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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
Reply to "NoVa public schools? alexandria or arlington? "
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] - Arlington has more flexibility and more options in school choice, including a much larger variety of specialized programs and alternative school choices. - Buying a 2+ bedroom house in a "good" N.Arlington public school zone will cost you $150K+ more than precisely the same house in a "good" Alexandria zone. - Alexandria has skewed enrollment problems, with some schools over-subscribed and some very under-subscribed, so re-zoning or some other re-structuring may occur within the next several years. [b]- Cohort sizes at the "good" elementary schools in both districts are growing with the reputation of that elementary school. The Taylor/Key/Sci Focus grouping in Arlington has been affected by this, for example, as have George Mason and Douglas MacArthur in Alexandria.The number of kindergarten classes has jumped (i.e. from 2 to 4) over the course of just a few years in some of these schools, as people with young kids move into the district that they hear is so good. [/b] - I believe that Alexandria does have a lower cap than Arlington on the number of kids in the non-Title I classrooms, 22 max in Alexandria v. 25 max in Arl, maybe? - In Alexandria, it seems the middle schools can be an issue (there are only 2 of them). Then again, some of the Arlington middle schools have issues too -- the big oral sex episode several years back was in one of the N. Arl middle schools. - Because there is only one public high school in Alexandria, it has all the bells and whistles, including a brand-new facility. But it ain't anywhere on the list of great high schools that US News or Jay Matthews put together, while a few of the Arlington high schools are fantastic according to those lists. - Alexandria has a LOT of private schools, not all Catholic. In Arlington, there are Catholic schools, but really no other privates it seems. [/quote] Yes, I would say to really look into this before you move anywhere, OP. N. Arlington is facing somewhat of a crisis in that the number of students at their schools keep growing and growing, and many schools don't seem to have anticipated it. Case in point, Taylor like the PP mentioned got 40+ more kindergarten students than they were expecting this past fall - meaning they had to add two new classes and didn't really have the room for it. I think they took away an art room for one of the classrooms. Glebe, which is going to be my son's school this fall, got 20+ more students than they were expecting and had to add another kindergarten class as well. They took away the computer lab. So, while these schools are still great, I am concerned that if the population keeps growing and growing, the schools will suffer because they will keep taking away art/computer/music classrooms to make room for all the new students. The county has since revised its predictions for class size in most schools, but because of the budget crisis there is not really a way to fix it anytime soon. [/quote]
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