HB Woodlawn - I know nothing. Help!
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Anonymous
New poster and I'll bite. This is revisionist in some respects - the resources aren't just about the bloated cost of the building. HB families fought hard to stay where they were, regardless of whether the space was needed in that area for a comprehensive middle school. True. What they fought AGAINST was taking on more students (regardless of location) to do even a bit more to ease the overcrowding at the other schools. THAT is where they are taking resources. Yorktown's freshmen class has roughly 500 kids. W-L has 700. I can't find Wakefield but it's in that range. By contrast, HB has 130. Bump it to 250 - take additional kids out of the other schools. And, HB kids get to go back and take up space and resources at those schools if they want. Sports teams, classes, etc. That's the really interesting thing about HB and ArlTech. If kids had to be all-in, and couldn't access resources at the other high schools, what would it do to enrollment? So, YES, HB is a net negative on the system despite all the cries of the parents. APS staff and board kowtow to this special interest group and that's what angers parents. |
Anonymous
Do we know how many kids actually do you go back for sports? I always heard that the late dismissal time made that very difficult. |
Anonymous
There were two forces at work. HB didn’t want HB to grow since the school’s philosophy demands a very small school population, according to the school. And there were others that objected to HB growing since it would peel off more of the generally high performing students from the comprehensive high schools. In the end, while no solution is ever perfect, HB ends up moving into a striking building with cascading outdoor terraces, which happen to complement its philosophy, in Rosslyn. And, an old junior high building gets remodeled into a beautiful, state of the art middle school facility that also honors its role in desegregation history with a memorial walk and other features. I’d say it’s a win win all around. No one should be picking fights over this. Rosslyn was always going to have a building with a more or less striking design since that’s what was called for in the Rosslyn master planning process. (It still would have been more expensive, even if APS put an elementary school there, or the middle school there.) Creating a new civic landmark was also part of the justification for tearing down the historic Wilson School building at the site. It was all part of a multiple years’ long public process. |
Anonymous
Maybe the decision-makers were just better at math than you and could see that taking 40 kids out of a freshman class of 500-700 wouldn't really do anything to ease overcrowding at any of the three comprehensive schools but doubling the size of the freshman class at H-B would change the nature of the program (in addition to doubling the costs to build the new building, since high-rises cost way more to build than mid-rises). |
Anonymous
| If HB was supposed to be able to support 2x its current population, it should have been built to that size. It was not. And it has no fields. The ship on that one has long sailed so please deal with that. |
Anonymous
This mentality right here is what's wrong with the program and the lottery system. It's driven by scarcity and FOMO and "winning" a spot. Not by people who are genuinely interested in the philosophy behind the program. Honestly, we should have most of our schools run this way -- if you take the radical idea of treating young adults like young adults they'll behave accordingly and apply it to our education system writ large, a lot of problems would be solved. Our current model where we basically warehouse teens is horrible. |
Anonymous
I think you're replying to me and I agree with you- this is stated much better than my post with more of the relevant history. |
Anonymous
HB students cannot take classes at their base school. |
Anonymous
Nah, the problem isn't with waiting to do research until after you have a positive lottery result. It's with people who enroll and attend without learning about the school. I'm not aware of that happening. |
Anonymous
Public schools have always been “containers” for large groups of kids in this country, since at least the late 1800s. (Research by leading academics actually support individual schools no larger than 100 students for optimal learning; but that does not factor in sports, electives, cost, etc. It’s more of a European model.) I give APS credit for designing inspiring places for learning in the new and renovated buildings, for creating unique smaller programs open to all like the Career Center, and small option programs like Arlington Tech and HB. And the large high schools have a plethora of extra curriculars, sports, and electives for students with diverse interests. The U.S. education current model is not perfect, but Arlington’s approach is not bad. |
Anonymous
My kid does nothing connected to their home school. They have no interest in sports so HB is a good fit, and we don't take up a space at a school that actually has the fields, pools, and other facilities to support those extracurriculars, many of which have become such important college hooks in recent years. I think some HB kids do manage to do a home school sport but it's unusual. If we were at our home school, that would be another seat taken there that would not actually be using any of those facilities, except maybe for gym. |
Anonymous
and they can't do marching band at their home school, even if they want to, although they can do sports kids give up a lot of things to go to HB, there are definite trade-offs |
Anonymous
And if threads like this show us anything, it's that APS needs more of these option programs. The demand is definitely there. |
Anonymous
If he likes likes theater, he should definitely try to see some shows at both schools. My child is heavily involved in theater at Yorktown, and they are performing student-written one-act plays this Thursday night, Friday night, and 11-7 Saturday in the black box theater. The YHS theatre kids are extremely supportive and inclusive and it's been a godsend for my kid. They are doing Les Mis this spring (April 4-6). I'm not sure when H-B's next show is, but I'd check that out as well. |
Anonymous
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Getting back to OP's question, I adore HB and my kid has had a wonderful experience. Still, there are real drawbacks - as compared to the regular high schools - that I was not fully aware of back when we took the slot.
HB has fewer AP classes. And when an AP is offered, it's often taught together with the regular class. So the teacher has to teach the AP and the non-AP curriculum in the same class. HB offers fewer classes in general. There are no intensified classes unless you're on the advanced math track. So it's AP or regular. Extracurricular activities are pretty limited. Theater and ultimate frisbee are very active. Outside of that, not so much. |