Does anyone send the children to Jefferson-Houston in Alexandria?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neither the current City Council or the current School Board seem to really care about the overall mess or how bad the schools are in Alexandria, which has been quite evident for a very long time.

They changed chancellors because they do care. They need to stick to some plans, and get the details right and not keep switching to new schemes. That JH appears to be on the mend is a good thing. It will take time.

Chancellors? Superintendent Crawley is not much of an improvement over Mort Sherman. Major problems continue under Crawley; he's too buddy buddy with old school board.

[Anonymous]

What "old" school board? The 2015 one or earlier?? New one, elected in November starts about now, I think.

And what does "buddy buddy" mean? From what I've seen, the pool of engaged and active citizens in Alexandria is very small and they are all, at least superficially, "buddy buddy" because nobody else does much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know where to find out how many kids got admin transfers out of Jeff Houston for the 2016 school year?

If you look watch the school board meetings from fall 2015, there are exhibits showing transfers and why for the 14-15 school year. The info memo is dated 12/5/14 (the latest data).

It only has each school overall, not by grade.

Looking for this link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know where to find out how many kids got admin transfers out of Jeff Houston for the 2016 school year?

If you look watch the school board meetings from fall 2015, there are exhibits showing transfers and why for the 14-15 school year. The info memo is dated 12/5/14 (the latest data).

It only has each school overall, not by grade.

Looking for this link?

1) http://esbpublic.acps.k12.va.us
11/5/2015 - 7:00 PM
Category: New Business and Reports to the Board
Type: Info
Subject: SY 2015-2016 Fall Membership, Transfer, and Student Ratio Report

2) above gives link to: http://esbpublic.acps.k12.va.us/attachments/57820ce0-c923-4166-a5d0-a371a4b38ecc.pdf
Look at page 5: reasons for student transfers for out of boundary schools, 2015-2016

Jefferson Houston Elementary had the most transfers under "other" category (11), and "siblings" (15). Overall transfers were 35.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neither the current City Council or the current School Board seem to really care about the overall mess or how bad the schools are in Alexandria, which has been quite evident for a very long time.

They changed chancellors because they do care. They need to stick to some plans, and get the details right and not keep switching to new schemes. That JH appears to be on the mend is a good thing. It will take time.

Chancellors? Superintendent Crawley is not much of an improvement over Mort Sherman. Major problems continue under Crawley; he's too buddy buddy with old school board.

Crawley is not really the Superintendent; he simply carries out Graf's instructions. Every decision, without exception, is made by Graf alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neither the current City Council or the current School Board seem to really care about the overall mess or how bad the schools are in Alexandria, which has been quite evident for a very long time.

Agreed! That's why Alexandrians voted over 50% of School Board out. District B had a 100% change over. There are 9 members of Schools Board and 5 are newly elected. In fact Thurs. night is the Induction meeting of the new School Board members. This is a breath of fresh air and the new members are very dedicated to making changes.

There wasn't some clean sweep. Only two incumbents lost. Others did not run for re-election. It is a pretty thankless job, and I don't know why anyone would want to do it for more than one term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neither the current City Council or the current School Board seem to really care about the overall mess or how bad the schools are in Alexandria, which has been quite evident for a very long time.

Agreed! That's why Alexandrians voted over 50% of School Board out. District B had a 100% change over. There are 9 members of Schools Board and 5 are newly elected. In fact Thurs. night is the Induction meeting of the new School Board members. This is a breath of fresh air and the new members are very dedicated to making changes.

There wasn't some clean sweep. Only two incumbents lost. Others did not run for re-election. It is a pretty thankless job, and I don't know why anyone would want to do it for more than one term.

The ACPS School Board task could be easier if the sky isn't the limit on available programs and emphasis is placed where it truly belongs: on rigorous academics. Obviously school buildings themselves were not attended to as they should have been by past school boards. Not this past board, but the past boards that were too busy dealing with the new way-over-budget TC Williams High School and then drunk Superintendent Rebecca Perry's decision making. That ACPS Board should have outright fired Perry, but instead gave her a raise and a new contract. Into this mayhem came super high salary and benefits demanding Mort Sherman who put every new program on the book. You can't make this stuff up folks: it happened right in our own Alexandria City backyard. There is a reason why our school board work is thankless task: wrong decision making haunts us for decades. You can't pay or play your way out of stupid. Alexandrian's are rightfully speaking up as we labor to support the persistent mediocre system via our hard earned money through taxes, with minimal improvement overall in the last decade in the standing of the ACPS (see VDOE list of public school systems and where we fall).

We seem to have gotten on a somewhat better footing, but the current ACPS School Board must remember that Alexandria residents only can pay so much in taxes. We are not a huge town and local private sector wage growth (where many of us work) has not increased much since 2008. Our current capital improvement list goes on and on ad nauseum for both City and School and then we have General Fund expenses. Just where is all this money going to come from to carry these proposed City expenses? You can't tax us high enough to do it all and obviously if you do, people will foment and leave, sending Alexandria public schools into even a worse crises. The school board seems happy capacity is increasing but I wonder: how much of the increase in students is covered by the parents who support Alexandria through significant City tax payments and how much through FARMS? Yes, this needs to be considered and discussed, as residents' shoulders can carry just so much water.

Let's not fool ourself: rigor and improvement in ACPS academics is what will bring solid business growth to a City such as ours (we are always in contention with Arlington and Fairfax which have great schools), not poor academic standing. The School Boards main job, as the superintendents, will be easier if they focus on academics needed for our students future job success and publicly pledge this to we residents (we hear very little at School Board meetings on this), especially as our US economy remains tepid in growth and the world economy sits near recession.

So if you want the current thankless task of sitting on ACPS School Board to get better, remember it's primarily about educational academics: reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. That will make the task simpler and improve ACPS at the same time.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry, but the post above sounds like a whole bunch hysteria to me.

Also, for Pete's sake, Graf does not operate in a vacuum. Give it a rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neither the current City Council or the current School Board seem to really care about the overall mess or how bad the schools are in Alexandria, which has been quite evident for a very long time.

Agreed! That's why Alexandrians voted over 50% of School Board out. District B had a 100% change over. There are 9 members of Schools Board and 5 are newly elected. In fact Thurs. night is the Induction meeting of the new School Board members. This is a breath of fresh air and the new members are very dedicated to making changes.

There wasn't some clean sweep. Only two incumbents lost. Others did not run for re-election. It is a pretty thankless job, and I don't know why anyone would want to do it for more than one term.

The ACPS School Board task could be easier if the sky isn't the limit on available programs and emphasis is placed where it truly belongs: on rigorous academics. Obviously school buildings themselves were not attended to as they should have been by past school boards. Not this past board, but the past boards that were too busy dealing with the new way-over-budget TC Williams High School and then drunk Superintendent Rebecca Perry's decision making. That ACPS Board should have outright fired Perry, but instead gave her a raise and a new contract. Into this mayhem came super high salary and benefits demanding Mort Sherman who put every new program on the book. You can't make this stuff up folks: it happened right in our own Alexandria City backyard. There is a reason why our school board work is thankless task: wrong decision making haunts us for decades. You can't pay or play your way out of stupid. Alexandrian's are rightfully speaking up as we labor to support the persistent mediocre system via our hard earned money through taxes, with minimal improvement overall in the last decade in the standing of the ACPS (see VDOE list of public school systems and where we fall).

We seem to have gotten on a somewhat better footing, but the current ACPS School Board must remember that Alexandria residents only can pay so much in taxes. We are not a huge town and local private sector wage growth (where many of us work) has not increased much since 2008. Our current capital improvement list goes on and on ad nauseum for both City and School and then we have General Fund expenses. Just where is all this money going to come from to carry these proposed City expenses? You can't tax us high enough to do it all and obviously if you do, people will foment and leave, sending Alexandria public schools into even a worse crises. The school board seems happy capacity is increasing but I wonder: how much of the increase in students is covered by the parents who support Alexandria through significant City tax payments and how much through FARMS? Yes, this needs to be considered and discussed, as residents' shoulders can carry just so much water.

Let's not fool ourself: rigor and improvement in ACPS academics is what will bring solid business growth to a City such as ours (we are always in contention with Arlington and Fairfax which have great schools), not poor academic standing. The School Boards main job, as the superintendents, will be easier if they focus on academics needed for our students future job success and publicly pledge this to we residents (we hear very little at School Board meetings on this), especially as our US economy remains tepid in growth and the world economy sits near recession.

So if you want the current thankless task of sitting on ACPS School Board to get better, remember it's primarily about educational academics: reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. That will make the task simpler and improve ACPS at the same time.

Said this before - the problem is not with the school board and the school board can't fix it.

The City itself has to decide to stop being a welfare city. Way too much money is directed towards propping people up in unsustainable households. Tax money is spent in social services leaving less for schools.

[Anonymous]

We love Alexandria but just moved out because of the schools (our oldest would have attended J-H). I am very sad we had to do this, but we cannot afford private school tuition and are not willing to send our kids to one of the worst performing elementary schools in the state.