HB Woodlawn -- High School Only

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gotta love all these amateur moms thinking that having kids in the schools somehow makes them experts who can offer simple answers for complicated problems without knowing all the facts.

Please, the school board is filled by amateurs too, and the staff is hamstrung by politics and personal agendas (like the design awards for the Heights building rather than focusing on low cost and value for community)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sorry I’m ignorant about this, but why isn’t Arlington building more schools? Why aren’t we using more of the Arlington county budget for more buildings? I know we already spent quite a bit per student and schools are expensive but it seems like a district full of million dollar homes should be able to afford enough schools to not be overcrowded?

This is an excellent question. I have only been paying minimal attention so I'm sure others will correct me, but I seem to recall the Kenmore site as a 4th HS was killed by the local neighborhood complaining about traffic and Arlington not being able to remedy that by coordinating with Fairfax on a solution, and then the Career Center idea died after no one could agree on whether it could really be called a 4th HS if it didn't have its own pool.

In other words, seems to boil down to a lack of good sites to build on, paralysis due to various interests fighting each other, and no leadership decisions too move forward with the big picture in mind.

These two.
There are sites, though limited. And those sites have to compete with other County "interests."
So, reason 3 is: CB doesn't care about schools and conveniently relies on the separation of jursidictions with the SB. CB believes it gives schools sufficient funds and it's APS' problem. CB, although they acknowledge they aren't the experts and they aren't in charge of schools, want APS to solve capacity by providing online education. CB won't put other priorities on hold to allow more bond funding to schools to build the facilities it needs, lacks leadership on resolving the issues surrounding sites (traffic, etc. which APS is NOT in charge of making happen), and will not push back on individual neighborhood objections.
Reason 4 is: SB lacks backbone and leadership to stand up to the CB and directly tell them what they need and elicit a true collaborative relationship to make it happen.

There. You're all caught up.

Thank you, PPs! I try to keep up but I feel like I’m watching every fourth episode of a TV show.

What leverage could a school board have? I saw a video of somebody (presumably on the school board, sorry I don’t know her name) basically venting to the CB about how the CB never gives them enough funding. What could better SB leadership do?

Also, do any of the CB members have school-age kids? Obviously you don’t need to be a parent to make sure schools are adequately funded but maybe if the CB members had a bigger stake in public education in Arlington we would see some changes. (But do I want to run for a seat on the county board? Lol no, so I’m probably part of the problem)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's up with all the jealousy and anger against HB? From what I see, there's basically no difference between HB, Yorktown, and W-L on test scores. HB's are slightly higher, maybe, but that's probably because it's a choice school and only more actively involved parents/kid are throwing in applications.

If the curriculum is the same (which it is) and the test scores are the same (which they are) then the educations are the same. You're already getting at your neighborhood schools what you're getting at HB.

So why not make it a HS only and make better use of facility space and have less crowded high schools if it’s nothing special? Literally the point of this thread.

Why is it necessarily "better use" of the space to have more high schoolers instead of middle schoolers? Middle school is a unique age group with their own needs during a developmentally turbulent period - why shouldn't they get to have access to the program? Every argument for why HS students would choose HB also applies to MS students.

It’s a better use because we have plenty of middle school seats elsewhere. But I know you are being willfully ignorant

Some of the middle schools are also overcrowded.

But there are a lot of open seats in some. People just won't allow boundaries to change in a way that would fill them all equally.

Right, we all know how easy boundary changes are in APS!

[Anonymous]

At the end of the day, 243 MS seats converted to HS is just a drop in the bucket. All the boundary changes that would be necessary to equalize middle school sizes - moving immersion, shifting north, whatever - is that juice really worth the squeeze?

We really need a 4th comprehensive HS, period. And if HBW is that popular, we should also start up HBW2 (which could be smaller and in an office space, as a PPs suggested).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, 243 MS seats converted to HS is just a drop in the bucket. All the boundary changes that would be necessary to equalize middle school sizes - moving immersion, shifting north, whatever - is that juice really worth the squeeze?

We really need a 4th comprehensive HS, period. And if HBW is that popular, we should also start up HBW2 (which could be smaller and in an office space, as a PPs suggested).

Listen we just dropped $37M for 600 seats, so it’s clearly worth it for “drops in the bucket”. Sure we need 4th high school but that is a decade away at best

[Anonymous]

Everyone acts like HB wanted to move to rosslyn. It didn’t. It was happy to stay in its old crumbling building. Moving HB was part of a plan to make Hamm possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone acts like HB wanted to move to rosslyn. It didn’t. It was happy to stay in its old crumbling building. Moving HB was part of a plan to make Hamm possible.

FFS. Stop with the crocodile tears. You were happy to one of the largest plots of land that APS owns. It’s not like the building was condemned, Swanson and Gunston are hardly palaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone acts like HB wanted to move to rosslyn. It didn’t. It was happy to stay in its old crumbling building. Moving HB was part of a plan to make Hamm possible.

So if you had stayed at Stratford you would have welcomed a switch to high school? Sure…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sorry I’m ignorant about this, but why isn’t Arlington building more schools? Why aren’t we using more of the Arlington county budget for more buildings? I know we already spent quite a bit per student and schools are expensive but it seems like a district full of million dollar homes should be able to afford enough schools to not be overcrowded?

This is an excellent question. I have only been paying minimal attention so I'm sure others will correct me, but I seem to recall the Kenmore site as a 4th HS was killed by the local neighborhood complaining about traffic and Arlington not being able to remedy that by coordinating with Fairfax on a solution, and then the Career Center idea died after no one could agree on whether it could really be called a 4th HS if it didn't have its own pool.

In other words, seems to boil down to a lack of good sites to build on, paralysis due to various interests fighting each other, and no leadership decisions too move forward with the big picture in mind.

These two.
There are sites, though limited. And those sites have to compete with other County "interests."
So, reason 3 is: CB doesn't care about schools and conveniently relies on the separation of jursidictions with the SB. CB believes it gives schools sufficient funds and it's APS' problem. CB, although they acknowledge they aren't the experts and they aren't in charge of schools, want APS to solve capacity by providing online education. CB won't put other priorities on hold to allow more bond funding to schools to build the facilities it needs, lacks leadership on resolving the issues surrounding sites (traffic, etc. which APS is NOT in charge of making happen), and will not push back on individual neighborhood objections.
Reason 4 is: SB lacks backbone and leadership to stand up to the CB and directly tell them what they need and elicit a true collaborative relationship to make it happen.

There. You're all caught up.

Thank you, PPs! I try to keep up but I feel like I’m watching every fourth episode of a TV show.

What leverage could a school board have? I saw a video of somebody (presumably on the school board, sorry I don’t know her name) basically venting to the CB about how the CB never gives them enough funding. What could better SB leadership do?

Also, do any of the CB members have school-age kids? Obviously you don’t need to be a parent to make sure schools are adequately funded but maybe if the CB members had a bigger stake in public education in Arlington we would see some changes. (But do I want to run for a seat on the county board? Lol no, so I’m probably part of the problem)

A thread unto its own; but for now:
There are many ways APS and the County can coordinate to make things more efficient and cost-effective. For instance, coordinating public transit so that students can take public transit (for free) to get to and from school and school activities, and to make it easier for parents relying on public transit to get to schools that are farther from their homes (increases access to option programs and eliminates some of the arguments against boundaries that don't send kids to the closest school, etc).
APS needs to stop just asking for more money and work with the County to figure out more efficient ways to deliver services. Preschool and daycares for example. The County runs a preschool program (an excellent one, BTW). People want to expand pre-K opportunities, so how about the County expanding its program or looking at funding sources with schools to coordinate programs, or????

Better SB leadership could prod the CB to be more focused on the needs of schools and on ways to collaborate. We already have shared-use policies with Dept of Parks and Rec -- schools are the only location for public swimming pools in Arlington (until Long Bridge opened....but that costs money to join, I believe); schools are used for community meetings, basketball, fields are shared with county Rec programs, etc.

Anyway, to your other question: Yes, there are Board members with school-aged kids (Priddy, Kadera). Goldstein and Kanninen's kids are older and all out of the system now. Diaz-Torres has no children. I don't think any currently have elementary aged kids anymore. I think they are 6th and up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, 243 MS seats converted to HS is just a drop in the bucket. All the boundary changes that would be necessary to equalize middle school sizes - moving immersion, shifting north, whatever - is that juice really worth the squeeze?

We really need a 4th comprehensive HS, period. And if HBW is that popular, we should also start up HBW2 (which could be smaller and in an office space, as a PPs suggested).

Yes, it is. it can make more efficient use of our facilities. It can also improve instruction and access to programs.
But, yes, we ALSO need a 4th comprehensive HS.