Reply to Powerful Letter to the Arlington County School Board about Diversity

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[quote=Anonymous]We need to fight for a 4th comprehensive high school. That is the only solution to redrawing the boundaries to more equitably balance SES, not to mention the fact that we are going to be horribly overcrowded at *all three* comprehensive high schools by the time the current APS kindergarten class starts 9th grade. Remember-- by APS's own projections, we are going to be 2,775 high school seats short in 2026. They are claiming to close that gap through Arlington Tech (800 students) and the Ed Center renovation (1,300 students). Assuming (best case scenario), they hit those enrollment numbers at Tech and the Ed Center, we're still short by 500+ high school seats. And despite the fact that we are spending $100M on a new building for HB, we are not increasing the size of that program-- they get to stay at ~600 students. Choice programs are not the answer to diversity and they are not the answer to overcrowding-- so why are we going there at all?

The School Board is opposed to building a 4th comprehensive high school-- they are just too cowardly to come out and say it publicly yet. However, if you visit during office hours (which I have) they will tell you one on one that it is not going to happen. The only one who is not opposed is Reid Goldstein, but he can't win against the other four. Van Doren, Lander, and Kannien are all in favor of building more "choice" programs, and Talento is in favor of flex scheduling (i.e., going to HS in shifts). And Murphy is also opposed to building a 4th high school-- he thinks the "future" of high school education is internships and on-line learning-- he has been all over the County preaching that message to civic and community groups so it is no secret. Parents need to make a huge stink in the "visioning" process that APS is launching in January-- if not, the School Board will say they have a mandate to do whatever they want because parents don't care. Kenmore is large enough to be turned into a comprehensive HS if the JFAC gives the VHC land to APS to make a new MS. Or we can put the money from the Ed Center renovation towards a major remodel of the Career Center complex to turn that into a 4th east side comprehensive HS w/field space at Long Bridge- it doesn't have to just be Arlington Tech. There are options but they aren't the easy ones to implement, and the members running the County Board and the School Board don't have young kids and have other priorities (e.g., affordable housing, transportation). Remember, there is not a single School Board member with a child currently in ES or MS, and there is only one County Board member with a child in ES. They just don't understand what the overcrowding means from an educational perspective because they aren't experiencing it personally in their own families.[/quote]

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