City of Alexandria - Mt. Vernon Elem School - likely to return to traditional calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents who think their child will be bilingual coming out of the program are also sadly mistaken, there is (or was not) any real language instructions, kids were just spoken to in Spanish, plus that was never the goal. The school had an unfortunate cycle of two not so great principals but the new one, Peter Balas is great, he just has a long road ahead of him. Teachers were sort of overwhelmed in DCs last year there, between curriculum changes, SFA and principal switches, it was getting tiring for them. That said, some of the most dedicated teachers I know are at that school. It has so much potential to be an amazing school, a very involved community of parents, a supportive neighborhood, dedicated teachers, and a super enthusiastic principal - it just has to get there .

I'm not surprised that the non-Latino children aren't receiving foreign language instruction at MVCS in the dual language program. The whole point of dual language was to boost crappy math SOLs from the majority 70% Spanish-speaking demographic at MVCS. Clearly that is failing. If ACPS gave two sh*ts about non-latino children learning Spanish, they would have FLES programs throughout the district. But there is not a single elementary that teaches any of FLES. It's either immersion/dual language or nothing. I think that is proof enough that MVCS caters to the bottom of the SOLs instead of the kids in the middle. And test scores are STILL dropping despite these efforts.

Take a lesson from Arlington or FFX county! Even S. Arlington publics with similar ESL demographics are kicking Alexandria's ass. Something isn't working and MVCS is a good example!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last year when I was standing in front of the firehouse waiting to vote, someone approached me to encourage me to vote for a particular candidate for school board. She went on and on about all the great things at Lyles Crouch. Then I said, well, I am zoned for Jefferson-Houston, what will this person do for my kid? All I got back was a blank stare.

For whomever keeps posting that it is possible to transfer into L-C, give it up. None of us can plan for our children's future educational needs, our mortgages, and our commutes based on a wing and a prayer.

In case you can't tell, I am really disgusted with ACPS.

Give it up that Lyles-Crouh is a good school and somehow your child would get a better education. The school is just mediocre with problems and problem students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who think their child will be bilingual coming out of the program are also sadly mistaken, there is (or was not) any real language instructions, kids were just spoken to in Spanish, plus that was never the goal. The school had an unfortunate cycle of two not so great principals but the new one, Peter Balas is great, he just has a long road ahead of him. Teachers were sort of overwhelmed in DCs last year there, between curriculum changes, SFA and principal switches, it was getting tiring for them. That said, some of the most dedicated teachers I know are at that school. It has so much potential to be an amazing school, a very involved community of parents, a supportive neighborhood, dedicated teachers, and a super enthusiastic principal - it just has to get there .

I'm not surprised that the non-Latino children aren't receiving foreign language instruction at MVCS in the dual language program. The whole point of dual language was to boost crappy math SOLs from the majority 70% Spanish-speaking demographic at MVCS. Clearly that is failing. If ACPS gave two sh*ts about non-latino children learning Spanish, they would have FLES programs throughout the district. But there is not a single elementary that teaches any of FLES. It's either immersion/dual language or nothing. I think that is proof enough that MVCS caters to the bottom of the SOLs instead of the kids in the middle. And test scores are STILL dropping despite these efforts.

Take a lesson from Arlington or FFX county! Even S. Arlington publics with similar ESL demographics are kicking Alexandria's ass. Something isn't working and MVCS is a good example!

Jefferson-Houston has an FLES program - Spanish instruction starts in K. I think it's required by the IB program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this the reasoning for the year-round calendar at other schools too? I ask because we're zoned for Samuel Tucker, which also has year-round school.

Hi there. Tucker community, both staff and families, want to keep year round calendar and intersession. Mt. Vernon has never had the same level of enthusiasm and buy-in for this program as Tucker. Mt. Vernon has a revolving door of intersession coordinators, making it challenging to develop and maintain a strong program. In addition, Mt. Vernon has:
IB
Dual Language
Success for All
and year round calendar
I feel deeply sorry for the staff at that school, because that is way too many programs to be running at the same time. To my knowledge, no other school in ACPS has that much on their plate. If the Mt. Vernon community wants to pair down and focus on one program, I think that makes sense.

It would be great if Tucker's program could be recognized on it's own merits, not lumped in with Mt. Vernon, where for all the reasons I've listed above, it's never been as successful.
Tucker also has high ELL and and even higher FARMS rate than Mt. Vernon, yet we manged to pass our SOLs, be fully accredited, and passed all of the benchmarks for reducing achievement gaps.
I think different schools can use different programs to achieve success. At Tucker they've found a way to use the year round calendar and intersession to help achieve that success. I hope the School Board will allow Tucker to keep it, and not just decided to eliminate across the division just because Mt. Vernon doesn't want it anymore.

To this PP zoned for Tucker...
We are at the middle school (Hammond) now, but we absolutely loved our time and Tucker. I think you will be very happy with the school! Take a tour if you haven't already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year when I was standing in front of the firehouse waiting to vote, someone approached me to encourage me to vote for a particular candidate for school board. She went on and on about all the great things at Lyles Crouch. Then I said, well, I am zoned for Jefferson-Houston, what will this person do for my kid? All I got back was a blank stare.

For whomever keeps posting that it is possible to transfer into L-C, give it up. None of us can plan for our children's future educational needs, our mortgages, and our commutes based on a wing and a prayer.

In case you can't tell, I am really disgusted with ACPS.

Give it up that Lyles-Crouh is a good school and somehow your child would get a better education. The school is just mediocre with problems and problem students.

Care to elaborate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the reasoning for the year-round calendar at other schools too? I ask because we're zoned for Samuel Tucker, which also has year-round school.

Hi there. Tucker community, both staff and families, want to keep year round calendar and intersession. Mt. Vernon has never had the same level of enthusiasm and buy-in for this program as Tucker. Mt. Vernon has a revolving door of intersession coordinators, making it challenging to develop and maintain a strong program. In addition, Mt. Vernon has:
IB
Dual Language
Success for All
and year round calendar
I feel deeply sorry for the staff at that school, because that is way too many programs to be running at the same time. To my knowledge, no other school in ACPS has that much on their plate. If the Mt. Vernon community wants to pair down and focus on one program, I think that makes sense.

It would be great if Tucker's program could be recognized on it's own merits, not lumped in with Mt. Vernon, where for all the reasons I've listed above, it's never been as successful.
Tucker also has high ELL and and even higher FARMS rate than Mt. Vernon, yet we manged to pass our SOLs, be fully accredited, and passed all of the benchmarks for reducing achievement gaps.
I think different schools can use different programs to achieve success. At Tucker they've found a way to use the year round calendar and intersession to help achieve that success. I hope the School Board will allow Tucker to keep it, and not just decided to eliminate across the division just because Mt. Vernon doesn't want it anymore.

To this PP zoned for Tucker...
We are at the middle school (Hammond) now, but we absolutely loved our time and Tucker. I think you will be very happy with the school! Take a tour if you haven't already.

Thank you for your input on Tucker! (I'm the poster who asked about it.) I've read so many threads on Alexandria schools, but Tucker is rarely mentioned. It's nice to see that when it is mentioned, there is good feedback. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Give it up that Lyles-Crouh is a good school and somehow your child would get a better education. The school is just mediocre with problems and problem students.

Care to elaborate?

Probably not - this poster comes on occasionally blasts Lyles Crouch and leaves. If its the same one, but its almost an exact posting of a recent post so I would assume it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the reasoning for the year-round calendar at other schools too? I ask because we're zoned for Samuel Tucker, which also has year-round school.

Hi there. Tucker community, both staff and families, want to keep year round calendar and intersession. Mt. Vernon has never had the same level of enthusiasm and buy-in for this program as Tucker. Mt. Vernon has a revolving door of intersession coordinators, making it challenging to develop and maintain a strong program. In addition, Mt. Vernon has:
IB
Dual Language
Success for All
and year round calendar
I feel deeply sorry for the staff at that school, because that is way too many programs to be running at the same time. To my knowledge, no other school in ACPS has that much on their plate. If the Mt. Vernon community wants to pair down and focus on one program, I think that makes sense.

It would be great if Tucker's program could be recognized on it's own merits, not lumped in with Mt. Vernon, where for all the reasons I've listed above, it's never been as successful.
Tucker also has high ELL and and even higher FARMS rate than Mt. Vernon, yet we manged to pass our SOLs, be fully accredited, and passed all of the benchmarks for reducing achievement gaps.
I think different schools can use different programs to achieve success. At Tucker they've found a way to use the year round calendar and intersession to help achieve that success. I hope the School Board will allow Tucker to keep it, and not just decided to eliminate across the division just because Mt. Vernon doesn't want it anymore.

To this PP zoned for Tucker...
We are at the middle school (Hammond) now, but we absolutely loved our time and Tucker. I think you will be very happy with the school! Take a tour if you haven't already.

As a MVCS parent, I agree that it is too bad Tucker gets lumped in with MVCS when talking MSC - the programs are different. Well, I should say it is their program, not the smorgasbord of programs MVCS throws on the wall to see if it sticks. I think it just goes back to the principals and their commitment to it, we had one 6 years ago that used MVCS as a resume builder because he wanted to establish an IB program so he pushed focus on that. IB is no longer part of the plan for MVCS curriculum. We haven't been there in a couple years though so it could be back in the mix. Personally, I think MSC is the way to go with school schedules everywhere, I LOVED it. Outside of the shock when school starts in August, having the breaks in October and November and a longer break over the Winter Holidays is awesome. I think the kids need those breaks instead of the long slog to Summer, but it is hard to manage if the entire school district is not on that schedule when you have other children.

[Anonymous]

A school board member should send his children to his neighborhood school. Anything else is hypocritical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A school board member should send his children to his neighborhood school. Anything else is hypocritical.

Especially when other parents have been told -- explicitly -- that one school is off-limits except to "special cases" and staff children. And yes I'm mad about it. It's the kind of preference you would expect in DC government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year when I was standing in front of the firehouse waiting to vote, someone approached me to encourage me to vote for a particular candidate for school board. She went on and on about all the great things at Lyles Crouch. Then I said, well, I am zoned for Jefferson-Houston, what will this person do for my kid? All I got back was a blank stare.

For whomever keeps posting that it is possible to transfer into L-C, give it up. None of us can plan for our children's future educational needs, our mortgages, and our commutes based on a wing and a prayer.

In case you can't tell, I am really disgusted with ACPS.

Give it up that Lyles-Crouh is a good school and somehow your child would get a better education. The school is just mediocre with problems and problem students.

Mediocre is better than absolutely awful, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A school board member should send his children to his neighborhood school. Anything else is hypocritical.

Especially when other parents have been told -- explicitly -- that one school is off-limits except to "special cases" and staff children. And yes I'm mad about it. It's the kind of preference you would expect in DC government.

I am curious - who told you this in the ACPS system?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A school board member should send his children to his neighborhood school. Anything else is hypocritical.

Especially when other parents have been told -- explicitly -- that one school is off-limits except to "special cases" and staff children. And yes I'm mad about it. It's the kind of preference you would expect in DC government.

Do we have to talk about this on every ACPS thread? I suggest you start a new thread specifically about the chairwoman of the School Board (and the fact that she transferred her kids to Lyles-Crouch.) But it is getting really tiresome to read the same complaints in every single ACPS thread.

[Anonymous]

We are zoned for MVCS and are avoiding it next Fall. Too much is up in the air re: curriculum. We have heard too many mixed reviews from local families re: learning environment, dual language, culture clash, and resources allocation. Our DC has had an incredible and rigorous pre-K experience at a full-day preschool (he is already reading and writing) and we fear he will be discouraged and bored by what we saw at MVCS. We found the environment chaotic and almost bifurcated. And he wouldn't be eligible for TAG or any kind of differentiation for years or months into the school year. As much as it pains us to pay for private, that's what we will do until we can either move or DS is old enough to test into TAG.

[Anonymous]

I just checked the state-wide school rankings for our local publics in ACPS and Mount Vernon dropped significantly from 969/1050 (one star rank) in the state to 1012/1050 (zero stars).

How can a school that's focused SO much on bringing up test scores and the bottom-scoring demographic perform so poorly? SOmething is not working somewhere. That's disgraceful!

Jefferson Houston was 1043/1050 in the state (up a few notches, but still zero stars).

Maury, by contrast jumped up to 159/1050 in the state (four stars... up from 300-something). Clearly the administration at Maury is something right.

There is maybe a mile or two between MVCS and Maury. Why the huge gap?

With test scores like that, there is NO way I will be sending my children to MVCS and we LOVE Del Ray and our neighborhood. That's truly terrible!!!!