Barrett Elementary School featured in October Parents Magazine!

[Anonymous]

I thought you guys might like to know:

Under the series 'Thrive in 2025" there is an article in the October issue of Parents Magazine showcasing, among other public elementary schools in the country, Barrett Elementary School in Arlington!

They write that they asked state departments of education, charter-school-associations, teacher groups and Parents facebook fans to nominate innovative public elementary schools.
They received over 500 nominees, and picked 10 schools. "Each trailblazer took a different approach to excellence, but all have buzzworthy ideas that could make your kid's school everyting you've longed for it to be!"
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"K.W. Barrett, Arlington, VA - K-5, 500 students:
Its science program is out of this world! Designated a NASA explorer school..."

I can't type the whole article here, but they go on to say that Barrett 5th graders won first place in a NASA contest last year to invent a game that was to be played by the astronauts in the International Space Station. (based on Quidditch). They watched the astronauts play the game, and astronauts have visited the school. There is a video of the school's Project Discovery Room, with Allyson Greene, one of the teachers, in it. There is a photo of three cute kids in astronaut outfits, and principal Theresa Bratt is quoted as saying that they gave teachers relief time to apply for grants that enabled them to fund such programs. The magazine gives a link: www.explorerschools.nasa.gov if you want to find out more about the program, or suggest implementing it at your school.
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Congratulations, Barrett!

Disclaimer: I do not have any kids at Barrett, and it's not our neighborhood, but live in Arlington, and was excited to see one of our schools!
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Other schools features are :
Broad Acres Elementary in Silver Spring, Maryland! (should I post a link in their forum?)
Talbot Hill in Renton, Washington
Sonora in Springdale, Arkansas
Forest Lake in Columbia, SC
Pine Jog in West Palm Beach, Fl
Odyssey Charter in Wilmington, DE
John Muir in Berkeley, CA
Math and Science Leadership Academy in Denver, CO
Munford in Alabama

[Anonymous]

Cute! I live in Arlington Forest, so this is pretty cool Wish I could find it online (I tried)~!

[Anonymous]

14:40: It's on the digital Parents subscription (have not received the print edition yet).

The video is great! I know I would have been very excited as a kid, if we had had the chance to be part of that NASA program.

[Anonymous]

I long-term subbed at Barrett, and I loved that school. If I ever get back into teaching, that's where I'd want to go. It's great to see it getting the recognition it deserves.

[Anonymous]

Barrett has been the subject of many discussions on this board, mainly as an example of an excellent, diverse public school with high levels of economically disadvantaged and limited-English proficiency kids but high achievement levels that upper middle class parents have grown to love and support. I had not seen the Parents magazine article but was curious to look up the latest SOL scores and compared them to Taylor ES just for kicks.

While Taylor scored higher in the "all" category for each subject, when you compare "white" students at Barrett to white students at Taylor, The Barrett students actually scored higher than Taylor students in English, Math, Writing, and History, and only one point lower in Science.

This is by no means a dis on Taylor, it just shows that when you compare apples to apples, kids can, and do, get a good education in many Arlington schools, not just the ones that are further north. For all the FARMS nay-sayers, Barrett has 53%of students receiving free and reduced lunch and is a Title 1 school. Taylor, by comparison, has 3.5% free/reduced lunch, and frankly that number was higher than I thought it would be.

Way to go Barrett!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Barrett has been the subject of many discussions on this board, mainly as an example of an excellent, diverse public school with high levels of economically disadvantaged and limited-English proficiency kids but high achievement levels that upper middle class parents have grown to love and support. I had not seen the Parents magazine article but was curious to look up the latest SOL scores and compared them to Taylor ES just for kicks.

While Taylor scored higher in the "all" category for each subject, when you compare "white" students at Barrett to white students at Taylor, The Barrett students actually scored higher than Taylor students in English, Math, Writing, and History, and only one point lower in Science.

This is by no means a dis on Taylor, it just shows that when you compare apples to apples, kids can, and do, get a good education in many Arlington schools, not just the ones that are further north. For all the FARMS nay-sayers, Barrett has 53%of students receiving free and reduced lunch and is a Title 1 school. Taylor, by comparison, has 3.5% free/reduced lunch, and frankly that number was higher than I thought it would be.

Way to go Barrett!

thanks for pointing out that low-achieving white students do exist...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Barrett has been the subject of many discussions on this board, mainly as an example of an excellent, diverse public school with high levels of economically disadvantaged and limited-English proficiency kids but high achievement levels that upper middle class parents have grown to love and support. I had not seen the Parents magazine article but was curious to look up the latest SOL scores and compared them to Taylor ES just for kicks.

While Taylor scored higher in the "all" category for each subject, when you compare "white" students at Barrett to white students at Taylor, The Barrett students actually scored higher than Taylor students in English, Math, Writing, and History, and only one point lower in Science.

This is by no means a dis on Taylor, it just shows that when you compare apples to apples, kids can, and do, get a good education in many Arlington schools, not just the ones that are further north. For all the FARMS nay-sayers, Barrett has 53%of students receiving free and reduced lunch and is a Title 1 school. Taylor, by comparison, has 3.5% free/reduced lunch, and frankly that number was higher than I thought it would be.

Way to go Barrett!

thanks for pointing out that low-achieving white students do exist...

What, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?

Barrett, Taylor, and frankly all white North Arlington elementary students uniformly had SOL pass rates from the mid90s to 100 percent...I don't see how that could even possibly be viewed as "low-achieving."

I don't even know what kind of point you are trying to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Barrett has been the subject of many discussions on this board, mainly as an example of an excellent, diverse public school with high levels of economically disadvantaged and limited-English proficiency kids but high achievement levels that upper middle class parents have grown to love and support. I had not seen the Parents magazine article but was curious to look up the latest SOL scores and compared them to Taylor ES just for kicks.

While Taylor scored higher in the "all" category for each subject, when you compare "white" students at Barrett to white students at Taylor, The Barrett students actually scored higher than Taylor students in English, Math, Writing, and History, and only one point lower in Science.

This is by no means a dis on Taylor, it just shows that when you compare apples to apples, kids can, and do, get a good education in many Arlington schools, not just the ones that are further north. For all the FARMS nay-sayers, Barrett has 53%of students receiving free and reduced lunch and is a Title 1 school. Taylor, by comparison, has 3.5% free/reduced lunch, and frankly that number was higher than I thought it would be.

Way to go Barrett!

thanks for pointing out that low-achieving white students do exist...

I don't get this comment either. Please elaborate.