Declining enrollment at APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

+1

This isn’t a public/private thing. Kids are struggling to regulate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

+1

This isn’t a public/private thing. Kids are struggling to regulate.

The APS method of “light touch “where teachers aren’t calling out individual children and instead punishing entire classes, sending emails to an entire grade of parents that behavior needs to improve… Does not seem to be working at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

+1

This isn’t a public/private thing. Kids are struggling to regulate.

The APS method of “light touch “where teachers aren’t calling out individual children and instead punishing entire classes, sending emails to an entire grade of parents that behavior needs to improve… Does not seem to be working at all.

Is this an APS thing? Not happening at my kids’ schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

[Anonymous]

I'll put something positive in just for kicks.

I have a 6th grader who is having her best year ever, she says.

And a 3rd grader that's had a good year too. His beginning of the year was definitely rockier. First 2-3 months more behavior problems than normal. But ok since then.

But sure APS sucks, Duran sucks, it's the worst ever. And private school fixes everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll put something positive in just for kicks.

I have a 6th grader who is having her best year ever, she says.

And a 3rd grader that's had a good year too. His beginning of the year was definitely rockier. First 2-3 months more behavior problems than normal. But ok since then.

But sure APS sucks, Duran sucks, it's the worst ever. And private school fixes everything.

Well that makes sense. The 3rd grader has mostly only known pandemic school, and the 6th grader only got up to 4th grade before pandemic disrupted it all.

My 8th grader loved their 5th grade year, has had a miserable middle school experience though this year was the best of the 3, and sees her brother 5th grade year being a pale shadow of how it was for her. But he doesn’t know how much better things used to be. Frog, pot, you know how it goes.

I worry about WL next year, with 200 new students and adding 200 more every year — not sure why they have to make the school so much larger of enrollment is declining?? Why can’t they just keep the schools about the same size??

[Anonymous]

We're having a great year in elementary. I'm not seeing what you note, but my kids are slightly younger. I hear middle school is miserable to begin with. We can't all afford to abandon ship and go private, and there is not the capacity to do so. I'm sure plenty of kids are really struggling but I can't imagine this is across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll put something positive in just for kicks.

I have a 6th grader who is having her best year ever, she says.

And a 3rd grader that's had a good year too. His beginning of the year was definitely rockier. First 2-3 months more behavior problems than normal. But ok since then.

But sure APS sucks, Duran sucks, it's the worst ever. And private school fixes everything.

Well that makes sense. The 3rd grader has mostly only known pandemic school, and the 6th grader only got up to 4th grade before pandemic disrupted it all.

My 8th grader loved their 5th grade year, has had a miserable middle school experience though this year was the best of the 3, and sees her brother 5th grade year being a pale shadow of how it was for her. But he doesn’t know how much better things used to be. Frog, pot, you know how it goes.

I worry about WL next year, with 200 new students and adding 200 more every year — not sure why they have to make the school so much larger of enrollment is declining?? Why can’t they just keep the schools about the same size??

Because they built the seats at W-L because that’s where they had the capacity to build. (Converted old Syphax to classroom space.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

It absolutely does. Also switched last year. Kids are having a great year too. No huge discipline problems just your run of the mill MS issues. Not APS level MS issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

Completely agree. I have a SN kid whose mental health completely disintegrated after APS abandoned him in the spring of 2020 for "equity" (still don't know what that means). Even before the pandemic, we found that the reality did not match APS's reputation. In our last full year, we had a substitute for almost the whole year. She could not control the class and they had one kid who was increasingly violent, progressing to the point where he attacked another boy in the classroom. There were never any apparent consequences for him. We'll never go back.

[Anonymous]

My K and 3rd graders have had a great year.

Last year was disastrous for my then 2nd grader. The virtual learning offered by APS was absolutely terrible. (APS allowed virtual teaching to be decided school-by-school and teacher-by-teacher so don't drop in to tell me I'm wrong. What my kid received was absolutely awful.) By contrast, her third grade teachers have been amazing. Tons of structure to get kids back on track in a school setting. High expectations for work quality. Lots of differentiation and optional remediation to deal with the gaps. I'm sure they've done fewer special projects and fun activities this year to make time for the remedial work, but that's been okay with us. My daughter was starved for learning during virtual and has thrived with so much content. She may actually be disappointed next year when they aren't cramming two years of content into a single year.

Kindergarten seems to be going well too. My kids is clearly learning, happy and making friends. I hear a few inklings of behavior issues, but probably not that far outside the norm for Kindergarten. My kid is just so so so happy to be back with kids her age. You've never met a happier human.

[Anonymous]

I think the experience varies. We love our elementary (ATS) and our neighbors seem very happy with our neighborhood school, Tuckahoe. Only thing about Tuckahoe is that they have three kindergarten classes instead of four because enrollment is down. Class size seems bigger (still smaller than ATS) but my neighbors seem happy. With ATS is class size is huge and there are five kindergarten classes. Generally that would be a negative but school seems to be handling it well. We haven’t heard of any disciplinary issues and haven’t heard of our neighbors complaining of any either. Then again all our kids are in k-2nd grade so many it gets worse as they are older. I dunno.

[Anonymous]

The long-term plan for the fourth high school has been hoping-for-declining-enrollment for years. It's good news if it's actually happening.

[Anonymous]

You women are incredible. You've been complaining for years about bursting enrollment, and now you're whining about declining enrollment. There's just nothing anyone can do to keep you happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

The APS response to a deadly global pandemic was reasonable and similar to many other school districts. Kids went back in person after adults had vaccine.