Western High School Planning Principal Dave Jagels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

Same. The younger one is moving to Western. The older one is a junior and is stuck at Westfield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

You can thank Stu Gibson and Kathy Smith for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

You can thank Stu Gibson and Kathy Smith for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

You can thank Stu Gibson and Kathy Smith for that.

Honestly, the principal and admin are not great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

You can thank Stu Gibson and Kathy Smith for that.

That’s absurd. If moving part of Floris to South Lakes destroyed Westfield it can’t have been that great before.

The bigger issue is that a lot of the housing built in the Westfield district didn’t age very well and people who previously considered Westfield just moved to Ashburn and South Riding instead.

[Anonymous]

Why do people say a given high school is great or not? For example, Chantilly gets a lot of accolades vs Westfield or Centreville - it is that the teachers are better or clubs are better or electives...I'm not sure what people are comparing. Chantilly for example is a little dark and crowded - that is where my kid is zoned for unless we opt into Western, but I do hesitate to try a new school when people seem to think Chantilly and Oakton were the lucky draws for base school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people say a given high school is great or not? For example, Chantilly gets a lot of accolades vs Westfield or Centreville - it is that the teachers are better or clubs are better or electives...I'm not sure what people are comparing. Chantilly for example is a little dark and crowded - that is where my kid is zoned for unless we opt into Western, but I do hesitate to try a new school when people seem to think Chantilly and Oakton were the lucky draws for base school.

I am not familiar with Centreville.
However, Chantilly is popular, IMHO, because it is truly a community school. No student lives more than 10 minutes away from the school and their friends from school live close to them.

Westfield is split into two sections--those who will likely attend Western do not live close to any other neighborhoods in the Westfield community. If you look at the boundary map--it looks contiguous. But, those kids are separated from the rest of Westfield which is well on the other side of 50 by a couple of miles. So, the community feel is more difficult. The ones slated to go from Chantilly to Westfield, however, live on the same side of 50 as Westfield and are much, much closer to Westfield than those expected to go to Western.
I think Westfield will be more popular once those kids are removed because they will not be remote from the other students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

You can thank Stu Gibson and Kathy Smith for that.

That’s absurd. If moving part of Floris to South Lakes destroyed Westfield it can’t have been that great before.

The bigger issue is that a lot of the housing built in the Westfield district didn’t age very well and people who previously considered Westfield just moved to Ashburn and South Riding instead.

Hmmm...look what happened to South Lakes when those students got moved there. That wasn't the only thing that had a negative impact on Westfield but it started the area on a course that hasn't been reversed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people say a given high school is great or not? For example, Chantilly gets a lot of accolades vs Westfield or Centreville - it is that the teachers are better or clubs are better or electives...I'm not sure what people are comparing. Chantilly for example is a little dark and crowded - that is where my kid is zoned for unless we opt into Western, but I do hesitate to try a new school when people seem to think Chantilly and Oakton were the lucky draws for base school.

Everyone I know at Chantilly is happy, no one wants to move even though the school is crowded. None of my Chantilly friends want their kids to move. I think the academics are strong, the activities are good, and it has a strong sense of community. People are not happy with the lack of windows and the temperature control is apparently a mess and it is crowded but that is not enough to make people want to leave.

Oakton is strong academically and their academic clubs have a great reputation. Apparently some parents are enamored with the sports althugh others say that Oakton teams are not great.

I know some SLHS folks want to move because of IB. There is a strong sense of community. I know people who love the theatre program and the sports programs have been doing well the last bunch of years. The academics are solid but IB is not popular with many people. Around 100 or more students pupil place out to schools other than TJ each year, which is high. All those kids are moving to AP schools. 177 students pupil placed out of SLHS this year, 33 were at TJ so 144 went to AP schools.

I don’t know why people want to leave Westfield, it sounds like it is less geographically tied together than Chantilly and not strong enough academically to make parents not care about the longer bus ride. Oakton families are split with some wanting a shorter commute.

I don’t know anyone at Centerville so I don’t know how people feel about the school.

I have not seen many people from Chantilly, Westfiled or Centerville active in the discussion about Western. If they have been, they have not identified as being from those school. It feels like the discussion has been heavy on SLHS and Oakton HS families.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that insight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield was great those first few years.

My kids go there and it is still great.

It may not be as robust as Chantilly for example, but they still are great in their own way!

My kids go to Westfield and its pretty meh.

You can thank Stu Gibson and Kathy Smith for that.

That’s absurd. If moving part of Floris to South Lakes destroyed Westfield it can’t have been that great before.

The bigger issue is that a lot of the housing built in the Westfield district didn’t age very well and people who previously considered Westfield just moved to Ashburn and South Riding instead.

Hmmm...look what happened to South Lakes when those students got moved there. That wasn't the only thing that had a negative impact on Westfield but it started the area on a course that hasn't been reversed.

South Lakes picked up kids from
Oakton and Madison, too, and there was turnover in the areas already assigned to SLHS. It wasn’t like every change there or at Westfield was a result of moving some Westfield kids to South Lakes.

The impact of people having better and/or less expensive housing options in Loudoun impacted Westfield more than the boundary change, but it’s easier to blame Gibson and Smith almost 20 years later than to acknowledge there were other forces at work. If you want to blame anyone, you should blame the Loudoun officials who facilitated growth in Ashburn and South Riding and gave people more residential options.

Of course, a lot more Westfield kids now stand to move to Western than moved to South Lakes in 2008. Are you going to try and halt that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people say a given high school is great or not? For example, Chantilly gets a lot of accolades vs Westfield or Centreville - it is that the teachers are better or clubs are better or electives...I'm not sure what people are comparing. Chantilly for example is a little dark and crowded - that is where my kid is zoned for unless we opt into Western, but I do hesitate to try a new school when people seem to think Chantilly and Oakton were the lucky draws for base school.

Everyone I know at Chantilly is happy, no one wants to move even though the school is crowded. None of my Chantilly friends want their kids to move. I think the academics are strong, the activities are good, and it has a strong sense of community. People are not happy with the lack of windows and the temperature control is apparently a mess and it is crowded but that is not enough to make people want to leave.

Oakton is strong academically and their academic clubs have a great reputation. Apparently some parents are enamored with the sports althugh others say that Oakton teams are not great.

I know some SLHS folks want to move because of IB. There is a strong sense of community. I know people who love the theatre program and the sports programs have been doing well the last bunch of years. The academics are solid but IB is not popular with many people. Around 100 or more students pupil place out to schools other than TJ each year, which is high. All those kids are moving to AP schools. 177 students pupil placed out of SLHS this year, 33 were at TJ so 144 went to AP schools.

I don’t know why people want to leave Westfield, it sounds like it is less geographically tied together than Chantilly and not strong enough academically to make parents not care about the longer bus ride. Oakton families are split with some wanting a shorter commute.

I don’t know anyone at Centerville so I don’t know how people feel about the school.

I have not seen many people from Chantilly, Westfiled or Centerville active in the discussion about Western. If they have been, they have not identified as being from those school. It feels like the discussion has been heavy on SLHS and Oakton HS families.

I don’t think they’ve disclosed how many kids have transferred out of South Lakes or any other high school this year. You may be referring to last year, and not all the transfers were pupil placements.

[Anonymous]

You can only use the numbers that they provide on their website. SLHS has had 150-175 kids transferring out each year since I have been looking at the numbers, about 5 years. Herndon has a higher number. Langley, Chantilly, Oakton, Centerville, and Westfield have a lot fewer. I would guess that most of those are for TJ with a smattering of language moves or IB moves. Herndon sends a large number to SLHS for either Japanese or IB, I have been told that those tend to be AAP kids who attended Hughes and want to move with friends.

Call it what you will but IB is not a popular program. Parents who are not expecting their kids to go to college or who are new to the college experience probably don’t have a strong opinion between AP and IB. Parents whose kids are going to college but are less worried about top 100 or higher for their kid are less worried about IB or AP because their kids are not looking at those classes. At SLHS that leaves a smaller cohort. The group that has been writing and asking for AP for ages know that they are not going to get anywhere simply pupil place to TJ, Herndon, Langley, or Oakton. Their departure is not noticed as much because of the Herndon transfers into SLHS.

I know that some people think IB is great but a lot of people don’t and they simply leave for private or transfer to other schools. The numbers don’t lie.

[Anonymous]

He was at the region level at one point. Did he get demoted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He was at the region level at one point. Did he get demoted?

It takes more smarts to open a new school than to be some random Gatehouse paper pusher.