Arlington Education Center

Published February 4, 2022 at 9:30AM

Kenmore Middle School student Xavier Anderson speaks during a School Board meeting (via APS)

Boulevard Manor families whose kids have been or will be separated from their middle school friends for high school can apply for a placement process to try and avoid that fate, Arlington Public Schools says.

Students who live in the neighborhood, near the Arlington border with Falls Church, attend Kenmore Middle School but do not matriculate to Washington-Liberty High School like their peers. Instead, they attend Yorktown High School as a result of a 2017 boundary change when W-L was overcrowded.

Schools

APS Prepares for ‘Limited’ Boundary Process Targeting Three Over-Crowded Schools

By Jo DeVoe

Published October 12, 2021 at 10:05AM

Arlington Public Schools headquarters (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Arlington Public Schools is preparing to redraw boundaries for a half-dozen schools to relieve high enrollment and over-capacity at three of them.

The boundary process, which will go into effect next fall, is “limited in scope” and will target Abingdon Elementary School, Gunston Middle School and Wakefield High School.

Schools

Plans for Education Center’s Transformation into Classroom Space Begin to Take Shape

By Alex Koma

Published January 8, 2019 at 2:45PM

Plans to transform the old Arlington Education Center into a new wing of Washington-Lee High School are taking shape, with early designs calling for 24,600 square feet of classrooms in the renovated building.

Arlington school officials hope to someday add space for 600 high school students on the site, the former home of the Arlington Public Schools offices at 1426 N. Quincy Street. But first the School Board needs to sign off on a full renovation of the building, in order to welcome students in time for the 2021-2022 school year.

Schools

Design Work for Education Center Renovation Set to Start This Fall

By Alex Koma

Published August 1, 2018 at 3:00PM

Planning work to guide the transformation of the old Arlington Education Center into space for hundreds of high schoolers now seems set to kick off this fall.

The School Board will get its first look tomorrow night (Thursday) at a proposed “building-level planning committee” for the project, a group of parents, school staffers and civic association members who will help chart out designs for the effort over the next few months.

Schools

School Board Looking for County Help on New Construction, But Funding Squeeze Complicates Debate

By Alex Koma

Published June 1, 2018 at 3:45PM | Updated June 1, 2018 at 4:40PM

A joint meeting of the County Board and School Board on May 29. (photo via Arlington County)

(Updated at 4:40 p.m.) Arlington school leaders believe they’ll need plenty of help from the County Board to build enough schools to keep pace with a rapidly growing student body over the next decade — but the county’s own financial pressures will likely limit just how much it can lend a hand.

The School Board and County Board convened for a joint meeting on Tuesday (May 29) as officials pull together their respective capital improvement plans, documents outlining construction spending over the next 10 years, in order to better coordinate the process.

Schools

School Board Nears Agreement on Plan to Add Some, But Not All, Amenities to Career Center Site

By Alex Koma

Published May 25, 2018 at 10:45AM | Updated May 25, 2018 at 1:47PM

(Updated at 1:45 p.m.) The Arlington School Board is nearing consensus on a plan to build 1,050 new seats for high schoolers at the county’s Career Center by 2024, with some, but not all, of the features community members want to see at the site.

At a May 22 work session, the Board expressed broad agreement on changes to Superintendent Patrick Murphy’s proposed 10-year construction plan, known as the capital improvement plan. School leaders have yet to finalize these decisions, but Board members signaled an increased willingness to embrace a plan that costs roughly $64 million more than the one Murphy proposed.

Schools

School Board Weighs Options to Beef Up Amenities for Career Center High School Plan

By Alex Koma

Published May 18, 2018 at 1:45PM | Updated May 18, 2018 at 2:13PM

Arlington Public Schools is set to add seats for 850 high schoolers by 2021, but the key question for school leaders now is how, exactly, that construction might proceed.

The School Board is gearing up to award a $2.4 million contract for design work at the “Education Center” site adjacent to Washington-Lee High School (1426 N. Quincy Street), where the school system has planned to add space for up to 600 high school students three years from now. Rather than building a fourth comprehensive high school, the Board agreed last summer on a plan to split new seats between the Education Center and the Arlington Career Center just off Columbia Pike (816 S. Walter Reed Drive).

Schools

Washington-Lee PTA Concerned about Possible Education Center Repurposing

By Bridget Reed Morawski

Published April 25, 2018 at 9:45AM | Updated April 25, 2018 at 12:08PM

Some members of the Washington-Lee High School Parent-Teacher Association are concerned that the Arlington School Board may re-purpose the adjacent Arlington Education Center into an elementary school instead of adding high school seats, as was previously decided.

The concern stems from a working session on April 12 centered on the Arlington Public Schools Capital Improvement Plan, in which School Board members briefly discussed the costs of potentially converting the Education Center into elementary school space rather than up to 800 high school seats.