the year.
Anonymous
ACPS can’t even get transportation right for regular morning and afternoon routes. Can’t imagine they’ll successfully shuttle over 4,000 kids between two ACHS campuses on a daily basis. So much instructional time will be lost trying to transition back-and-forth between the buildings. What a mess!
Anonymous
As a PP noted above, there are already shuttles that connect MH and KS between classes. So while there are plenty of issues that merit discussion, we can put this one to bed.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:As a PP noted above, there are already shuttles that connect MH and KS between classes. So while there are plenty of issues that merit discussion, we can put this one to bed.


But they’re only shuttling a small number of students, right? Sounds like more kids will be going back-and-forth more often. Hopefully it won’t be an issue!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:As a PP noted above, there are already shuttles that connect MH and KS between classes. So while there are plenty of issues that merit discussion, we can put this one to bed.


The current shuttles are it's just a subset of 9th graders that need to take classes at King St. And they're a disaster, kids need to leave class early and get to class late because the shuttle takes longer than the time between class periods. To do this successfully with a much larger number of kids will require them to build in bigger breaks between classes or some other solution (e.g. kids switch at a certain time that has a longer break, etc). I've also heard that they'll try to have kids have A days at one campus and B days at another or something similar. None of that will work perfectly because King St is larger than the new M-H.
Anonymous
What I find so incredibly frustrating is that they DID build a second high school. But instead of just having 2 high schools they're insisting that two different buildings are one school. There is no reason that they couldn't have these be two distinct schools. The equity issue doesn't hold up because they don't need to have them be east end/west end schools since they're both in the middle of the city. They could balance demographics between them if they wanted to. I've heard people arguing that everyone will want the new building, but I (and everyone I've talked about this with) would be happier with my kids in the current building with a smaller number of kids per year than this stupid two school model they're insisting on.

They can still share sports facilities. The district I grew up in did this--we had two high schools. One had the football stadium and the other had the pool. It worked fine.
Anonymous
09:22 I completely agree. That seems like the really obvious solution here. They could divide it up by the academy programs. As usual, ACPS ignores what’s right in front of them and instead contorts themselves to insist on this failed “one high school” model.
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