June 16, 2026
Hello Again from the People Who Watch School Board Meetings!
As our advocacy grows, we want to take a minute to reintroduce ourselves to new subscribers and share what we do and why.
Fast facts about APE:
We are a bipartisan, grassroots group of parents, teachers and community members with a common goal: a better APS.
We advocate on a wide range of issues, including smaller class sizes, statewide accountability standards, evidenced-based pedagogy, teacher pay, more instructional days, targeted usage of devices, improved budget priorities…and much more!
Our 100% volunteer team produces high-quality, original content for YOU. From our Newsletter to in-depth reporting and analysis in APE Reports and the APE Think Tank—we are writing about the issues that matter.
Our Why:
All APS students deserve excellent public schools that are academically strong, engaging and grounded in high expectations for every child. That means effective instruction, a rigorous curriculum, meaningful learning time, appropriate supports, and classroom environments where students can focus, grow and thrive.
APS teachers deserve the conditions that make great teaching possible: manageable class sizes, strong in-school supports, safe and orderly classrooms, high-quality instructional materials, and a budget that prioritizes competitive compensation, benefits and student-facing positions.
Our community deserves a school system that is transparent, accountable and responsive to families, teachers and taxpayers. APS leaders and elected School Board members should make decisions openly, measure results honestly, engage the community meaningfully, and rely on evidence-based policies and practices that are supported by research and demonstrated results. Public resources should be focused on what matters most: strong schools, high standards and better outcomes for all students.
Learn more by exploring our website and follow us on X. Join our Facebook forum to meet other Arlington parents and post your own questions. Have questions about funding? See our FAQ. Also have zero chill and love to watch board meetings? Email us here to get more involved!
What to Know About
APS' Capital Improvement Plan
APS Superintendent Dr. Durán previously proposed a roughly $500 million FY 2027-36 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) focused on modernizing aging facilities for APS’ approximately 28,000 students. The big-ticket items are renovations and expansions at Thomas Jefferson and Swanson middle schools, estimated together at about $255 million. After multiple public hearings, the School Board is set to vote on a final version at its next meeting on June 18.
Background on the CIP: The CIP identifies bond-funded investments in buildings and infrastructure expected to serve the community throughout the roughly 20-year bond repayment period and beyond. Most school buildings are designed to last 50 years or more, even as programs inside them evolve. The CIP is updated every two years and maintains a 10-year planning horizon.
The big projects: The proposed CIP includes a three-story addition to Thomas Jefferson Middle School (built in the 1970s) plus interior realignment, costing $167.5–184.9 million. Swanson Middle School is slated to get a smaller three-story addition and interior realignment for $87.7–93.7 million. Neither project is about adding capacity, but focusing on bringing shared spaces and classrooms to current educational specifications.
Other priorities include renovating the soon-to-be-vacated Arlington Career Center building (~$40.5 million) to house Montessori Public School of Arlington (MPSA) students, then razing the current MPSA site for open space. The plan also completes security upgrades, elementary kitchen modernizations, and includes some HVAC/roof replacements, as well as four synthetic turf fields (APS share ~$4.6 million). These improvements would complete the new Grace Hopper Center campus.
Funding: The CIP relies on nearly $500 million in voter-approved bonds across five referendums (starting with $60 million this November through 2034), plus exploration of public-private partnerships and a potential 1% local sales tax increase (subject to state approval) that could generate ~$50 million annually for APS. Debt service would remain under the county’s 10% cap.
As the School Board's final vote on the draft CIP nears, APE has sought out two viewpoints regarding the proposal.
Read more below!
Community Corner:
Why the School Board's CIP Deserves Support
(Editor's Note: From time to time we publish op-eds, which are the unedited perspectives of APS parents, teachers, or community members on a topic of interest or concern to APS.)
Arlington Public School (APS) students and teachers deserve educational spaces that support quality and safe environments for teaching and learning. These educational spaces include over forty buildings and 360 acres of land. Continued reinvestment in existing infrastructure combined with strategic investments in new facilities are best practices essential to maintaining APS’ ranking in the top three school districts of the state. Quality school districts are associated with lower crime rates, community stability, and property appreciation.
The School Board’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is essential to identifying major capital investments to be made over a 10-year period in its facilities and infrastructure, paid for by bonds. These plans are adopted on a biennial basis, separately from the School’s annual operating budget.
While the budget and CIP are developed and adopted independently of one another, the decisions made affect each other with respect to cost and affordability. In short, funds are limited and projects must be managed to ensure that they do not compromise the County’s AAA bond rating.
Meanwhile, as the process of selecting projects goes forward, some projects take priority over others. Some have suggested that the proposed CIP and requested bonding authority not be supported for various reasons, including that certain projects were omitted, or not allotted sufficient funding, or that public input was not listened to. That said, just because Board decisions about CIP projects may be different does not mean that they were wrong.
There will always be a backlog of projects in queue to keep APS facilities in a condition most conducive to student learning. However, cutting off or reducing funds that APS uses to fund projects is not the solution. Please consider (in no order of importance):
Arlington voters understand that quality educational spaces are conducive to teaching and learning. The last time voters rejected a school bond was 1975. All subsequent school bonds have passed by large margins, including the 2024 bond with support from 78% of votes cast, a higher approval rate than the 2022 bond.
During this period APS launched its facilities assessment initiative. This initiative was intended to provide for data-driven decisions about where our facility maintenance and improvement dollars are spent, as a way to address concern that decisions were made by the loudest/most connected voices in the room. The fruit of this initiative is the basis for the last CIP and the pending one.
The data have been used in ways that were not intended. The facility condition ratings were based only on conditions for which there was a standard, and the conditions were not prioritized. For example, a leaking roof should have more priority than aesthetic enhancements, like painting walls.
The School Board recognizes that the data it relies on to identify projects is not user-friendly and has committed to developing a guide for community use to understand its methodology for identifying and prioritizing schools for major facility projects, major infrastructure projects, and minor construction and maintenance projects.
The School Board has followed a robust public engagement process which began last year, as it has for the development of other CIPs, and, as this is being written, the final elements of the plan have not yet been adopted. The final vote is scheduled for June 18, 2026.
The Board set a direction for this CIP last fall that is committed to finishing on-going projects and selecting new projects that prioritize building systems (HVAC/roofs), safety and security, accessibility, and, to the extent possible given limited funding, educational specifications.
Finally, the Board’s CIP commits to rebuilding and renovations at the Jefferson and Swanson middle schools. Commitments to these communities to launch these projects, which will take multiple years to complete, underscores the necessity of staying the course and finishing on-going projects in other Arlington communities.
For these reasons, the FY 2027-36 CIP should be supported.
Community Corner:
Why I Cannot Support the CIP
(Editor's Note: From time to time we publish op-eds, which are the unedited perspectives of APS parents, teachers, or community members on a topic of interest or concern to APS.)
I cannot support the current bond proposal because APS has not demonstrated sufficient flexibility, cost discipline, or clear prioritization in response to today’s changed realities. While real maintenance needs exist, the plan relies on outdated assumptions from a period of rapid growth and lower costs, and it fails to seriously explore lower-cost or non-capital alternatives.
At a time when enrollment growth has slowed or stopped in some parts of the county, APS can shift its focus from adding seats to maintaining existing facilities. Since the last CIP, APS conducted a Facilities Condition Assessment. The proposed CIP responds to the assessment’s findings on deferred maintenance and critical needs across approximately 41 schools.
These needs are not optional. Critical systems such as electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofs, security, and other essential components must be maintained. When they fail, schools can close until costly emergency repairs are completed.
The capital planning process is designed to balance both short- and long-term needs. Long-term planning is especially important because many capital projects require five or more years to move from conception through design and construction. The CIP’s strength lies in its flexibility: plans can and should evolve as circumstances change. Former Director of Facilities John Chadwick often noted that plans remain flexible until contracts are signed and ground is broken.
Much of the current CIP was conceived several years ago, some as early as 2019. Since then, the K-12 world has changed significantly. Student enrollment trends have shifted, educational needs have evolved, and public funding constraints have become much more pronounced.
The challenge now is that the needs are extensive and the costs substantial. As highlighted by the Civic Federation Schools Committee, estimated project costs exceed anticipated funding. Yet the CIP provides little explanation of how APS will prioritize projects, which needs will go unmet, or how it will manage the workload with existing staff. Bond funding cannot be used to hire additional personnel, so management capacity and resource constraints deserve greater transparency.
APS is pursuing additional county funding, but there is little evidence of comparable flexibility on the cost side. Leadership has not shown willingness to reconsider existing facilities or explore non-capital alternatives for projects whose costs have risen dramatically.
The current proposal falls short in two important ways:
Lack of clear prioritization and transparency: The CIP does not adequately explain project prioritization, unmet needs, or how APS will oversee the work with current staff.
Absence of meaningful cost-side flexibility: APS seeks more funding but has failed to consider lower-cost and non-capital alternatives or evaluated alternative uses of existing buildings, often citing community disruption rather than potential savings.
One example is relocating Montessori Public School of Arlington (MPSA) into the current Career Center building. The project grew from an estimated $15 million to more than $40 million. Elementary utilization data show substantial excess capacity elsewhere. Moving MPSA into an existing school would require only minimal renovations and boundary changes, saving tens of millions. The Career Center could also serve as valuable swing space during the Thomas Jefferson Middle School renovation. If finances improve later, APS could revisit the MPSA relocation then.
Plans developed during rapid enrollment growth, lower construction costs, and stronger fiscal conditions may once have made sense. Today’s circumstances are different. Given the county’s financial realities, I am concerned by the lack of belt-tightening, creative cost-saving alternatives, and clear prioritization.
I am not convinced that APS has fully explored flexible or lower-cost solutions, nor has it adequately explained how it selected and prioritized these projects. Until those questions are answered, I cannot support the current bond proposal.
Gratitude for Virginia’s SOL tests (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Standardized tests did not create inequity; they revealed it…This transparency explains why civil rights groups — including the NAACP, The Education Trust, and the National Urban League — have long supported statewide assessments. Virginia Democratic Congressman Bobby Scott, a lead architect of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), played a key role in keeping the federal requirement for annual statewide testing in key grade levels. Without reliable, comparable data, it becomes far easier for schools to tell policymakers, parents and communities everything is fine even when many students are falling behind.
The Quiet Erosion of the Five-Day School Week (Education Next)
The burden these calendar choices place on families is not abstract. As of May 2026, Care.com reported the average starting wage of a babysitter in Raleigh, North Carolina, was about $19 per hour. For a seven-hour school day, that amounts to at least $134 per child. Accounting for Wake’s 10 in-term teacher workdays, a family relying on paid care could spend more than $1,300 per child. Many families simply cannot afford that expense. Instead, parents miss shifts, use scarce leave, rely on relatives, trade favors with neighbors, or seek out one-day camps, where prices range from $55 to $99 per day. Families with kindergarten-aged children or children with disabilities may find their options particularly limited.
A puzzling gender gap has emerged in America’s learning loss crisis (Chalkbeat)
New results from a long-running set of federal exams show a striking, persistent, and unexplained duality: Girls’ scores have fallen more sharply than boys’ and then have been slower to recover…In math, among both 9- and 13-year-olds, boys’ advantage over girls is higher than at any point since 1978, which is as far back as the data goes. In reading, 9-year-old boys have reached parity with their female peers for the first time on record, largely because girls’ scores have declined. This pattern has also emerged on a battery of other assessments. To date, researchers have not reached any consensus on what explains this.
"Grading for Equity" is based on a flawed theory of action (Chad Aldeman)
Joe Feldman’s “Grading for Equity” program has spread across the country. Yet it’s based on a flawed theory of action that’s likely to compound inequities rather than address them…Except… has Feldman been around many young people? Does he know much about human behavior? Lowering standards and letting people procrastinate is not a recipe for success, especially for students who are struggling academically…In other words, Feldman’s “grading for equity” prescriptions are more likely to grow initial learning gaps rather than close them.
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