Students on the stage at Patrick Henry Elementary School with signs about plans for a cafetorium. Photo Contributed
To the Editor:
Alexandria is about to make a multi-million dollar, much-needed investment in the West End to build the new Patrick Henry K-8 School and Recreation Center. This cannot be just a stop-gap measure to increase capacity for our city. We must look at this, and every project our community is investing in, as an opportunity for a transformational capital investment that will draw people to Alexandria.
The community has been advocating to include an auditorium that would be part of the new shared space to be utilized by both the K-8 school and the recreation center. The current school has an auditorium that will be demolished, and the specs for the new school replace it with a cafeteria with movable stage and a black box theater.
Including a shared-space auditorium instead would expand Alexandria City’s performing arts recreational offerings, as well as support the performing arts culture that is being cultivated at Patrick Henry.
It also presents a revenue-generating opportunity for the City of Alexandria as the auditorium can be utilized by local performing groups on the evenings and weekends. Performance space is expensive and difficult to find in our area, especially at the caliber of a proper auditorium. A proper auditorium — with real seating, a sloped floor for comfortable viewing and acoustics designed for the performing arts — is a true commodity these days.
The current Patrick Henry auditorium has always been a well-utilized and well-loved space at the school. It is used throughout the day for music and dance classes as well as general assemblies, and in the evenings for meetings and performances, and this is while currently only serving a K-5 population. The majority of the time the cafeteria is also in use. What will happen if there is only a cafetorium moving forward while simultaneously we are expanding to K-8?
Not only will this create challenges for space during the day and evening, it will also break down the community we are working so hard to build at Patrick Henry because school-wide events will no longer be possible.
Cafetoriums are a passing trend. We should be building a school that will serve us for generations. Including an auditorium in this project will create a center for performing arts on the West End of Alexandria that will benefit the entire community.
Alissa Oram
Alexandria