PWCS Hold Specialty Program High School Information Nights

Posted

Autumn begins the season when eighth grade students and their parents can visit Prince William County Specialty Programs and decide which school they would prefer to attend.

About Specialty Programs

Prince William County Schools offers a wide-variety of specialty programs to fit students’ interests and passions and to prepare them for the high-tech, challenging and stimulating careers of tomorrow. Some programs focus on college level course work, while others are specialized by subject matter.

Additionally, Prince William County offers a comprehensive Career and Technical Education (CTE) Specialty Programs both in the transfer and transportation variety. Transfer programs require students attend the specialty school full-time, whereas in the transport programs, students will be transported via buses to and from their base schools.

Moreover, most of the schools offer Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC). While students cannot transfer to specifically participate in these programs, they are available to both base school students and specialty transfers attending those schools.

Prince William County students must be accepted into a specialty program to attend and must maintain a certain grade point average, as well as good behavior, to remain in the program.

Readers can check with PWCS for more details.

Information Nights

Information nights are held at area high schools to discuss specialty programs and what they can offer students. These information nights begin in October and extend through January.

Forest Park High School will hold an Information Night for its Center for Information Technology as early as Oct. 28. That same program is also offered at Battlefield High School in Haymarket, which will hold its information night on Nov. 14. Freedom High School will also be holding its Information Night on its Center for Environmental and Natural Sciences on Oct. 30.

Information Nights in November include those at Woodbridge Senior and Potomac high schools on Nov. 7, Gar-field High School on Nov. 12, Stonewall Jackson, Brentsville District and Hylton high schools on Nov. 14. Other high schools, including Patriot and Osbourn Park, will not hold their first information nights until December.

Most schools will be holding two nights as to be convenient for parents and children attending.

Those looking to attend the Fine and Performing Arts should note that the CFPA program will be moved to the 12th high school on Hoadley Road after its scheduled opening in September of 2016. The program will now include creative writing and music technology should those programs meet their minimum attendance requirements.

Prince William County Schools has organized the information based upon specialty interest on its Specialty Program Page. There readers will also find direct links to the schools' webpages where they can find more information, including the time of the specialty nights, which are generally held on a weekday evening.

Below is information on each of Prince William County High Schools' Specialty Programs, including Career and Technical Education transfer programs, organized by region and then alphabetically.

Western Prince William County:

Battlefield High School- Nov. 14, Jan. 14: Center for Information Technology, JROTC Air Force

Brentsville District High School- Nov. 14, Jan. 8: The Cambridge Programme, Agriculture

Patriot High School-Dec. 9, Jan. 6: Advanced Placement Scholars, Project Lead the Way (Enriched) Engineering Program, Building Trades, Culinary Arts

Stonewall Jackson High School- Nov. 14, Jan. 9: International Baccalaureate Programme, Cosmetology, JROTC Air Force

Mid-County Prince William:

Hylton High School- Nov. 14, Jan. 14: Center for International Studies and Languages, Television Production, Automotive Technology, JROTC Air Force

Osbourn Park High School- Dec. 4, Jan. 8, Biotechnology Center, Automotive Technology, Medical and Health Science, Practical Nursing, JROTC Navy

Woodbridge Senior High School- Nov. 7, Jan. 9: Advance Placement Scholars, Center for the Fine and Performing Arts*- Nov. 7, Cosmetology, JROTC Army

Eastern Prince William County:

Forest Park High School- Oct. 28, Jan. 8: Center for Information Technology, JROTC Army

Freedom High School- Oct. 30: Center for Environmental and Natural Sciences, JROTC Air Force

Gar-field High School- Nov. 12, Jan. 7: International Baccalaureate Programme, JROTC Marine Corps

Potomac High School-Nov. 7, Jan. 7: The Cambridge Programme, Welding (CTE-Transfer), Culinary Arts

Readers can visit individual school sites for more information. Keep in mind some schools require auditions, submissions of portfolio work, and/or grades and teacher recommendations.

Current ninth grade students may still be eligible to attend some of these programs.

ap-scholars, arts, battlefield, brentsville, cambridge, cte, culinary, featured, freedom, high-schools, hylton, osborn-park, patriot, prince-william-county-schools, rotc, specialty-programs, stonewall-jackson, woodbridge