Excellent, but not crazy competitive school districts in VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ is the mothership of evil. Poisons the whole FCPS schooling experience from the top down.

I would say AAP centers poison the whole FCPS schooling experience from the bottom up. So glad my kids are now in high school where no one cares who was and wasn't in AAP.

Well OP is wanting a gifted program, so you can see why FCPS keeps it.

You can still have a gifted program, just not in segregated centers.

[Anonymous]

Tell that to a teacher trying to differentiate. Just go on the general schools forum to see how teachers can't differentiate with all the tasks they have to accomplish. That only works well in high achieving "TJ Mania" schools.

[Anonymous]

Teachers do not in practice differentiate very much. That's just a reality. Yes, they could and yes they should but they don't. Even where it is most widely used - reading groups - it still amounts to like 15 minutes for the high achieving group once or at best twice a week most places. That's hardly very effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing to note in the Lake Braddock-Robinson and TJ admission discussion is that these are secondary schools located near each other. So...1) Even though Lake Braddock is the middle school AAP program, a lot of kids in elementary school AAP opt to go to Robinson just to stay through the same school for the 6 years (instead of going to MS AAP for 2 years and then switching back to their "local" hs--or going to a further away school for 6 years). So the LB MS AAP program loses more kids than is typical. (It's not a problem in my view- both schools have strong MS honors classes).
2) I think being in a secondary school where you get comfortable with an environment may make it harder to want to leave to go to TJ after middle school--than if you were in just a middle school where you had to transition to a new HS anyway. So there's less of a group drive to get into TJ. For better or for worse, kids on average don't prep, parents don't fret etc. as much as other places. For instance, a lot of kids opt not to take 7th grade Algebra even if they qualify. So I would expect lower admissions. The TJ stakes don't just feel as high as they are in other places. STEM oriented kids may apply to see if they have a shot at it--and it has prestige, but it doesn't seem fraught.

I would agree that LBSS and Robinson Pyramids are great places for solid well-rounded education.

Not sure about that. There are more kids in the Lake Braddock and Robinson districts who go to TJ than there are from West Springfield, where the kids mostly attend Irving MS. And many of the Robinson-zoned kids who are in the AAP program at Lake Braddock in grades 7-8 do switch over to Robinson for high school, even though about 25-30 per class stay at LB.

Everyone thinks Lake Braddock, Robinson, and West Springfield are good schools, even if they don't necessarily have the highest academic profiles in FCPS. If they are great places for solid, well-rounded educations, there's no need to over-analyze it, much less go out of one's way to contrast the purported normality of these schools or neighborhoods with others.

FWIW, Lake Braddock is also the AAP center for West Springfield. Irving has local level IV services, but these students can opt to go to Lake Braddock.

And to add as someone who's kid got into the finalist pool for TJ, my DD opted against pursuing it further because she was more comfortable at Robinson. She didn't want to leave and she thought pursuing the IB diploma was a good fit for her. So, ymmv around here.

[Anonymous]

TO cut to the chase, you went a sleepy school pyramid which will send your kid off to UVA without too much trouble. Try Centreville circa 1982.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TO cut to the chase, you went a sleepy school pyramid which will send your kid off to UVA without too much trouble. Try Centreville circa 1982.

Just so you know, in 1982 Centreville went to Robinson and maybe Chantilly. Centreville HS didn't open until 1988 and Westfield didn't open until 2000.

At that time, just like today, those schools sent a lot of kids to UVA and other good schools.