Any Wakefield parents on here?

[Anonymous]

Back in '05, Yorktown and W-L fans joined the Wakefield fans as the Wakefield Basketball team made a run for the State Championship. That was inspiring.

[Anonymous]

I went to both Wakefield and Yorktown about 10 years ago (I'm sure some stuff has changed since then but not much). If your child can succeed academically at any school I would suggest Wakefield.
The only draw back was at Wakefield there seemed to be two options advanced or remedial there was less of the middle average student so my classes were either too hard or too easy. The students at Wakefield were much more accepting and diverse.
Yorktown on the other hand was like DCUM. Lots of concern over brands and what neighborhood you lived in (because you can't just live in north Arlington you also had to be in the right hood.). Plus the drug culture was 10x worse. At Wakefield the most anyone did was some drinking and pot. At Yorktown coke was big and so was perscription drug abuse. There were many more parents with big house who would travel and so there were more crazy parties. Plus I think Wakefield students had more to lose if they got caught. They are more depended on scholarships and merit to get into good schools were as Yorktown kids had money and legacy.
Some of this may have changed since I've been there and some of this may have been who choose to hangout with at each school. I am also not say that every student at Yorktown was a coke addict there was good and bad at both but this was more of a general vibe I got from both schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in '05, Yorktown and W-L fans joined the Wakefield fans as the Wakefield Basketball team made a run for the State Championship. That was inspiring.

PP here this happened right after I left it was pretty amazing stuff but a sad lose in the state semi finals! They even cancelled school for the afternoon so everyone could travel to Richmond to see the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to both Wakefield and Yorktown about 10 years ago (I'm sure some stuff has changed since then but not much). If your child can succeed academically at any school I would suggest Wakefield.
The only draw back was at Wakefield there seemed to be two options advanced or remedial there was less of the middle average student so my classes were either too hard or too easy. The students at Wakefield were much more accepting and diverse.
Yorktown on the other hand was like DCUM. Lots of concern over brands and what neighborhood you lived in (because you can't just live in north Arlington you also had to be in the right hood.). Plus the drug culture was 10x worse. At Wakefield the most anyone did was some drinking and pot. At Yorktown coke was big and so was perscription drug abuse. There were many more parents with big house who would travel and so there were more crazy parties. Plus I think Wakefield students had more to lose if they got caught. They are more depended on scholarships and merit to get into good schools were as Yorktown kids had money and legacy.
Some of this may have changed since I've been there and some of this may have been who choose to hangout with at each school. I am also not say that every student at Yorktown was a coke addict there was good and bad at both but this was more of a general vibe I got from both schools.

OP here, thank you for sharing. To be more clear, we are in Yorktown district. We looked into W&L, but because of overcrowding there is zero chance DC would get a transfer. I think Wakefield would be a better fit for DC's needs.

[Anonymous]

Did Wakefield regain its state accreditation? I know the school was not in good standing two years ago. It had too many dropouts to satisfy the minimum state requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did Wakefield regain its state accreditation? I know the school was not in good standing two years ago. It had too many dropouts to satisfy the minimum state requirements.

It has always been accredited. It was given some kind of warning (a provisional accreditation for one year) because it had a low on-time graduation rate. Wakefield has since remedied that problem.

[Anonymous]

To the OP: The three high schools hold an information night at W-L every fall. Be sure to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did Wakefield regain its state accreditation? I know the school was not in good standing two years ago. It had too many dropouts to satisfy the minimum state requirements.

It has always been accredited. It was given some kind of warning (a provisional accreditation for one year) because it had a low on-time graduation rate. Wakefield has since remedied that problem.

It hasn't been fully accredited for the last two school years in a row.

[Anonymous]

The important thing is that Wakefield is accredited. If it wasn't, students would not be eligible for federal financial aid.

The very high drop out rate at Wakefield was not due to Wakefield students dropping out. Rather, the majority of the drop outs attended one of the alternative programs like Arlington Mill. The students at the Alternative Programs are still technically students of their home school which they may never set foot in.

The other drop outs include those students that left school after turning 18 to help earn money to support their families.

The very high drop out rate that resulted in the provisional accreditation has little to do with the education received at Wakefield.

[Anonymous]

Wakefield will probably become more and more like W&L (see previous post about Barcroft/Arlington Ridge area) over the next five years. Those neighborhoods have a lot to offer (despite not being off a metro line) and will continue to attract middle class families. There's been a lot of construction in the Barcroft neighborhood especially (Four Mile Run).

But I say go for Wakefield if you feel that strongly about it, your DH could probably be swayed by the college argument (less competition than at W-L or certainly Yorktown). Probably a small effect at best, but anything is helpful in these times (and I am not one to get caught up in it, just suggest it's something to consider). One real effect I find at a school with this profile (having gone to one myself) is that for teams and activities you are often not competing for a spot against people who have had lifelong lessons, lots of money and endless resources to devote. So for one, there are often more opportunities to participate with students being actively recruited for many activities. And two, the requirements for participation (cost and parental commitment) are often more reasonably scaled. Personally in this area that's my kind of school. At my high school pretty much all activities were open participation with minimal fees, which was not true at some of the more "desirable" high schools in the same district. My sister placed into one of these schools to be with friends and my parents were shocked at the expense parents were expected to go to for "enrichment."

Overall I'd send my kid to any of the Arlington schools though, so I don't think it's much to get worked up over. Those would just be my considerations. W-L is great too. I know many people who loved Yorktown. HB is its own thing obviously, but everything loves it too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield will probably become more and more like W&L (see previous post about Barcroft/Arlington Ridge area) over the next five years. Those neighborhoods have a lot to offer (despite not being off a metro line) and will continue to attract middle class families. There's been a lot of construction in the Barcroft neighborhood especially (Four Mile Run).

But I say go for Wakefield if you feel that strongly about it, your DH could probably be swayed by the college argument (less competition than at W-L or certainly Yorktown). Probably a small effect at best, but anything is helpful in these times (and I am not one to get caught up in it, just suggest it's something to consider). One real effect I find at a school with this profile (having gone to one myself) is that for teams and activities you are often not competing for a spot against people who have had lifelong lessons, lots of money and endless resources to devote. So for one, there are often more opportunities to participate with students being actively recruited for many activities. And two, the requirements for participation (cost and parental commitment) are often more reasonably scaled. Personally in this area that's my kind of school. At my high school pretty much all activities were open participation with minimal fees, which was not true at some of the more "desirable" high schools in the same district. My sister placed into one of these schools to be with friends and my parents were shocked at the expense parents were expected to go to for "enrichment."

Overall I'd send my kid to any of the Arlington schools though, so I don't think it's much to get worked up over. Those would just be my considerations. W-L is great too. I know many people who loved Yorktown. HB is its own thing obviously, but everything loves it too.

Wakefield has long been the neglected step-sister of Arlington high schools, and it will take more than a new building and a few trips by Obama and Duncan there to change that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield will probably become more and more like W&L (see previous post about Barcroft/Arlington Ridge area) over the next five years. Those neighborhoods have a lot to offer (despite not being off a metro line) and will continue to attract middle class families. There's been a lot of construction in the Barcroft neighborhood especially (Four Mile Run).

Wakefield serves many extremely poor neighborhoods so even if all the wealthy Arlington Ridge kids go to Wakefield in five years, the school will still lag behind the other Arlington high schools. It will take another generation and roughly 5-10 years of post-streetcar Columbia Pike gentrification with a net loss in subsidized housing for the student body at Wakefield to significantly change. No South Arlington elementary school has experienced the explosive growth of the North Arlington schools due to affluent homebuyers with lots of kids except maybe Oakridge. That may change with the streetcar but that's years from now.

[Anonymous]

If I were you DC, I would be unhappy about not going to my neighborhood school, especially if DC has friends from current neighborhood school. None if your neighbors will be from Wakefield. If you lived in district there and were thinking of applying for IB so you could go W-L, I would say that Wakefield would be fine, but you are stretching here! Get your DC involved in activities that offer more exposure to diversity or in community-oriented volunteer work. Unless you are going to move, you are way overcomplicating things!

[Anonymous]

we're zoned to Wakefield. maybe we could switch places?

i plan to move to GMH zone in FC if Wakefield does not improve

[Anonymous]

FWIW, on the whole, white kids at Wakefield pass the SOLs at a slightly higher rate than white kids at Yorktown. Not sure why that is, but it's true. It's just that Wakefield's scores across all groups are lower b/c they have more FARMS and ESOL kids... so the average passing rate goes down on those groups. But, it's not the case that Wakefield fails to teach kids... b/c white kids are passing at very high rates (in comparison to kids across the state of Va.).