Tomorrow (Wednesday, June 1) at 7:00 PM Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) will hold a community meeting at Jefferson-Houston regarding plans for a new school.
Nearly a year ago, Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) proposed a public-private partnership to pay for a new Jefferson-Houston building financed by megadevelopment on the existing site. That was roundly decried by the neighborhood, and the School Board was forced to pull back and consider other options.
During the FY 2012 budget discussions earlier this year, the City Council and Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) came to the negotiating table over the school district's ginormous capital requests. The result of the back room negotiations was that money was allocated in the multi-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budget to fund new school buildings at Jefferson-Houston and Patrick Henry Elementary Schools.
Now, the Growler continues to think that it is most curious that ACPS claims that enrollment pressures and capacity are the drivers behind the huge CIP request while simultaneously pushing a new school for Jefferson-Houston. Until Jefferson-Houston meets federal standards under No Child Left Behind parents will still have the option to send their children elsewhere. A recent presentation from ACPS to the Council (fast forward to slide 20) reveals that the two elementary schools with the greatest capacity are those with the greatest academic challenges: Jefferson-Houston and Cora Kelly.
According to an E-mail from ACPS Superintendent Morton Sherman, "The meeting on June 1 is to discuss process and timetable for developing proposals for a new school." However, residents need to know that earlier this year ACPS proposed aggressively pushing through the site plan and approval processes by the end of the year in order to start and complete the school by the fall of 2014 (FY 2015). The Planning & Zoning Department even gave Council an accelerated review process schedule.
If this schedule is still intact, it appears that whatever community outreach will be done in connection with the new school will take place in a very brief period over the summer.
Besides schedule, another question which remains open is whether ACPS still proposes moving several hundred staff from their administrative offices on N. Beauregard Street to the Jefferson-Houston site, which would require a larger facility in our neighborhood with underground parking.
14 comments:
I wasn't able to make last night's meeting but the presentation is posted here: http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/jh-project/presentation-20110601.pdf
I gather from it that the new school will not include space for the central office facilities now on Beauregard Street.
Typical Alexandria B.S. if they can't shove it through the citizens they sneak it through the back door. Designs can change once the building begins and if office facilities are the desired end at JH they will appear at a later time. Living in Alexandria requires constant vigilance because government does what it wants and has a selective memory.
"I wasn't able to make last night's meeting but the presentation is posted here: http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/jh-project/presentation-20110601.pdf"
Slide 16 shows the "project area" to correspond to the park between the school and Jefferson village. So, is that where they are building the new school and we lost the park space?
"So, is that where they are building the new school and we lost the park space?"
I was not at the meeting but, based on the earlier presentations, the whole space is in play. However, the November 22, 2010 presentation (at this link: http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/jh-project/presentation-20101122.pdf) illustrates various ways the building and open spaces could be rearranged. Most of that focused on building a multistory school with a smaller footprint on the ground than the existing building, thereby making it possible to have a full sized sports field rather than the slightly smaller-than-normal one that there now. The old slides also show the possibility of the field being moved from the north to the eastern sides of the space. What they actually plan to do remains to be seen.
I just received the City Council docket for June 14th. Numbers 32, 33, and 34 on the docket appear to involve affordable housing groups and ARHA. But I don't know what they mean. Looks like a loan forgiveness request and/or giving more money to AHDC or ARHA. Usually, things involving ARHA and affordable housing screw us. Can anyone explain if we need to be concerned about this? Thanks.
Speaking of our neighborhood getting screwed, ARHA was awarded $ to purchase Pendleton Park. See article below.
http://www.alexandrianews.org/2011/06/vhda-approves-8-4-million-for-arha-to-purchase-pendleton-park-move-forward-with-next-phase-of-bland-development/
"Why is your glass always half empty? A deal is not a deal until the papers are signed. Without tax credits, which people are protesting downstate, can ARHA finance it?"
Thu Apr 14, 04:37:00 PM EST
"ARHA was awarded $ to purchase Pendleton Park."
It's not so much my glass being half empty, it's recognizing that our glass has a hole in that bottom that represents the power that ARHA wields in this city and dealing with that realistically.
The city is investing $40 million to build a new school at Jefferson Houston. That school's primary problem is the high percentage of disadvantaged students who find themselves concentrated in a single school because the city dumps most of its public public housing here. Now the city is compounding the fundamental problem by supporting ARHA's efforts to add more public housing in the same area. Unbelievable.
another wrench in the story that is J-H
"Just one week after Jefferson-Houston Principal Kimberley Graves detailed her vision for a new Jefferson-Houston school facility at a community meeting, she announced that she is leaving the school at the end of the year to accept a position in Central Office."
http://www.alexandrianews.org/2011/06/graves-to-leave-jefferson-houston/
"Just one week after Jefferson-Houston Principal Kimberley Graves detailed her vision for a new Jefferson-Houston school facility at a community meeting, she announced that she is leaving the school at the end of the year to accept a position in Central Office."
Rats leaving the sinking ship.
Dear "Rats leaving the sinking ship":
If you knew the real reason why Ms. Graves was leaving, you would be ashamed for writing that.
At least, I hope so for the sake of your soul.
"Rats leaving the sinking ship."
With this assessment I disagree. Mrs Graves was a good Principal for JH, even if my observations are from a distance. She pushed through the curriculum changes and the new building in the face of neighborhood opposition. (Lets face it, it was opposition from a lot of people (myself included), who don't send our kids to JH.)
Even though I only saw her about once a year, she always remembered my name. On many Saturdays I saw her car in the lot. She was clearly not afraid of a challenge and her first priority was her students. The Principal has to play the hand she is dealt. If you don't like the hand that she was dealt, then the School Board and the Superintendent may be the better target for complaints. I wish her the best.
If you knew the real reason why Ms. Graves was leaving, you would be ashamed for writing that.
What IS the real reason for her leaving?
I kind of always feel sorry for the employees at J-H. It's not their fault that the school is underperforming. It's the City Council's. They keep funding concentrated public housing. The school board just isolated the problem further in 1999.
According to this article, the City Council continues to hemorrhage money for affordable housing.
http://www.alexandrianews.org/2011/06/ahdc-to-assume-ownership-of-rpj%e2%80%99s-alexandria-properties/
I am VERY upset over ARHA's purchase of Pendleton Park, particularly since the Council only just hemorrhaged my tax money ($6 million!) to offsite ARHA units from Bland, and now they are allowing them to be put right back in to the neighborhood via Pendleton Park.
Now they are throwing away an additional $600k???? When will they learn that this kind of spending on housing is totally unsustainable and a huge waste of our scarce tax dollars.
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