Two New Specialty Centers Proposed for Fall 2026 in Stafford Schools
The ASCENT and AMP Centers would focus on preparing students for careers in aerospace and arts/media, respectively.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
Two new specialty centers could be coming to Stafford high schools in the fall of 2026—the Aerospace, Supply Chain, Energy, and Navigation Technology (ASCENT) Center at North Stafford High School and the Arts, Media, and Production (AMP) Center at Hartwood High School.
Michael Bolling, the division’s chief academic officer, discussed the new centers at Tuesday’s School Board work session. The new centers would be approved as part of the proposed 2026-27 program of studies, which the School Board will vote on at a later date.
The school division’s current program of studies includes four secondary specialty centers, each housed at a different high school. The Business and Information Technology Center is located at Colonial Forge; the Community Health and Medical Professions (CHAMP) Center at Brooke Point; the Engineering Professions and Industries of Construction (EPIC) Center at Stafford High; and the Leadership, Education, and Public Service (LEAP) Center at Mountain View.
The goal for all of the specialty centers is to provide students with specialized coursework and experiences leading to careers in high-impact fields that match local economic needs, Bolling said. They also provide opportunities for students to earn related industry certifications or credentials.
“We’ve been trying to ensure that we’re looking at the local needs, including the local and regional job market,” Bolling said. “We’re looking at helping our business partners and providing these learning pathways for students that lead to employable skills.”
Each center offers a separate pathway for students who want to enter directly into the workforce and for those who plan to pursue two, four, or more than four years of college before beginning their careers. Students apply to the specialty centers and are selected by lottery—a separate lottery for each center, Bolling specified.
The ASCENT Center will prepare students for careers in aerospace, geospatial systems, global logistics, and carbon-neutral energy. All students accepted to the center will take a core class in geosystems and can then choose from four pathways—aerospace and advanced air mobility; geospatial technologies; global logistics and supply chain management; or sustainable energy systems.
The AMP Center will prepare students for careers in creativity and the arts. “In the local economy, there isn’t much demand for specific art careers—however, the pathways you see here will support any student who wants to pursue the arts by giving them employable skills,” Bolling said.
The four pathways in the AMP Center are digital content production; live event management; audio engineering and production; and visual arts.
Bolling also presented proposed changes to the existing centers. These include offering new pathways in fiber optics and data center operations at the EPIC Center to meet the needs of the growing local data center industry and removing masonry and carpentry as pathways.
School Board member Susan Randall, George Washington district representative, pushed back on this recommendation.
“Masonry and carpentry are the first ones who show up at any build site,” she said. “This is a bit of a smack to the face to those programs. I just feel like I can’t approve a program of study that removes half the industries of construction out of the center.”
Changes proposed to the LEAP Center include splitting law and criminal justice into two separate pathways and moving the Teachers for Tomorrow pathway to Germanna Community College’s Future Educator’s Academy—a dual enrollment laboratory school that allows students to earn their associate degree while in high school, putting them on a fast track towards earning their teaching license.
Bolling said the division is also looking to add associate degree in science programs at North Stafford and Stafford high schools in 2026. The plan is to add associate degree programs to all the high schools over the next few years.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”