Post-ATS Education - Middle and High School

[Anonymous]

If your kid attended Arlington Traditional in the last few years, during and before COVID, where did they go after they finished 5th grade? Did you go private, or into a specific public school program (like IB or HB Woodlawn)? How did they do? I'm curious if attending ATS will lead us to want to apply to private school next year, or will we still be happy with public. Also hoping that the pandemic will be behind us by then.

TIA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid attended Arlington Traditional in the last few years, during and before COVID, where did they go after they finished 5th grade? Did you go private, or into a specific public school program (like IB or HB Woodlawn)? How did they do? I'm curious if attending ATS will lead us to want to apply to private school next year, or will we still be happy with public. Also hoping that the pandemic will be behind us by then.

TIA

Oh please.

[Anonymous]

I kind of think of ats as having a “north Arlington chip on their shoulder” sort of place. All the north Arlington parents I know that had chips on their shoulders went private for middle/high school. During covid, a lot who fit that stereotype went private. So I think you should go private.

[Anonymous]

Was the experience so bad that it’s making you consider private??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid attended Arlington Traditional in the last few years, during and before COVID, where did they go after they finished 5th grade? Did you go private, or into a specific public school program (like IB or HB Woodlawn)? How did they do? I'm curious if attending ATS will lead us to want to apply to private school next year, or will we still be happy with public. Also hoping that the pandemic will be behind us by then.

TIA

Good luck getting into private. Sorry but ATS won't help you get in there even in pre covid times. Go to public with the unwashed masess.

[Anonymous]

Maybe a nice military boarding school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was the experience so bad that it’s making you consider private??

No, quite the opposite in fact.

I guess I should add that we live south of Rt 50 and are zoned to TJ and Wakefield. It's not that I think public school is bad or that these are bad schools, but I was wondered where students generally ended up. I didn't mean it to be taken the way this conversation is going!

[Anonymous]

I also asked because I wondered if all of my daughter's friends would go private while she goes public in a couple of years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was the experience so bad that it’s making you consider private??

No, quite the opposite in fact.

I guess I should add that we live south of Rt 50 and are zoned to TJ and Wakefield. It's not that I think public school is bad or that these are bad schools, but I was wondered where students generally ended up. I didn't mean it to be taken the way this conversation is going!

I also live south of 50, zoned Gunston/Wakefield. I would like my kid to go to IB at TJ but would be fine with Gunston.

[Anonymous]

You can see how this would go south right OP?

ATS is not the only good elementary school where you might wonder if kids would go private. You are implying ATS is a cut above. I’m sure it’s great but it’s another APS public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also asked because I wondered if all of my daughter's friends would go private while she goes public in a couple of years.

Your daughters friends will end up at all different school regardless of private vs. public. That’s one of the drawbacks of going to an option school. You could very well end up in a middle school where your kid doesn’t know many people.

[Anonymous]

ATS kids (in large part) go to their neighborhood middle schools. And the number of ATS kids that go to each MS change every year (obv - just depends on where the kids in that particular graduating class live). When my older son left ATS a big group of kids went with him to Kenmore and very few to WMS. The year before I think Swanson was the big school. With my next, a ton of kids went to TJMS and WMS. I think you can count on some ATS kids heading each MS every year (mine did not have issues meeting friends. Also - remember the MSs are big. A bunch of ESs feed to each one. I know some neighborhood ES kids that didn't have familiar faces in some of their classes, so it isn't as if ATS kids are the only ones in a new environment, everyone is on a pretty equal footing and the schools do a good job with 6th grader orientation.).

Every year some ATS kids go to private school - I don't remember it being a huge number.

Middle school can be kind of a tough time/age for kids no matter where they go to school (in my experience), they are going through a lot of changes - so I try to think of it as a time to "ride out" : )

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also asked because I wondered if all of my daughter's friends would go private while she goes public in a couple of years.

If she went to ATS, her friends are going to end up at different middle schools and high schools regardless of whether they are private or APS schools. Wasn't your original question about preparedness for high school? Of course she'll be prepared. She'll be just as prepared as anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can see how this would go south right OP?

ATS is not the only good elementary school where you might wonder if kids would go private. You are implying ATS is a cut above. I’m sure it’s great but it’s another APS public school.

I suppose so. Good thing I didn't ask about our neighborhood school. I can only imagine how that would go...

[Anonymous]

yeah; posts like this don't ever end well. as a data point, the 5th grade this year looked pretty evenly distributed with Swanson being on the low end. I know 2 went to public school but it might be more. I only knew kids of one gender.