Update at 1:05 p.m. — Police are now investigating another report of gunshots heard along Richmond Highway, near Potomac Yard. Nothing has been found so far.
Update at 12:25 p.m. — The secured building status has been lifted, according to ACPS.
12/13/2019 12:20 p.m.: The secured building status has been lifted at T.C. Williams King Street and Minnie Howard campuses, following brief police activity in the area. https://t.co/SmBx3a2R2z
— Alexandria City Public Schools (@ACPSk12) December 13, 2019
Earlier: T.C. Williams High School on King Street and the Minnie Howard campus have been secured due to a report of numerous gunshots heard in the area.
Both Arlington and Alexandria police are investigating the reported gunshots, which were heard near Columbia Pike in Arlington and the intersection of King Street and Quaker Lane in Alexandria, according to scanner traffic.
Thus far, no evidence of actual gunfire has been found.
12/13/2019 11:58am: T.C. Williams King Street & Minnie Howard campuses currently under secured building status due to police activity in the area. Secured building means no one may enter or exit building, however classes resume as normal inside. Updates: https://t.co/SmBx3a2R2z
— Alexandria City Public Schools (@ACPSk12) December 13, 2019
The School Board has shot down a plan to add a second high school in Alexandria and is sticking with — as several members of the audience chanted throughout the night — “One T.C.”
After a long debate at its Sept. 26 meeting that dredged up Alexandria’s history of segregation in schools and the ongoing achievement gap, the School Board voted 6-3 in favor of expanding the current high school into a “campus.”
The new proposal calls for the expansion of the Minnie Howard (3801 W. Braddock Road) site — currently a satellite school a few blocks west of T.C. Williams High School currently used as a facility for 9th grade students. Designs for the campus and what types of programs would be located across the different buildings remain to be determined.
With the approval of the campus-style high school, Superintendent Gregory Hutchings Jr. said the planning process for the design is about to start. In addition to determining the physical location and layout of the new buildings, Hutchings said the school district will look at the high school curriculum and determine which programs could best utilize separate buildings across the campus.
The design phase of the project is scheduled to run from 2020-2021.
“Now we will reconvene the educational design team and add additional members to that team to look at educational programming now that we have a model,” Hutchings said. “We have to start beginning the design phase and look at educational specifications to look at what these specs will be for the building.”
Keeping Alexandria’s high schoolers united in one school was the choice favored by several T.C. Williams students at the meeting, as well as Hutchings and T.C. Williams Principal Peter Balas.
“Urge you to cast your vote for one high school,” Balas, a former social studies teacher at the school, said in an impassioned plea during the public comment portion of the meeting. “T.C. is the heart of the city.
“I strongly encourage you to support our diversity as one of our greatest strengths,” he continued. “Our Titans experience diversity greater than anywhere else in this country. Two high schools lead us down a path of divisive battles [with] inequity between the two schools and leaving certain groups facing increasing disenfranchisement. These inequities will become deeper over time. Separation may be in our school’s name, but you can oppose it by voting to keep us together.”
Balas and Hutchings were also direct with their frustrations with current inequity within the schools and their struggles to try to eliminate that. Hutchings echoed the concerns of other parents and School Board members when he said he was worried multiple high schools would exacerbate those problems. Particularly, Hutchings noted, with the proposal for split high schools specializing in arts or science and technology.
“When you have more than one high school, whether it is reality or perception, someone is going to say ‘they’re getting more than I’m getting, they’re better than I am, they’re getting more options than I’m getting,'” Hutchings said. “It is inevitable that we’re not going to be able to offer those same courses. I want us to be honest about that. We are going to limit the options some of those students have.”
A contingent of students from Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS), both T.C. students and some in lower grades, spoke at the meeting against a separated high school system. Lorraine Johnson, a student at T.C., said that students involved in the early stages of the decision-making were focused on a collective good of the schools in a way that she didn’t see from parents.
