If you send your student to JH rather than GWMS for middle school

[Anonymous]

We live walking distance from JH and I am intrigued by the IB curriculum and smaller school size. If your student attends, I'd love to hear more. My only concern is there are less options in the curriculum at GWMS.

[Anonymous]

Everyone I know who has done this ended up moving to Fairfax (Waynewood area) after 6th grade because it wasn't what they had hoped it would be and they didn't want to go back to GW.

[Anonymous]

It was really hard for my child to make friends coming in at the middle school level after most of the other kids had been together for elementary. It was a bad social experience, and we moved to Fairfax county after a year.

[Anonymous]

Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

There are serious issues are JH, that due to its size, are more amplified than you would find at GW. 1) the overwhelming majority of the students come from very low income households and due to no fault of their own bring with them the stress and issues that are related to living in Section 8 in that neighborhood. Even making a completely funky Brooks district where kids from the Madison Street section 8 are somehow included in Brooks when they should be going to JH doesn't alleviate the issues. Instead of addressing the issues related to such a large number of children coming from very low income households, it is swept under the rug and bringing it to light is called racist. But we need to help these children and these families, because the odds are stacked against them that someone is reading to them at home, that there is someone to help with homework, that they get adequate sleep, that they are not affected by the safety issues (I get the police alerts, I know), that they may need intervention like a tutor but can't pay for it, etc. THEN combine that with 2) there are major administrative issues at JH. Recently a large teachers quit or didn't renew their contracts leaving to teach somewhere else. There is extremely high turnover in leadership. Honestly they should have brought the magic from the LCTA principal over to JH instead of hiring new people over and over.

JH looks all shiny and somewhat new, but it was rebuilt several years ago because the state threatened to take it over. JH when it only went to 5th grade, had failed the SOLs for so many years in a row that it qualified to be taken over by the Virginia Department of Education and one way to prevent that was by building a new building, which apparently technically meant it was a new school with a clean slate and no longer was a 5+ year failing SOL school.

So instead of trying to tackle the problems, ACPS literally built a new school where the old playground used to be. That was their answer. That's Jeff Houston.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

There are serious issues are JH, that due to its size, are more amplified than you would find at GW. 1) the overwhelming majority of the students come from very low income households and due to no fault of their own bring with them the stress and issues that are related to living in Section 8 in that neighborhood. Even making a completely funky Brooks district where kids from the Madison Street section 8 are somehow included in Brooks when they should be going to JH doesn't alleviate the issues. Instead of addressing the issues related to such a large number of children coming from very low income households, it is swept under the rug and bringing it to light is called racist. But we need to help these children and these families, because the odds are stacked against them that someone is reading to them at home, that there is someone to help with homework, that they get adequate sleep, that they are not affected by the safety issues (I get the police alerts, I know), that they may need intervention like a tutor but can't pay for it, etc. THEN combine that with 2) there are major administrative issues at JH. Recently a large teachers quit or didn't renew their contracts leaving to teach somewhere else. There is extremely high turnover in leadership. Honestly they should have brought the magic from the LCTA principal over to JH instead of hiring new people over and over.

JH looks all shiny and somewhat new, but it was rebuilt several years ago because the state threatened to take it over. JH when it only went to 5th grade, had failed the SOLs for so many years in a row that it qualified to be taken over by the Virginia Department of Education and one way to prevent that was by building a new building, which apparently technically meant it was a new school with a clean slate and no longer was a 5+ year failing SOL school.

So instead of trying to tackle the problems, ACPS literally built a new school where the old playground used to be. That was their answer. That's Jeff Houston.

I agree with this. J-H faces the challenges you describe and ACPS just continues to fail to tackle them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live walking distance from JH and I am intrigued by the IB curriculum and smaller school size. If your student attends, I'd love to hear more. My only concern is there are less options in the curriculum at GWMS.

Are you new to the area? You may want to see if any of your neighbors have their children attend. IB programs are basically failures in Fairfax but may be different in ACPS. Personally, I would never enroll my children in a school with accreditation problems, assuming you have other options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

There are serious issues are JH, that due to its size, are more amplified than you would find at GW. 1) the overwhelming majority of the students come from very low income households and due to no fault of their own bring with them the stress and issues that are related to living in Section 8 in that neighborhood. Even making a completely funky Brooks district where kids from the Madison Street section 8 are somehow included in Brooks when they should be going to JH doesn't alleviate the issues. Instead of addressing the issues related to such a large number of children coming from very low income households, it is swept under the rug and bringing it to light is called racist. But we need to help these children and these families, because the odds are stacked against them that someone is reading to them at home, that there is someone to help with homework, that they get adequate sleep, that they are not affected by the safety issues (I get the police alerts, I know), that they may need intervention like a tutor but can't pay for it, etc. THEN combine that with 2) there are major administrative issues at JH. Recently a large teachers quit or didn't renew their contracts leaving to teach somewhere else. There is extremely high turnover in leadership. Honestly they should have brought the magic from the LCTA principal over to JH instead of hiring new people over and over.

JH looks all shiny and somewhat new, but it was rebuilt several years ago because the state threatened to take it over. JH when it only went to 5th grade, had failed the SOLs for so many years in a row that it qualified to be taken over by the Virginia Department of Education and one way to prevent that was by building a new building, which apparently technically meant it was a new school with a clean slate and no longer was a 5+ year failing SOL school.

So instead of trying to tackle the problems, ACPS literally built a new school where the old playground used to be. That was their answer. That's Jeff Houston.

The other 'fix' the city tried was to force all the white, UMC kids from Del Ray to attend JH when it was unaccredited. This effort was presumably to boost the scores of the school via diluting the poor scores from the Berg kids.

Imagine paying $1200 a month in property tax to be told your child has to go to, literally, the lowest performing grade school in the entire state. And, all the while you are much closer to another school that is accredited and had been traditionally your assigned school.

The city literally threw these people under the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

There are serious issues are JH, that due to its size, are more amplified than you would find at GW. 1) the overwhelming majority of the students come from very low income households and due to no fault of their own bring with them the stress and issues that are related to living in Section 8 in that neighborhood. Even making a completely funky Brooks district where kids from the Madison Street section 8 are somehow included in Brooks when they should be going to JH doesn't alleviate the issues. Instead of addressing the issues related to such a large number of children coming from very low income households, it is swept under the rug and bringing it to light is called racist. But we need to help these children and these families, because the odds are stacked against them that someone is reading to them at home, that there is someone to help with homework, that they get adequate sleep, that they are not affected by the safety issues (I get the police alerts, I know), that they may need intervention like a tutor but can't pay for it, etc. THEN combine that with 2) there are major administrative issues at JH. Recently a large teachers quit or didn't renew their contracts leaving to teach somewhere else. There is extremely high turnover in leadership. Honestly they should have brought the magic from the LCTA principal over to JH instead of hiring new people over and over.

JH looks all shiny and somewhat new, but it was rebuilt several years ago because the state threatened to take it over. JH when it only went to 5th grade, had failed the SOLs for so many years in a row that it qualified to be taken over by the Virginia Department of Education and one way to prevent that was by building a new building, which apparently technically meant it was a new school with a clean slate and no longer was a 5+ year failing SOL school.

So instead of trying to tackle the problems, ACPS literally built a new school where the old playground used to be. That was their answer. That's Jeff Houston.

The other 'fix' the city tried was to force all the white, UMC kids from Del Ray to attend JH when it was unaccredited. This effort was presumably to boost the scores of the school via diluting the poor scores from the Berg kids.

Imagine paying $1200 a month in property tax to be told your child has to go to, literally, the lowest performing grade school in the entire state. And, all the while you are much closer to another school that is accredited and had been traditionally your assigned school.

The city literally threw these people under the bus.

Yep. My friend lived on Adams, and is much closer to Brooks than JH. They were districted for JH but had a waiver but when new districts started her waivers were no longer allowed. So she had to send her kids to JH and let the middle schooler go there too even though they lived one block from GW. Was a huge nightmare. They live now in Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

There are serious issues are JH, that due to its size, are more amplified than you would find at GW. 1) the overwhelming majority of the students come from very low income households and due to no fault of their own bring with them the stress and issues that are related to living in Section 8 in that neighborhood. Even making a completely funky Brooks district where kids from the Madison Street section 8 are somehow included in Brooks when they should be going to JH doesn't alleviate the issues. Instead of addressing the issues related to such a large number of children coming from very low income households, it is swept under the rug and bringing it to light is called racist. But we need to help these children and these families, because the odds are stacked against them that someone is reading to them at home, that there is someone to help with homework, that they get adequate sleep, that they are not affected by the safety issues (I get the police alerts, I know), that they may need intervention like a tutor but can't pay for it, etc. THEN combine that with 2) there are major administrative issues at JH. Recently a large teachers quit or didn't renew their contracts leaving to teach somewhere else. There is extremely high turnover in leadership. Honestly they should have brought the magic from the LCTA principal over to JH instead of hiring new people over and over.

JH looks all shiny and somewhat new, but it was rebuilt several years ago because the state threatened to take it over. JH when it only went to 5th grade, had failed the SOLs for so many years in a row that it qualified to be taken over by the Virginia Department of Education and one way to prevent that was by building a new building, which apparently technically meant it was a new school with a clean slate and no longer was a 5+ year failing SOL school.

So instead of trying to tackle the problems, ACPS literally built a new school where the old playground used to be. That was their answer. That's Jeff Houston.

The other 'fix' the city tried was to force all the white, UMC kids from Del Ray to attend JH when it was unaccredited. This effort was presumably to boost the scores of the school via diluting the poor scores from the Berg kids.

Imagine paying $1200 a month in property tax to be told your child has to go to, literally, the lowest performing grade school in the entire state. And, all the while you are much closer to another school that is accredited and had been traditionally your assigned school.

The city literally threw these people under the bus.

Yep. My friend lived on Adams, and is much closer to Brooks than JH. They were districted for JH but had a waiver but when new districts started her waivers were no longer allowed. So she had to send her kids to JH and let the middle schooler go there too even though they lived one block from GW. Was a huge nightmare. They live now in Fairfax.

I think the district lines have been drawn this way for 20 years.

[Anonymous]

So she had to send her kids to JH and let the middle schooler go there too even though they lived one block from GW. Was a huge nightmare. They live now in Fairfax.

That's not accurate. Middle schoolers could always opt into GW, due to the larger offerings of clubs, activities, and languages offered due to the larger school size. Elementary students could not, that is correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So she had to send her kids to JH and let the middle schooler go there too even though they lived one block from GW. Was a huge nightmare. They live now in Fairfax.

That's not accurate. Middle schoolers could always opt into GW, due to the larger offerings of clubs, activities, and languages offered due to the larger school size. Elementary students could not, that is correct.

Maybe I was unclear. She had more than one kid. Since the elementary age kids no longer had the waiver to go to Brooks she had to send them to JH. She was given the option of also sending her middle schooler (she got to pick between GW and JH for 6th). She chose JH to keep them all in the same school and because she wanted a smaller school for the 6th grader. I never said she couldn't go to GW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, I don't want to discredit anyone's experience with school violence, but that is a known issue that ACPS needs to address. I want to talk about the school culture and academics at J-H.

There are serious issues are JH, that due to its size, are more amplified than you would find at GW. 1) the overwhelming majority of the students come from very low income households and due to no fault of their own bring with them the stress and issues that are related to living in Section 8 in that neighborhood. Even making a completely funky Brooks district where kids from the Madison Street section 8 are somehow included in Brooks when they should be going to JH doesn't alleviate the issues. Instead of addressing the issues related to such a large number of children coming from very low income households, it is swept under the rug and bringing it to light is called racist. But we need to help these children and these families, because the odds are stacked against them that someone is reading to them at home, that there is someone to help with homework, that they get adequate sleep, that they are not affected by the safety issues (I get the police alerts, I know), that they may need intervention like a tutor but can't pay for it, etc. THEN combine that with 2) there are major administrative issues at JH. Recently a large teachers quit or didn't renew their contracts leaving to teach somewhere else. There is extremely high turnover in leadership. Honestly they should have brought the magic from the LCTA principal over to JH instead of hiring new people over and over.

JH looks all shiny and somewhat new, but it was rebuilt several years ago because the state threatened to take it over. JH when it only went to 5th grade, had failed the SOLs for so many years in a row that it qualified to be taken over by the Virginia Department of Education and one way to prevent that was by building a new building, which apparently technically meant it was a new school with a clean slate and no longer was a 5+ year failing SOL school.

So instead of trying to tackle the problems, ACPS literally built a new school where the old playground used to be. That was their answer. That's Jeff Houston.

The other 'fix' the city tried was to force all the white, UMC kids from Del Ray to attend JH when it was unaccredited. This effort was presumably to boost the scores of the school via diluting the poor scores from the Berg kids.

Imagine paying $1200 a month in property tax to be told your child has to go to, literally, the lowest performing grade school in the entire state. And, all the while you are much closer to another school that is accredited and had been traditionally your assigned school.

The city literally threw these people under the bus.

Yep. My friend lived on Adams, and is much closer to Brooks than JH. They were districted for JH but had a waiver but when new districts started her waivers were no longer allowed. So she had to send her kids to JH and let the middle schooler go there too even though they lived one block from GW. Was a huge nightmare. They live now in Fairfax.

I think the district lines have been drawn this way for 20 years.

They have been, BUT you used to be able to get a waiver, especially if you lived closer to another school and if your zoned school was failing. Plenty of people who were zoned for JH used to waive out, many went to Brooks. But it is nuts to have that district where kids on Madison/Montgomery go to Brooks and the kids along Braddock, Adams, etc go to JH.

[Anonymous]

That's not accurate. Middle schoolers could always opt into GW, due to the larger offerings of clubs, activities, and languages offered due to the larger school size. Elementary students could not, that is correct.


Maybe I was unclear. She had more than one kid. Since the elementary age kids no longer had the waiver to go to Brooks she had to send them to JH. She was given the option of also sending her middle schooler (she got to pick between GW and JH for 6th). She chose JH to keep them all in the same school and because she wanted a smaller school for the 6th grader. I never said she couldn't go to GW.

Yes, that was definitely unclear. I have no idea what the middle schooler had to do with the issue being discussed that you responded to (the city forcing people to go to JH) if she voluntarily sent them to JH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's not accurate. Middle schoolers could always opt into GW, due to the larger offerings of clubs, activities, and languages offered due to the larger school size. Elementary students could not, that is correct.


Maybe I was unclear. She had more than one kid. Since the elementary age kids no longer had the waiver to go to Brooks she had to send them to JH. She was given the option of also sending her middle schooler (she got to pick between GW and JH for 6th). She chose JH to keep them all in the same school and because she wanted a smaller school for the 6th grader. I never said she couldn't go to GW.

Yes, that was definitely unclear. I have no idea what the middle schooler had to do with the issue being discussed that you responded to (the city forcing people to go to JH) if she voluntarily sent them to JH.

You need to let this go. I read it that the city forced the elementary students to go to JH and the older sibling opted in to the middle school rather than go to GW. Hence that family had middle school experience at JH. Why are you hyper focused on this? That’s not what PP said.