Alexandria Public Schools

More students, more space in Alexandria and Arlington schools

Arlington County and City of Alexandria public schools are overflowing with new students. To deal with the growing enrollment, both school systems have added new classrooms and are building new schools.

An expected 12,381 students will attend Alexandria’s schools in the 2011-12 school year, a 3.2 percent increase over last year’s enrollment, said Deputy Superintendent Margaret Byess. The majority of that growth is in the elementary schools, accounting for more than half of that projected enrollment, she said.

Arlington County public schools officials project that 22,245 students will fill the halls this school year — 5.5 percent more than last year, said Linda Erdos, a schools spokesman.

Arlington installed a total of 28 temporary classrooms, 17 of which were relocatable classrooms put in at five schools. Internal reorganizations created another eight classrooms, said John Chadwick, Arlington’s director of design and construction.

Portions of the new $65 million Yorktown High School are open, and the second phase should open by December. The third phase will open by fall 2013, he said.

This fall, students there will have a new cafeteria, a refurbished auditorium and more classrooms. A new aquatic center, gymnasium and black box theater will be among the improvements coming in the winter, Chadwick said. By 2013, a new media center and more classrooms will be built and open about the same time Wakefield High School’s first phase of renovations starts.

Construction of the phased $115 million Wakefield High School has begun, he said. The first phase, which will include an aquatic center, new gymnasiums and classrooms, is expected to be complete by fall 2013. The second phase, which includes demolition of the existing school building, new athletic fields and installation of a geothermal well field, should be complete by fall 2014, Chadwick said.

“We are looking at having as many students in the system within a few years as we did in the late ’50s, early ’60s. That is quite something — and we don’t have as many school buildings now as we did then,” Chadwick said.

School construction must “be smarter” now, he said.

“We need to be more reasonable and make sure all of our buildings are being used as fully as they can without jeopardizing our goals,” Chadwick said.

Computer labs have been made into classrooms, admissions policies for specialty schools are accepting more children, and some class sizes have increased, said Abby Raphael, Arlington School Board chairwoman.

AlexandriaNews - Making Progress, Not AYP

Alexandrianews.org

Like most of the school divisions in Virginia, the Alexandria City Public School system did not make Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act this year. State and local school officials are calling for change. In Alexandria, only Charles Barrett Elementary School made AYP this year.

“NCLB is broken and should have been changed years ago,” said ACPS Superintendent Morton Sherman. “We support the ideal of having all students achieve at high levels, even as we reject the arbitrary setting of  cut  points to determine Adequate Yearly Progress.  We support a growth model over time for cohorts of students.”

Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright says the latest AYP ratings for Virginia schools and school divisions show that the 10-year-old accountability system established under NCLB has outlived its usefulness and should be overhauled.

Because of the intricacies of the AYP calculation and higher benchmarks, only 697, or 38 percent of the commonwealth’s 1,839 schools, made AYP based on achievement on 2010-2011 state tests. Sixty-one percent of schools made AYP during the previous ratings cycle. Only four of Virginia’s 132 school divisions made AYP based on 2010-2011 achievement, compared with 12 during the previous cycle.

Wright said she will recommend that the state Board of Education ask U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for a waiver from NCLB’s increasingly unrealistic requirements. On Monday, Duncan announced he will provide a process for states to seek relief from key provisions of the law, with the specifics to be announced next month.

“Accountability is not advanced by arbitrary rules and benchmarks that misidentify schools,” Wright said. “During the coming weeks, I will begin a discussion with the state board on creating a new model for measuring yearly progress that maintains high expectations for student achievement, recognizes growth – overall and by subgroup – and accurately identifies schools most in need of improvement.”

For a school, school division or the state to have made AYP, more than 86 percent of students must have demonstrated proficiency on state tests in reading, and 85 percent must have passed state tests in mathematics. Students in all AYP subgroups – white, black, Hispanic, limited-English proficient (LEP), students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged – must also meet the benchmarks. Division-wide, ACPS math scores continued to increase to a passing rate of 79% from 73% four years ago (with an increase in one point from last year). Division-wide ACPS reading scores are at 83% compared to 80% four years ago (with a drop in one point from 84% last year).

Information bulletin Alexandria public schools, Alexandria, Virginia, American education week, November 11-17, 1945 ...

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