The incoming principal of one of the county’s high schools has a lengthy résumé in Arlington Public Schools, but also can draw from experiences outside the local district.
School Board members on March 30 appointed Lori Wiggins, who has served as principal of Gunston Middle School for the last 11 years, as principal at Arlington Community High School. She will succeed Barbara Thompson on July 1.
The school’s curriculum is designed to allow adults, mostly immigrants, flexible opportunities to complete their high-school studies while also working or raising children.
“I’m excited about this opportunity,” Wiggins told School Board members, saying she hoped to build on the legacy that had been established and bring “a relentless drive to improve outcomes” to the post.
Before coming to Arlington’s school system, Wiggins had served in administrative roles with the West Virginia Department of Education after beginning her teaching career in Brooklyn.
“We look forward to great things,” School Board Chairman Reid Goldstein said after the appointment was ratified as part of the board’s consent agenda.
Currently located in the former Fenwick public-health building on the Arlington Career Center campus, Arlington Community High School is slated to move this summer to rented space in Ballston, and eventually will occupy custom-built facilities in the Pentagon City area that will be given to the county government by Amazon as part of the agreement that landed the firm’s “HQ2” in Arlington.
But moving is nothing new to the school, which began life as the Arlington Mill High-School-Continuation Program on the western end of Columbia Pike, then spent several years in an office building in Ballston near Northern Virginia Community College’s facilities before moving to the Career Center parcel.
