H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program

Phone: 703-228-6363

Fax: 703-558-0317

Principal: Frank Haltiwanger, FHALT@arlington.k12.va.us

School hours:
Full Day - 9:24 a.m. to 4:06 p.m.
Early Release - 9:40 a.m. to 1:36 p.m.

Office hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Local School Report - English | Spanish

The faculty prizes self-motivation and self-discipline in its students because those are key elements in success at H-B Woodlawn. The faculty also works hard to foster these habits in the students, incrementally increasing freedom and expectations of responsibility through the grades.

Since H-B Woodlawn is a “program” and not a “school,” the students who enroll in the program retain their membership in their home or neighborhood middle and high schools by taking SATs there, participating in interscholastic athletic competition there and receiving their class ranks and high school diplomas there as well. About 25 percent of high school students participate in some form of home school activity.

Students enrolled in the program follow the Arlington middle and high school curriculum. H-B Woodlawn offers the same academic program as Arlington's neighborhood middle and high schools, however the style of the delivery of course content varies from the neighborhood schools. Students take core courses which include mathematics, social studies, language arts and science. And they may take advanced placement courses as well, just like at the neighborhood schools.

What makes H-B Woodlawn unique is the greater emphasis on independent study and student-proposed nine-week elective courses. Some of those student-proposed courses have included Philosophy, Japanese, Camping on Civil War Battlefields, Script writing, Popular Culture, the Holocaust, and Independent Film Study--all of which count toward the year-long core curriculum credits.

The H-B Woodlawn Program shares the Stratford Building with students enrolled in the Stratford Program, a small program that serves students with special educational needs.

The Stratford School building has Internet access which was made accessible when the H-B Woodlawn Program students ran the technology wires through the building, cabled the computer lab and designed and initialized the network server. The school has two computer labs, one each for the middle and high school students. Every classroom had Internet access as of fall 1998.

The school's cafeteria is open all day and serves as a place for lunch as well as an open social area or place to sit with friends to study. It's in use throughout the school day.

There are several programs that are unique to H-B Woodlawn. They include the Town Meeting governing system, the student-proposed electives, the Community As School Program and independent study.

The Community As School Program allows students to work in the community to earn academic credit along the lines of what is traditionally referred to as an internship. Students have worked as journalists for local newspapers and written out oral history abstracts for the Arlington County Public Library.

H-B Woodlawn does not provide continuous adult supervision. Instead, students are given the responsibility to decide how to use their time wisely to meet their academic obligations. The amount of “unsupervised” time increases gradually from grade six to grade 12. Some students use the free time for study, others spend it socially or away from the school building.

By grade nine, these students have the option of leaving the school grounds at any time (with parental permission). They have one to two hours per day of unscheduled time.

Because students do not have continuous supervision, they are expected to monitor their own behavior and class attendance.

Students also participate in setting their own educational goals beginning in middle school with personal contracts and expanding in the upper grades with English and social studies electives, independent study, advanced placement courses and study in the community.

The student who can best take advantage of the personal freedom provided in the H-B Woodlawn Program is self-motivated, self-directed and self-disciplined.

Students are empowered to have control over their educational program which is one reason that the motto for H-B Woodlawn is “a word to the wise is sufficient.”

The special education program at H-B Woodlawn provides limited services to students who are admitted through the admissions process. There is a resource center for students who are in need of two to four hours per week of supplemental help. Parents of students in special education should arrange a conference with the special education staff to review the needs of their children in terms of services available at H-B Woodlawn.

There is no formal guidance counseling service in the H-B Woodlawn Program. Instead, each full-time teacher or administrator is the teacher-advisor for a group of 15 to 20 students. There is one group of teacher-advisors for the combined sixth and seventh grades and another group for grades eight to 12. Each student selects her or his own teacher-advisor for the school year.

The teacher-advisor is responsible for all counseling, scheduling, parent conferences, college applications and other support activities for the members of the teacher-advisor group. This allows each staff member to work with the students outside of the classroom setting. Since the teacher-advisor groups are small, they know each student personally and can provide individual attention to all students.

Students also take an active role in governing the school through its governing body known as the Town Meeting, which is the program's student-run policy-making body. Each student, teacher and parent who attends the Town Meeting has one vote. All students are treated equally with adults when Town Meeting votes are cast to ensure that students re treated as equals to adults at all times.

Students address their teachers by their first names and choose their own teacher/advisors. Again, this symbolizes an equal footing in the educational process, and also stresses the need for the student to make decisions for herself/himself.

Because the H-B Woodlawn Program is a countywide alternative school, families must apply for admission to grades six and nine during the application period, from the first Monday in November through the third Friday in January. Should more students apply than there are openings available, a lottery will be held, and families will be informed of the results of the selection process. For more details on the lottery, contact the school or the Arlington Public Schools Family Information Center at (703) 228-7660. Once a student is selected to enter the school at grade six (the traditional beginning of middle school), she or he is guaranteed a space in the school through graduation. The same holds true for a student who is selected to enter the school at grade nine (the traditional beginning of high school). Students who are not selected are placed on a waiting list. Applications for the other grades are placed on the waiting list for the appropriate grade. As vacancies occur during the year, they are filled from the grade level waiting lists.

Bus transportation is provided for enrolled students who live more than 1 1/2 miles from the school.