ASFS Front Traffic Circle Torn Up Before Revised Plans Indicated as Approved

Full communication sent to Arlington County and APS officials on Sunday, August 16 below:

Dear Arlington County and APS Officials,

On Monday, August 10, the APS construction crew began tearing up the ASFS front traffic circle. All public records available to date indicate that this work was started before an approved permit was in place. This is a disappointing and troubling update for our community.

Arlington County's publicly available permit records for the school parcel (1501 N. Lincoln St.) show two separate, still-open records tied to this project. The revision reflecting the July 10 plans — permit CADD25-03398-RA1 — was logged as "Revisions Received" on July 10, with no subsequent record of approval or issuance. A second record on the same parcel, an Administrative Change permit (ACHG26-00062) submitted July 20, shows its Plan Review was marked "Revisions Required" on July 20, and moved to "In Progress" on August 12. As of today, both records remain open, with neither showing final approval or issuance. Given Virginia's permitting requirements, this warrants a full explanation from APS.

The ASFS PTA raised concerns with APS Design & Construction leadership (Director Jeff Chambers), our School Board liaison Miranda Turner and School Board member Bethany Sutton, APS leadership, County Board Chair Matt De Ferranti, County Board liaison Takis Karantonis, and the broader APS School Board — through repeated emails, phone calls, and public comments at a School Board meeting. The PTA's independent efforts identified a safe, cost-effective alternative parking solution, which APS Design & Construction disregarded without any direct contact or communication with the ASFS PTA.

The ASFS community was told in May 2026 that Arlington County officials were demanding additional parking spots and that this was required to complete the kitchen renovation project. That information has not matched the PTA's experience: every County official we've engaged with — Chair Matt De Ferranti, JFAC liaison Takis Karantonis, and others — has been responsive and willing to help find a safer, sensible alternative. We have seen no evidence that the County was unwilling to work with APS on a pause or address ASFS parking needs in a different phase.

The evidence we have to date is that Jeff Chambers, Director of APS Design & Construction, told the PTA community in May that the alternate parking site off N. Kirkwood was owned by the County, not APS — information that was inaccurate. On July 15, APS Assistant Superintendent for Facilities and Operations Reneé Harber wrote that site arrangements — including the disputed parking in the traffic circle — would proceed "in accordance with the approved site use permit and project design." At that point, however, the revised plans had already been submitted on July 10 and remained under review, logged as "Revisions Received" with no record of approval before or since. We do not know whether this reflects a misunderstanding of the project's actual permit status or reliance on outdated information — but it is consistent with our broader experience that APS Design & Construction leadership has not engaged with the technical and permitting details of this project with the accuracy and care our community deserves.

Despite multiple emails and requests — including specific technical questions addressed directly to Design & Construction staff — Mr. Chambers has not substantively engaged with the ASFS PTA community since May. For example, the PTA flagged that the July plans showed a combined disturbed area of approximately 2,850.9 square feet across the main site and parking/traffic circle sheets — already exceeding the 2,500 square foot threshold cited as the reason the safer May plan could not move forward. That discrepancy was never addressed. Every response the PTA has received has come from Ms. Harber's office rather than Design & Construction directly, and none has engaged with the underlying technical questions or shown willingness to coordinate on a safe, sensible, long-term solution.

This process has been troubled by a lack of early engagement, lack of transparency, and lack of communication with — and consideration of — valid ASFS community concerns. Land disturbance, parking, and safety issues affecting a space our community uses every day should have been raised with us well before permitting — and well before May 2026. The families and staff who use this building daily understand nuances about how it functions that a designer working from site plans alone cannot. Instead, our experience has been that APS Design & Construction made decisions and submitted plans for permit without community input, revised those plans in response to permitting comments, and only then relayed information indirectly to our community after key decisions were already largely locked in. The ASFS community should have had direct and ongoing early engagement — not a one-off appearance in May 2026 with no further substantive communication or transparency to follow.

Throughout this process, APS has cited schedule — the need to have the kitchen operational for the start of the school year — as the reason it could not revisit the site design. We raised this directly with Ms. Harber in July: construction had already begun before the prior school year ended, students have already been managing without a fully operational kitchen as a result. If that disruption was an acceptable tradeoff to get the project underway, an extension to get the site design right should be a reasonable tradeoff too. Short-term timing concerns should not dictate long-term safety and use of school property.

I want to be clear that Brian Stockton, APS Chief of Staff, has not been part of this communication breakdown — quite the opposite. Throughout this process, Mr. Stockton has been responsive and worked extensively to understand our concerns and engage in an exemplary manner. 

What we are asking for now is that APS conduct a full internal review of how this happened — including whether required permits and internal review processes (including best practices to engage with the community during design phases) were followed — and put safeguards in place to ensure a breakdown like this does not happen again to our community or any other APS school community. Findings and resulting safeguards should be communicated clearly to our community. 

Thank you. 

Best,
Ankita

_____________________________

Ankita Singh

President
Arlington Science Focus School PTA 
president@asfspta.org | ASFS PTA website

pronouns: she/her
pronunciation: un-KEY-tha SING