Margaret Chung/Arlington Career Center Principal (in-person interview on July 29, 2025 at
ACC)
[LIGHTLY EDITED FOR CLARITY/READABILITY]
Chris Park: What inspired you to pursue a career in education originally, and how has that
inspiration evolved over time?
MC: I think originally, I was interested in the field of math education back in the early 1990s.
There was a huge push to elevate math education, and there was a huge need to hire math
educators at the time. I always liked math, [but] wasn’t sure that was something I wanted to
pursue. I ended up getting my bachelor’s in math. In my memory, growing up in the U.S as a
high schooler, I was very uninspired by my math education experience. I thought, “Well, why
not? Why not try to pursue an angle towards math education that could be a little different?”
That’s what initially got me started.
CP: What brought you to Arlington?
MC: I graduated from George Mason University with a math degree, and I was pursuing my
education degree. They had a recruitment fair of teacher recruitment at the campus. They
actually hired me at the recruitment fair; there were several counties there. But at the time,
Arlington’s size and kind of innovative, it was very individualized. The larger districts didn’t
provide the personal attention that I was seeking and it felt like as a teacher, I was coming into a
community that would kind of look out for me.
CP: Speaking of individualized, personal focus, the [Arlington] Career Center has a unique
place in APS compared to larger schools like [Washington-Liberty] [and] Yorktown [High
Schools]. How would you describe the mission of the Career Center?
MC: Our mission is to instill a passion for learning by doing–much of our courses, our classes,
our career tech ed classes (formerly known as vocational classes). But now in career technical
education, it’s really seen as the courses that are leading industry in a sense–computer science,
engineering. And if you think about it, any job requires technical skills. In a sense, it’s starting
with the career in mind and designed to have education support that–kind of a backward design
model in the sense that our hope is that our students would have viable careers through which
they could support themselves, their families, and have a place to grow and have a wage that is
competitive and industries that are in demand. The whole idea behind what is currently career in
technical education, I think even historically, when you think about vocational education, it’s
always the sense economically what’s needed most in the country and how education came to
initially. Teachers were trained in normal schools, right? They were called technical normal
schools, and teaching itself is a CTE course. It’s really the sense that our mission is to have
students experience, not just the hands-on, but the actual industry. Many of our teachers are
actually from industry and have that experience; our lab spaces, our industry standards, and
almost all our programs provide an opportunity for our students to go out into the workplace and have direct experience with on-the-job training. It’s the sense of making it as real as possible
and to what extent education can support our students towards that end. That’s really our
mission.
And our new building is designed to support that. You can see that our CTE classes are what
drive the design of the building, and our academic classrooms actually are there to support the
central career and technical education courses that are in the building. We’re very excited.
CP: How do you see your role in supporting this mission?
MC: As Principal, it’s important to first have a very clear vision of what we’re doing as a
community. Our central vision and mission also is to be a community of learners–the idea of
learning from each other. All students, teachers, we have many community and industry
partners that come in, and they’re part of the learning experience of our students. As Principal
and as an administrator, it’s to provide that opportunity, that environment, a place where
students can thrive and learn and have that experience of developing a passion.
I think the most exciting part of my job is to walk into a learning space and see students learning
with not only their hands, but practicing. When I walk in, I never need to ask, “Why are you
learning this?” I simply ask, “What are you doing?” and they explain to me, step by step, how
they’re putting an engine together, how they’re working, EMT students–how they’re putting a
brace on a patient and getting them ready for the ambulance, early education students–creating
a learning environment for preschool students and lesson planning, culinary arts
students–developing menus and understanding how a menu, how ingredients work together to
create the most optimal kind of tasting experience. It’s great because students will walk me
through that process.
And you see this light in their eyes and their excitement. In many ways, sometimes for the first
time, they’re developing this passion for something. They didn’t even understand that they had
that skill. To see that is, I think, to ignite that and create the environment, hire the right teachers,
create the learning community that will support that, I feel like that’s my primary role.
CP: Speaking of seeing a student light up, seeing these topics that they wouldn’t have otherwise
seen, initially on my tour of Arlington Tech, and I was in Mr. [Wilmer] Castro’s auto collision
shop, that was really great to see; I had a smile on my face the whole time.
MC: Did you see the electric car?
CP: Yeah, that was really cool.
MC: In the new building, as you come into the building, the first space you’re going to see is the
collision repair, and it’s going to have the double bay doors; we can actually roll the car out into
the main lobby as people come into the building. It’s very exciting. You can program the car.
CP: Speaking of the Career Center, it’s celebrating its 50th year?
MC: Last year, actually, was its 50th year. It opened in 1974/1975.
CP: You said that the Career Center has been teaching kids about jobs that are in demand or
relevant [to] today. How has the Career Center evolved in its programs, like the culture and the
community?
MC: Mr. Tom Smolinski opened the school back in 1974. He was a vocational educator in
Upstate New York. He brought the idea for the first time to Arlington. This was the first career
technical education center for the district and this area. It’s very visionary. It was built around
courses that were in demand at the time. It might have been office work. Many of auto tech and
nursing, I think, was big back then, based on what the economy needed at the time.
So how has it evolved? We always look to shaping the courses that we offer as being in
demand at the current time, and not only now, but in the future, right? We always have to think
five, ten years down the line. In this day and age, it’s really hard to know what that is with things
like AI and quantum physics and things that are just changing how we understand industry and
jobs that are changing. We have to stay ahead of that. That’s why our partnership with industry
is so key because we can’t teach the same old, same olds.
With the new school, we’re actually being named after Grace Hopper; our new school isn’t going
to be the Arlington Career Center. It’s going to be the Grace Hopper Center. And she…we have
a lot of her quotes up there…she was the first woman admiral in the U.S. Navy, and she created
COBOL, the computer science language. She was a genius computer scientist who came up
with a way of using the English language to program. One of her famous quotes is “The most
dangerous language is ‘we’ve always done it this way.’” She really believed in the idea of
reinventing and being innovative.
I feel like that is so key to who we are. We want to always evolve and be relevant to what’s
needed in the economy because we have a key role in making sure that students know what’s
out there, be ready for it, and to develop the skills needed to face the very rapid, changing labor
market that’s out there. I think gone are the days of just entering one field and sticking with it. It’s
that idea that you have a flexibility and adaptability, your skills are portable. In some ways,
people are inventing new careers, right? And I love it when our students discover that they can
pool together multiple fields and create a path for themselves. We had a student who had a
deep desire in engineering but also in working with children and in medicine. She decided to
focus on the development of pediatric prosthetics–as an engineer, working with physical
therapists and children. That’s one creative way that our students are putting programs together
to invent, create their path. And that, I think, is key to the skills that we want to develop in our
students.
CP: You were talking about the Career Center always wanting to keep up or stay ahead of
relevant jobs. With the rise of AI and the rapid development of that, especially the new careers that are popping out from that (I know Sheel [Shah] was really interested in AI), what do you
think are going to be its biggest challenges in the future–in all these careers and all these
technological advancements keep popping up that this rate?
MC: AI is an industry, but it kind of goes beyond that because it’s reinventing how we
communicate, how we find information, how we verify information, how we check, because of its
iterative process.
It’s been fascinating to see how many of our CTE teachers are leading the way in its use. Our
physical therapy teacher uses it in his clinicals. His students twice a week run a clinic, a PT
clinic, and they take on the role of different clinicians–it might be a PT, it might be a PT
assistant, it might be an office manager, and patients. They role-play being patients. How AI is
being used is to evaluate the skill of being able to diagnose and provide the right kind of
treatment plan for the patient. The teacher has developed an AI, a way that a student, as the
PT, working with a patient, can plug in the treatment that they’re giving, based on a diagnosis,
and whether or not that’s accurate. They run it, and they check themselves, and if it’s not, they
redo it. It’s this idea of learning by doing, and AI can actually help you with that.
Likewise, with one of our engineering teachers, the students design different tools, and they run
it; they run their design through AI to see if it is actually going to work. AI will actually run the
program to see the design and can give that feedback. I think that’s where AI can be extremely
useful. Our cybersecurity teacher used it to do troubleshooting. One of the programs that they
were running wasn’t running; even though the directions were followed step by step, when they
plugged it into AI, they found that there was one line in the language that wasn’t written
correctly. It actually helped troubleshoot why the program wasn’t running.
I think those are ways in which the more students and teachers can embrace AI, find innovative
ways to use it to improve our learning experience, that’s where our students themselves can
become innovators of its use and can then create ways in which AI will either help us in our
development and not become something to fear. It’s something that can be useful and can
improve how we do things.
CP: In Arlington Tech (it’s the newest program at the Career Center), how do you think Tech
addresses some of the most hotly discussed education issues and community issues in today’s
generation of students?
MC: Absolutely. The most exciting thing about Arlington Tech is that it’s been, in a sense, an
incubator space for us as an educational program. It was started back in 2015/2016, our first
cohort of 40 students. It was really an idea at the time, not knowing, not having any graduates,
not knowing how to measure its success. We knew that dual enrollment and our partnership
with NoVA would create a different opportunity for students to earn college credits. So we
became the first dual enrollment-focused program. That’s how we embrace being a Governor’s
Academy. So even though our Governor’s Academy started in 2008 with three dual enrollment
courses that were both CTE and math (were some of the DE courses that we offered at the time), the focus with being a Governor’s STEM Academy was in the opportunities that dual
enrollment could provide.
At the time, Senator (he was Governor Kaine at the time), but now Senator Kaine was the one
who introduced this idea. We were one of eight schools, the original eight that started the
Governor’s STEM Academies.
One of the measurable goals is the extent to which how many students are taking dual
enrollment and transferring that to the university. We knew that the best way to do that was to
begin having a program in which we prepare students during their ninth and tenth grade year.
Then by their 11th and 12th grade year, they can take all dual enrollment courses. By the time
they graduate as 12th graders, they can actually earn a two-year associate’s degree. In its
second, third year, our first graduating class, we didn’t have any. But by the second, we had
seven, and then nine, and then 15. Then the year before last, we had 19 students graduate with
an associate’s degree. I’m very proud to say that last year, the 15 who graduated with the
associate’s, ten of them graduated with an associate’s, doing computer science–and those are
all transferable credits. Many of our students then enter college as second-semester college
students. We had one student graduate from UVA in two years and went to her master’s degree
program in I think occupational, speech therapy.
It’s students that are taking full advantage because all Virginia universities take our dual
enrollment credits, and because our courses are taught by adjunct faculty from NoVA. Our APS,
licensed high school teachers are duly certified with NoVA, so they’re considered adjunct faculty.
Our students are getting the high school credit towards high school graduation, while also
earning college credits. If you take dual enrollment, you don’t get AP credit, you get a college
transcript. When you graduate, it’ll be a college transcript that you take to college with you. What
I love about our Arlington Tech students who are in dual enrollment, it’s not that “I’m prepared to
go to college,” they can say, “I’m in college.”
Also, our focus is on industry credentialing. Many of our students earn industry-recognized
credentials. Like our aviation students can earn their FAA written exam, EMT students earn their
national EMT licenses. You know, our early childhood education classes are parapro
(paraprofessional) certified. Our students are earning the same credentials that industry
professionals are. Cybersecurity, same thing–Security Plus, that’s an industry-recognized
credential. It’s just very exciting that they’re getting not only the industry credentials, the college
credits, and now many of the industries are saying…universities are actually looking to have
some of these industry credentials become stackable, so you can actually earn college credits
through your credentials. That’s where I think starting with a small program that’s focused on
STEM, that’s focused on dual enrollment, on work-based learning, it’s allowed us to create this
very unique program that provides incredible opportunities for our students.
CP: In 2018, in an interview with the Columbia Pike Documentary Project, you were quoted as
saying, “I think my experience as an immigrant helps me relate to the students.” How does that
experience help inform you as an educator?
MC: Oh, my goodness, yes, so I don’t know if you were born here, but I came here when I was
10. I don’t want to say my age, but that was…I’m as old as this: at the time, so I’m older than
this school, I was 10, at the time, 1974. When you come to the United States as an immigrant, I
think the unique opportunity that the United States has far beyond any other country is that you
have the opportunity to be considered an American–same as anyone else. Any other country,
you have to live there generations before you’re considered a full-fledged citizen. But I think the
United States, you could be a first generation and still consider yourself an American.
I consider myself a Korean American, and yes, I grew up here since the age of 10. But being an
immigrant has taught me that, first of all, my parents had to work very, very hard. My mother
was a diplomat’s wife, and my dad worked in the Korean government. But when you come to
this country, you start from scratch. My mom worked as a secretary, my dad had to open a
business, and it was just something you had to just, you start from nothing. My dad had a very
high position in the Korean government, but then you come here and it’s like, it’s zero. And you
start from the ground up.
Many of our students come from that similar background. That’s why I felt, especially our
immigrant students, we have the English Learner Institute. It’s a program specifically designed
to support our immigrant students. And they come here and for them, many of them, that
experience of coming to a new country, finding your way, and in many ways as an immigrant,
you have to develop a sense of identity and also understanding your role within your community,
but also within the larger community. You get your support and love and acceptance in your tight
community, but then you have to use that sense of who you are to be part of the larger
community and bring who you are, bring who your community is to the table. You come with so
much, right? And it enriches the community.
That’s where I feel like I love being an educator because in public education (I attended private
before coming to this country and only attended public in the U.S.) I know that it’s a very
different experience. Public education, it’s kind of the great equalizer. It’s an opportunity for any
student, no matter your background, to gain the experience and knowledge and skills to be your
best self. And then to go forward into the world and contribute. I feel like that’s, in many ways,
what immigrants go through. You come to this country and becoming an immigrant is the great
equalizer, no matter what background you had before, you come to this country, you’re starting
from scratch, and you’re building up. I think in that sense, there’s this parallel with public
education and being immigrants into this country.
CP: I completely understand because my mom came here when she was three or four. I’ve
heard a lot of stories from my mom and grandma about the experience coming here, and I feel
like it’s really important.
Going back to supporting immigrant students, looking at English as a Second Language
programs, I talked to Dr. Emma Violand-Sanchez. She was one of the earlier people that I interviewed. She described you as a “great leader.” What does it take to be a leader of a
multifaceted institution such as the Career Center?
MC: It is humbling to hear Emma say that. She is a great hero and leader in the community.
I think the most important quality is to have an open mind and be able to listen to the community
that you’re serving and to take the time to understand who it is, because really leadership is
servanthood. That’s another Grace Hopper quote. She says, “Management is about things.
Leadership is about people.” Leadership isn’t a thing. Leadership is about the extent to which
you can reflect the values of the people you serve. And so it’s very humbling. It’s all about
learning and creating that opportunity for every person that’s in your community that you’re
serving, so they can thrive and learn from each other, and I’m simply here.
I often feel like you’re steering this very large ship. You just want to stay the course, have a clear
vision, work together as a team, and stay the course.
CP: I absolutely understand that.
Sorry, the construction of the new building, when I was talking to Dr. [Michelle] Van Lare on my
tour, she was talking about the general expansion of the school with the new building, per kids
each grade. What are your top priorities for the Career Center over the next five years?
MC: The program that’s going to be growing the most is Arlington Tech. Currently, we have 450
students. When we enter the building, we’ll have 600 students. Next year, we’ll have not 150,
but 250 students coming in as freshmen. So every year, 250, it’ll come to 1,000 students; we will
more than double in size, so that’s going to be huge. That will be a big change. This idea of
what we started with only 40 students to grow to 1,000…but the idea is good–the whole
premise behind who we are as Arlington Tech, as Arlington Career Center, and now the Grace
Hopper Center.
These are all things that are relevant to today and in the future–to stay innovative, to make sure
that students are developing skills that are not going to just prepare them, but give them what
they need to understand and navigate their future. We hope to offer new courses that are CTE,
based on what industry is telling us. I know there are areas we continue to work with our current
technical education office and with data to drive the direction. But I think that’s what makes the
Career Center, Grace Hopper, or Arlington Tech. It’s so exciting because we will always stay
relevant, because we’re always based on what the economy needs and what the in-demand
jobs are. We are going to stay relevant. That’s what’s most exciting. Our students are going to
be part of that; they’re going to be part of shaping that future, and that’s the most exciting thing.
CP: Thank you so much for having us for this interview.
