Jamestown, Taylor, and Nottingham

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous Taylor parent. One thing I’ll note is that Jamestown and some other NA schools get thrown around on here for self important parents etc. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But Taylor never gets mentioned in that way. In fact Taylor almost never gets mentioned at all. I found it a pretty down to earth community.

+1. Jamestown = having your PTA fundraiser at Washington Golf. One year pre-Covid there was even a Miss America-style event where the dads threw in increasing amounts of cash to support their wives in the pageant. Wish I were kidding. It was awful.

PP Taylor parent. Something I really appreciated about the school/PTA is that they relied almost solely on the no frills fundraiser. I don't recall there being an auction of any kind. There was a spring fair that also brought in money. But for the most part we were not constantly asked/expected to donate at various events, just donate to the no frills fundraiser and be done with it. I don't know if that changed with the new principal. We were rezoned to ASFS and I can't stand the number of fundraisers.

This year asfs is having a lot of fundraisers because there wasn’t any fundraising last year (due to the feeling that most of the school being rezoned), and over half of the PTA’s reserve funds were given to innovation to jumpstart their pta. Usually it’s just the auction and the no frills fundraiser, but I think that the pta reserves are really low this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Discovery is pretty good but lately a lot of teacher turnover. Beautiful building and some excellent teachers. No significant diversity. The worst thing about Discovery is the Standards based grading. As a parent and as a student, you just never really know how you’re doing.

But standards based grading is the new thing and being implemented systemwide; so moot point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous Taylor parent. One thing I’ll note is that Jamestown and some other NA schools get thrown around on here for self important parents etc. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But Taylor never gets mentioned in that way. In fact Taylor almost never gets mentioned at all. I found it a pretty down to earth community.

+1. Jamestown = having your PTA fundraiser at Washington Golf. One year pre-Covid there was even a Miss America-style event where the dads threw in increasing amounts of cash to support their wives in the pageant. Wish I were kidding. It was awful.

Stop. This cannot possibly be true.

It sounds insane but nope, it happened. I’m not sure how they thought it would look but it was mortifying.

[Anonymous]

We looked at all these areas as well and have lived in Arlington for a very long time. I would say that from a wealth perspective Jamestown is one notch above the others. Remember Jamestown is the one where the parents did not want any boundary changes so were willing to pay out of their pocket for more buses specifically for Jamestown. This is not a joke, it was in the written public comments on the boundary process several years ago. Our top choice was Nottingham due to walkability, involvement of families in activities and things like that. From an education perspective they all seem about the same

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Discovery is pretty good but lately a lot of teacher turnover. Beautiful building and some excellent teachers. No significant diversity. The worst thing about Discovery is the Standards based grading. As a parent and as a student, you just never really know how you’re doing.

But standards based grading is the new thing and being implemented systemwide; so moot point.

I like standards based grading. I moved from a school with sbg to one without and I feel like I get less feedback now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We looked at all these areas as well and have lived in Arlington for a very long time. I would say that from a wealth perspective Jamestown is one notch above the others. Remember Jamestown is the one where the parents did not want any boundary changes so were willing to pay out of their pocket for more buses specifically for Jamestown. This is not a joke, it was in the written public comments on the boundary process several years ago. Our top choice was Nottingham due to walkability, involvement of families in activities and things like that. From an education perspective they all seem about the same

NP. I don’t want to derail the thread but is this the culture at Jamestown or is it a small group of people? If this is a bigger issue than a small group of parents, we would like to avoid this school.

[Anonymous]

We've been in Taylor for 13 years over multiple kids. We've been very satisfied. And, Taylor is a little more diverse ethnically and economically than Jamestown, according to my observations and the APS stats. But, I'm not going to tell you Taylor is a really diverse place.

[Anonymous]

Tuckahoe, Discovery, Nottingham and Jamestown are all basically the same… affluent families, low diversity with Jamestown being the least diverse. After that come Taylor and Cardinal. Slightly less affluent, slightly more diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous Taylor parent. One thing I’ll note is that Jamestown and some other NA schools get thrown around on here for self important parents etc. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But Taylor never gets mentioned in that way. In fact Taylor almost never gets mentioned at all. I found it a pretty down to earth community.

+1. Jamestown = having your PTA fundraiser at Washington Golf. One year pre-Covid there was even a Miss America-style event where the dads threw in increasing amounts of cash to support their wives in the pageant. Wish I were kidding. It was awful.

Stop. This cannot possibly be true.

It sounds insane but nope, it happened. I’m not sure how they thought it would look but it was mortifying.

It was weird, but it was one time and it went with the theme - Prom. There was a fundraiser prom king and queen. Never been done again. Stop hating on Jamestown. It really is a nice school. Love the Principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We looked at all these areas as well and have lived in Arlington for a very long time. I would say that from a wealth perspective Jamestown is one notch above the others. Remember Jamestown is the one where the parents did not want any boundary changes so were willing to pay out of their pocket for more buses specifically for Jamestown. This is not a joke, it was in the written public comments on the boundary process several years ago. Our top choice was Nottingham due to walkability, involvement of families in activities and things like that. From an education perspective they all seem about the same

NP. I don’t want to derail the thread but is this the culture at Jamestown or is it a small group of people? If this is a bigger issue than a small group of parents, we would like to avoid this school.

It was a comment by one person. Never anything advocated by the school community. This wouldn’t even be legal. Buses are allocated by APS and private citizens can’t charter a bus.

There has been all kinds of nonsense over the years with zoning. Tuckahoe and Nottingham got really insane a few years ago. Just don’t pay attention to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Previous Taylor parent. One thing I’ll note is that Jamestown and some other NA schools get thrown around on here for self important parents etc. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But Taylor never gets mentioned in that way. In fact Taylor almost never gets mentioned at all. I found it a pretty down to earth community.

+1. Jamestown = having your PTA fundraiser at Washington Golf. One year pre-Covid there was even a Miss America-style event where the dads threw in increasing amounts of cash to support their wives in the pageant. Wish I were kidding. It was awful.

Stop. This cannot possibly be true.

It sounds insane but nope, it happened. I’m not sure how they thought it would look but it was mortifying.

It was weird, but it was one time and it went with the theme - Prom. There was a fundraiser prom king and queen. Never been done again. Stop hating on Jamestown. It really is a nice school. Love the Principal.

DP. Everyone I know there personally is perfectly nice, but also a bit out of touch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are all high SES, low diversity elementary schools. Add in Discovery and they are pretty much interchangeable.

Agree. My kids go to one, and basically all of their friends to the others mentioned. They are fine. Lots of kids leaving for private though.

[Anonymous]

When we were looking in 22207/13, I’d be ok with any of them but Jamestown. It’s just too snobby for my liking. I’m not a firmer uva sorority girl who wears Jack Rodgers and Lilly Pulitzer to the club. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Im curious if the demographics at these high SES has changed during the pandemic. It seemed like every other person left for private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Im curious if the demographics at these high SES has changed during the pandemic. It seemed like every other person left for private school.

How would demographics change? It’s not as if these families moved or boundaries changed. Discovery lost about 100 kids last year. Still the same demographics.