APS 4th HS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear you but it more than just football, as others have pointed out. It is access to all sorts of curricular and extracurricular offerings that a comprehensive high school provides. We will simply have too many students for everyone to have a chance at participating if we only have 3 high schools.

such as? also those don't require 32-acre land i don't think.

Not all require 32acres but to name a few outside activities that require space -- tennis, soccer, baseball, field hockey, track, marching band. And, as PP pointed out, football is really a shorthand for the idea that you need a fourth HS that offers the range of extracurriculars. A given HS can only hold so many drama productions, have so many kids in an orchestra, reasonable number of kids on the newspaper or yearbook staff, and so on. With only a few excepts, HB and ArlTech students pull back to the 3 mega HS and continue to contribute to the population who want access to those types of activities. A fourth comprehensive HS increases the opportunity for participation.

[Anonymous]

I'm not saying a 1300 seat school is necessarily a bad idea. But the Ed Center location is proposed as an addition to WL. There is not room at that site for an auditorium, cafeteria, etc. - interior common spaces. WL would become a 3500+ seat school and it doesn't have the amenities for that. I also think offering access to field space is important. There are many other uses beyond football.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear you but it more than just football, as others have pointed out. It is access to all sorts of curricular and extracurricular offerings that a comprehensive high school provides. We will simply have too many students for everyone to have a chance at participating if we only have 3 high schools.

such as? also those don't require 32-acre land i don't think.

Not all require 32acres but to name a few outside activities that require space -- tennis, soccer, baseball, field hockey, track, marching band. And, as PP pointed out, football is really a shorthand for the idea that you need a fourth HS that offers the range of extracurriculars. A given HS can only hold so many drama productions, have so many kids in an orchestra, reasonable number of kids on the newspaper or yearbook staff, and so on. With only a few excepts, HB and ArlTech students pull back to the 3 mega HS and continue to contribute to the population who want access to those types of activities. A fourth comprehensive HS increases the opportunity for participation.

HB does this for sports, but not for other extracurriculars which HB has (drama, orchestra, yearbook, etc.). I don't know about ArlTech since it's so small but is supposed to expand.

I agree that a 4th comprehensive high school is needed and that Kenmore's acreage makes it the best bet (1300 seats now, then expand to full high school and move Kenmore MS to another site). The booming population of high schoolers in the next few years are going to need options for their extracurriculars including sports and arts, and a 4th high school will be needed to give them all opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Kenmore campus is 32 acres (same as Wakefield), so presumably there would be room for a football stadium there.

gosh WHY MUST THERE BE a DAMN FOOTBALL STADIUM at EVERY HS???!!! PRIORITIES PEOPLE!!!

yes i'm yelling!

Football builds a community more than any other sport. It's the American past time.

Just take out the word football.

Spectators for many other sports at the 3 Arlington high schools use the stadium in addition to football.

Then there's the added bonus (duh!) that the stadium surrounds an athletic field that people from across the county use about 20 hours a day when the students aren't using it.

Then there's the fact that competition for the use of the county owned athletic fields is increasing because of all the various youth (and more students in the county equals more students playing sports) through adult leagues that use them so having an athletic field at the 4th HS would be very good not just for its students but for anyone in the county that plays/runs/uses an outdoor athletic fields.

All of this. There's need for more and more outdoor athletic space when you have more and more people in the county (and especially a greater population of kids).
And it would also be unfair to have one neighborhood assigned to the 4th comprehensive HS if kids there weren't going to get similar extracurricular activities to the other 3 schools. You don't want kids in one school zone to have track, soccer, football, etc. and kids in another school zone not to have them. That's why the Kenmore site seems like a good option.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure Ed center can be reconfigured to add a cafeteria and a black box theater (how about the planetarium?) plus some common areas. I don't know much about sports but I'm pretty sure 1,300 kids is plenty enough to field a football team - but a pretty bad one, probably.

[Anonymous]

The planetarium will be torn down if Ed Center is chosen. School Board already confirmed that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The planetarium will be torn down if Ed Center is chosen. School Board already confirmed that.

Good to know, thx.

[Anonymous]

Didn't we just pay a whole bunch of money, or solicit funds, to renovate the planetarium? Like within the last 5 years? So wasteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sure Ed center can be reconfigured to add a cafeteria and a black box theater (how about the planetarium?) plus some common areas. I don't know much about sports but I'm pretty sure 1,300 kids is plenty enough to field a football team - but a pretty bad one, probably.

To be clear they aren't talking about renovating the actual Ed Center building. They world knock it down and build a whole new facility. I still think it's a horrible idea to deal with the problem by basically just making W-L a 4,000 kid school.

[Anonymous]

Is it pretty much a given that neighborhoods like Westover and Bluemont will be reassigned to the new school along with Carlin Springs and other South Arlington neighborhoods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sure Ed center can be reconfigured to add a cafeteria and a black box theater (how about the planetarium?) plus some common areas. I don't know much about sports but I'm pretty sure 1,300 kids is plenty enough to field a football team - but a pretty bad one, probably.

To be clear they aren't talking about renovating the actual Ed Center building. They world knock it down and build a whole new facility. I still think it's a horrible idea to deal with the problem by basically just making W-L a 4,000 kid school.

Really? That's gonna take several years to complete - 5 years maybe when all is said and done?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it pretty much a given that neighborhoods like Westover and Bluemont will be reassigned to the new school along with Carlin Springs and other South Arlington neighborhoods?

Those neighborhoods aren't even adjacent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty sure Ed center can be reconfigured to add a cafeteria and a black box theater (how about the planetarium?) plus some common areas. I don't know much about sports but I'm pretty sure 1,300 kids is plenty enough to field a football team - but a pretty bad one, probably.

To be clear they aren't talking about renovating the actual Ed Center building. They world knock it down and build a whole new facility. I still think it's a horrible idea to deal with the problem by basically just making W-L a 4,000 kid school.

Really? That's gonna take several years to complete - 5 years maybe when all is said and done?

Yes, the timeline for the 1300 HS seats is for them to be available in Sept 2022.

I listened to the work session where they talked about the HS options and it was specifically commented that they needed to more clearly explain the options because they'd heard some people thought they were actually talking about sending kids to school in the actual Ed Center building rather than building something new on the site. the "Ed Center" option is talking about the site, not that actual building. If they choose that option something new would be added to house all the 9th graders from W-L plus an expanded IB program. So, it is really just about making W-L huge. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Why did we re elect Nancy Van Doren? This is all her doing. She is the worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did we re elect Nancy Van Doren? This is all her doing. She is the worst.

I tried not to