South arlington elementary schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The overcrowding in Arlington is everywhere -- but keep in mind that Arlington class sizes are the lowest in the NoVA area so that what is overcrowded here might be technically okay in Fairfax.

Do you have a neighborhood list-serve? I'd reach out to people that way just to get some contacts. You could also contact the PTA, but they're likely to point you to happy families only.

Nice jab, but over crowding in Fairfax County is above 20 students per class which is the same as most of arlington.

Actually, Arlington has smaller classroom sizes than Fairfax County. Apples to Apples. Look at the class sizes at Chesterbrook, Kent Gardens and Haycock and compare them to Nottingham, Jamestown and Tuckahoe. I live in Chesterbrook's district and the largest classroom my children had was 34 and the smallest was 25. Friends in Arlington have it spread between 20-25. That is a big difference. I think 20-25 is the sweet spot- not tool large and not too small.

[Anonymous]

bump. I am also very interested in any experiences at Randolph.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:bump. I am also very interested in any experiences at Randolph.

We lived in Douglas Park over a decade ago and absolutely loved it. We moved for job commute reasons, but I'm not sure what we would have done...a lot of our friends at the time either moved or did private school. I do recall there was a parents' group started soon after we left--Friends of Randolph Elementary or something like that. It was for parents in just your situation. If it's still around, it's been in existence long enough for kids to have moved through all the grades. You might want to ask around.

I really miss that neighborhood!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am in Alexandria City and our schools have the same problems as South Arlington schools. Looking at the test scores my thoughts on Randolph would be:

The scores are very low indicating that the general school population is going to need remediation and I see they are Title I. The focus will be on "closing the achievement gap" the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the very basics and there needs to be lots of repetition on the basics. They might offer some differentiation but beware that often comes in the form of worksheets handed to the child to work on.

The IB program can't really be effective at this time because they have too many students not getting the basics with the standard curriculum.

Expect that a lot of time and attention in K will be focused on the kids learning school expectations and proper behavior. This focus continues all throughout.

Look at the extra programs offered by the school. Many times these "extras" don't really benefit your child. Mentoring programs and positive behavior programs and school is important, go to college! programs because your child is already getting those messages at home. The time the school invests in those programs means they can't invest in enrichment programs.

You will always find some enthusiastic parent supporters in your same situation at the school. They will tell you they love the school, it's great, blah, blah, but see if you get them to give you any real specifics on why they love it. What about the curriculum do they love? How have they seen it benefit their own child? What do they love about the teacher? What has she done specifically that has made an impact? What was the impact? etc.///

This is the honest and non-polemical analysis that people seem to ignore when claiming that sending their upper-income kids to majority low-income schools has no drawbacks. Rightly so, majority low income schools, even high quality ones like those in South Arlington, need to prioritize the needs of their majority demographic; many posters here fail to acknowledge that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in Alexandria City and our schools have the same problems as South Arlington schools. Looking at the test scores my thoughts on Randolph would be:

The scores are very low indicating that the general school population is going to need remediation and I see they are Title I. The focus will be on "closing the achievement gap" the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the very basics and there needs to be lots of repetition on the basics. They might offer some differentiation but beware that often comes in the form of worksheets handed to the child to work on.

The IB program can't really be effective at this time because they have too many students not getting the basics with the standard curriculum.

Expect that a lot of time and attention in K will be focused on the kids learning school expectations and proper behavior. This focus continues all throughout.

Look at the extra programs offered by the school. Many times these "extras" don't really benefit your child. Mentoring programs and positive behavior programs and school is important, go to college! programs because your child is already getting those messages at home. The time the school invests in those programs means they can't invest in enrichment programs.

You will always find some enthusiastic parent supporters in your same situation at the school. They will tell you they love the school, it's great, blah, blah, but see if you get them to give you any real specifics on why they love it. What about the curriculum do they love? How have they seen it benefit their own child? What do they love about the teacher? What has she done specifically that has made an impact? What was the impact? etc.///

This is the honest and non-polemical analysis that people seem to ignore when claiming that sending their upper-income kids to majority low-income schools has no drawbacks. Rightly so, majority low income schools, even high quality ones like those in South Arlington, need to prioritize the needs of their majority demographic; many posters here fail to acknowledge that.

Which is a great argument for busing or other strategies to balance all schools better, so that a greater variety of opportunities are available to all kids regardless of the resources of the parents at a particular school. Arlington elementary students (across the county) are about 50% white, 25% hispanic, 10% black, and 10% asian. But there are individual schools that are 40% black, 60% hispanic, and 85% white. Same thing with FARMS--across the system it's about a third of students, but there are schools where only 2% of kids are on free lunch and schools where 70-80% are. Arlington is geographically so small--it could use busing and choice schools to ensure that no children are either ghettoized or disproportionately advantaged compared to other kids in the same school system who live two or three miles away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in Alexandria City and our schools have the same problems as South Arlington schools. Looking at the test scores my thoughts on Randolph would be:

The scores are very low indicating that the general school population is going to need remediation and I see they are Title I. The focus will be on "closing the achievement gap" the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the very basics and there needs to be lots of repetition on the basics. They might offer some differentiation but beware that often comes in the form of worksheets handed to the child to work on.

The IB program can't really be effective at this time because they have too many students not getting the basics with the standard curriculum.

Expect that a lot of time and attention in K will be focused on the kids learning school expectations and proper behavior. This focus continues all throughout.

Look at the extra programs offered by the school. Many times these "extras" don't really benefit your child. Mentoring programs and positive behavior programs and school is important, go to college! programs because your child is already getting those messages at home. The time the school invests in those programs means they can't invest in enrichment programs.

You will always find some enthusiastic parent supporters in your same situation at the school. They will tell you they love the school, it's great, blah, blah, but see if you get them to give you any real specifics on why they love it. What about the curriculum do they love? How have they seen it benefit their own child? What do they love about the teacher? What has she done specifically that has made an impact? What was the impact? etc.///

This is the honest and non-polemical analysis that people seem to ignore when claiming that sending their upper-income kids to majority low-income schools has no drawbacks. Rightly so, majority low income schools, even high quality ones like those in South Arlington, need to prioritize the needs of their majority demographic; many posters here fail to acknowledge that.

Which is a great argument for busing or other strategies to balance all schools better, so that a greater variety of opportunities are available to all kids regardless of the resources of the parents at a particular school. Arlington elementary students (across the county) are about 50% white, 25% hispanic, 10% black, and 10% asian. But there are individual schools that are 40% black, 60% hispanic, and 85% white. Same thing with FARMS--across the system it's about a third of students, but there are schools where only 2% of kids are on free lunch and schools where 70-80% are. Arlington is geographically so small--it could use busing and choice schools to ensure that no children are either ghettoized or disproportionately advantaged compared to other kids in the same school system who live two or three miles away.

That would just drive higher-income families out of North Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in Alexandria City and our schools have the same problems as South Arlington schools. Looking at the test scores my thoughts on Randolph would be:

The scores are very low indicating that the general school population is going to need remediation and I see they are Title I. The focus will be on "closing the achievement gap" the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the very basics and there needs to be lots of repetition on the basics. They might offer some differentiation but beware that often comes in the form of worksheets handed to the child to work on.

The IB program can't really be effective at this time because they have too many students not getting the basics with the standard curriculum.

Expect that a lot of time and attention in K will be focused on the kids learning school expectations and proper behavior. This focus continues all throughout.

Look at the extra programs offered by the school. Many times these "extras" don't really benefit your child. Mentoring programs and positive behavior programs and school is important, go to college! programs because your child is already getting those messages at home. The time the school invests in those programs means they can't invest in enrichment programs.

You will always find some enthusiastic parent supporters in your same situation at the school. They will tell you they love the school, it's great, blah, blah, but see if you get them to give you any real specifics on why they love it. What about the curriculum do they love? How have they seen it benefit their own child? What do they love about the teacher? What has she done specifically that has made an impact? What was the impact? etc.///

This is the honest and non-polemical analysis that people seem to ignore when claiming that sending their upper-income kids to majority low-income schools has no drawbacks. Rightly so, majority low income schools, even high quality ones like those in South Arlington, need to prioritize the needs of their majority demographic; many posters here fail to acknowledge that.

Which is a great argument for busing or other strategies to balance all schools better, so that a greater variety of opportunities are available to all kids regardless of the resources of the parents at a particular school. Arlington elementary students (across the county) are about 50% white, 25% hispanic, 10% black, and 10% asian. But there are individual schools that are 40% black, 60% hispanic, and 85% white. Same thing with FARMS--across the system it's about a third of students, but there are schools where only 2% of kids are on free lunch and schools where 70-80% are. Arlington is geographically so small--it could use busing and choice schools to ensure that no children are either ghettoized or disproportionately advantaged compared to other kids in the same school system who live two or three miles away.

Brilliant point- the APS system as a whole would be vastly improved by let's say having all schools with a < 1/3 FARMS percentage. It makes no sense in a county so geographically small to have a FARMS range from 2% to 80% when the overall FARMS is 1/3. A 1/3 FARMS rate would allow more equitable attention across all demographic groups and all schools. Property taxes are fungible and in a common pot; there is no reason to have such divergence in school make-up.

The quality of teachers and facilities across APS schools is certainly consistent; school differences are likely almost entirely attributable to demographic challenges. APS should heed attention and fix them. A 20% FARMS rate in a few of the north north Arlington schools likely will scare only a very few way who would be welcome to leave for private school and relieve some of the overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in Alexandria City and our schools have the same problems as South Arlington schools. Looking at the test scores my thoughts on Randolph would be:

The scores are very low indicating that the general school population is going to need remediation and I see they are Title I. The focus will be on "closing the achievement gap" the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the very basics and there needs to be lots of repetition on the basics. They might offer some differentiation but beware that often comes in the form of worksheets handed to the child to work on.

The IB program can't really be effective at this time because they have too many students not getting the basics with the standard curriculum.

Expect that a lot of time and attention in K will be focused on the kids learning school expectations and proper behavior. This focus continues all throughout.

Look at the extra programs offered by the school. Many times these "extras" don't really benefit your child. Mentoring programs and positive behavior programs and school is important, go to college! programs because your child is already getting those messages at home. The time the school invests in those programs means they can't invest in enrichment programs.

You will always find some enthusiastic parent supporters in your same situation at the school. They will tell you they love the school, it's great, blah, blah, but see if you get them to give you any real specifics on why they love it. What about the curriculum do they love? How have they seen it benefit their own child? What do they love about the teacher? What has she done specifically that has made an impact? What was the impact? etc.///

This is the honest and non-polemical analysis that people seem to ignore when claiming that sending their upper-income kids to majority low-income schools has no drawbacks. Rightly so, majority low income schools, even high quality ones like those in South Arlington, need to prioritize the needs of their majority demographic; many posters here fail to acknowledge that.

Which is a great argument for busing or other strategies to balance all schools better, so that a greater variety of opportunities are available to all kids regardless of the resources of the parents at a particular school. Arlington elementary students (across the county) are about 50% white, 25% hispanic, 10% black, and 10% asian. But there are individual schools that are 40% black, 60% hispanic, and 85% white. Same thing with FARMS--across the system it's about a third of students, but there are schools where only 2% of kids are on free lunch and schools where 70-80% are. Arlington is geographically so small--it could use busing and choice schools to ensure that no children are either ghettoized or disproportionately advantaged compared to other kids in the same school system who live two or three miles away.

Brilliant point- the APS system as a whole would be vastly improved by let's say having all schools with a < 1/3 FARMS percentage. It makes no sense in a county so geographically small to have a FARMS range from 2% to 80% when the overall FARMS is 1/3. A 1/3 FARMS rate would allow more equitable attention across all demographic groups and all schools. Property taxes are fungible and in a common pot; there is no reason to have such divergence in school make-up.

The quality of teachers and facilities across APS schools is certainly consistent; school differences are likely almost entirely attributable to demographic challenges. APS should heed attention and fix them. A 20% FARMS rate in a few of the north north Arlington schools likely will scare only a very few way who would be welcome to leave for private school and relieve some of the overcrowding.

I have never seen any indication that APS would consider such a system or that the North Arlington parents who control the Arlington government and public schools would support it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in Alexandria City and our schools have the same problems as South Arlington schools. Looking at the test scores my thoughts on Randolph would be:

The scores are very low indicating that the general school population is going to need remediation and I see they are Title I. The focus will be on "closing the achievement gap" the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the very basics and there needs to be lots of repetition on the basics. They might offer some differentiation but beware that often comes in the form of worksheets handed to the child to work on.

The IB program can't really be effective at this time because they have too many students not getting the basics with the standard curriculum.

Expect that a lot of time and attention in K will be focused on the kids learning school expectations and proper behavior. This focus continues all throughout.

Look at the extra programs offered by the school. Many times these "extras" don't really benefit your child. Mentoring programs and positive behavior programs and school is important, go to college! programs because your child is already getting those messages at home. The time the school invests in those programs means they can't invest in enrichment programs.

You will always find some enthusiastic parent supporters in your same situation at the school. They will tell you they love the school, it's great, blah, blah, but see if you get them to give you any real specifics on why they love it. What about the curriculum do they love? How have they seen it benefit their own child? What do they love about the teacher? What has she done specifically that has made an impact? What was the impact? etc.///

This is the honest and non-polemical analysis that people seem to ignore when claiming that sending their upper-income kids to majority low-income schools has no drawbacks. Rightly so, majority low income schools, even high quality ones like those in South Arlington, need to prioritize the needs of their majority demographic; many posters here fail to acknowledge that.

This is really interesting to me. My children go to Title I schools. We could afford to move to a better school district like McLean or North Arlington (where we moved from) but we love our neighborhood and the tight-knit community and think having them grow-up here outweighs the benefit of moving. We are planning on sending them to private middle school (we'd most likely do this wherever we lived--I hated middle school) and then back to public for high school. My children are doing very well in school and there are MANY extra-curricular activities (one of the schools is a magnet). I also like that they are going to a very diverse school but I have wondered how their education might be different if they weren't at a Title I school. I do feel like some of my kids could be challenged more than they are and I wish my daughter (who is a good student but works hard at it) had more help with writing. I sometimes do wonder if they don't get enough attention because the school needs to work on trying to "close the achievement gap." But I don't know how I would know that they would be better off in a different elementary school. How do I compare what-ifs? They are doing well and meeting all the FCPS standards of learning. I'm honestly not sure...

(I can give very specific examples of why I like my kids FCPS Title I schools, but since the question is about them specifically, I won't hijack the thread.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I can give very specific examples of why I like my kids FCPS Title I schools, but since the question is about them specifically, I won't hijack the thread.)

Oops, I meant to say, "since the question isn't about FCPS schools, I won't hijack the thread."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I have never seen any indication that APS would consider such a system or that the North Arlington parents who control the Arlington government and public schools would support it.

Yep. Good luck getting the Arlington Democrats, self-styled progressive egalitarians, to sign onto this plan.

[Anonymous]

I am very interested in the pp specific examples about good things about a title I school in FCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am very interested in the pp specific examples about good things about a title I school in FCPS

I'm the PP. I'm hesitant to do this because I feel like I always get flamed, but ....

What do I love about the curriculum? For my daughter's school (Baileys), I love that it is a Kennedy Center CETA school. I love that she is learning actively through creative movement, drama/story-telling, and fine art. I love that she has a science lab and an outdoor garden. I love that they take field trips to the Portrait Gallery to "read" paintings, that they are working with the Smithsonian on a virtual museum right now in Social Studies, that last year she went to the Kennedy Center three times. I love that when my son was in kindergarten, staff from Wolf Trap came in weekly and taught them math through story telling. I love that in third grade the kids learn violin (last year the PTA bought the entire third grade violins—not to keep, it’s so that there are always violins for the third graders), and in the fourth grade they learn guitar. I love that my DC was in the school play in 4th grade (The Phantom Tollbooth), the school dance troupe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJT1G7fNk-0), band, and chorus. I love that the drama teacher comes to the class to do exercises on reading comprehension and learn about history. For example, earlier this year, he worked with them on reading scripts about Jamestown. I love that when they are learning new things in science, they go to their art classes and draw those things. Or when they were learning about electricity, they did a creative movement piece about electricity. Baileys is also a Spanish immersion school. Lots of parents from all different backgrounds are involved in the school and you'll always see a ton of parents and families at school functions.

What don't I love? Inconsistent teachers from AMAZING to just okay (although most have been really good). Extremely large, over-crowded (not the actual classes which are small—around 20 kids) and often chaotic school functions. I think my daughter could use some more attention from the teachers but she is a good/easy student so I don't think she is on their radar. My daughter is definitely a minority in her classroom and although she has a lot of friends at school, she doesn’t have many that come to the house to play. And because it is a magnet school some of her good friends live in McLean and Chantilly which does not make playdates easy. Oh, and the trailers. Ugh all 19 ugly trailers. Next year they are splitting the school in two so that will address the over-crowding problems, but many people will have issues w/the fact that the 3-5 graders are moving to an office building on Rt 7 next year (http://www.fcps.edu/clusters/c3/easternfairfaxes/index.html), but it wouldn't bother me. Since this is FCPS first "urban" school, I think they will want to do it right and make it a model school. We will see. I know it isn't for everyone though. In fact, I kept my oldest at the school, but I pulled my son out of the school and moved him to our base school (mostly due to the overcrowding which they did not have a solution for until this year).

Lastly, I love the diversity at Baileys, but I also wish it were a little more diverse in that it’s not actually that diverse because it’s mostly hispanic and FARMS. I wish it was closer to 50/50. I just don’t think it’s good for the low-income students when a school is mostly low-income. However, I do think the teachers and administration are doing the best they can and it’s been a great experience for my daughter and I’m glad we decided to enroll her there. As I said, she will be going to a private school for middle school and then back to pubic for high school.

As far as the other school (my kids go to two different Title I schools)—really, I’m not sure how it is different than any other small suburban school in FCPS except that my kids, again, are the minority (although a little less so than at Baileys). It’s a small school so I love that they know us in the front office. The teachers (so far) have been great and experienced. They are nurturing, but have good control in the classrooms and are very organized. Great communication--I always know what is going on in the classrooms. My kids have learned a ton this year and again are meeting all the FCPS standards of learning. My kindergartener is reading really well (she wasn’t reading when she started in the Fall) and my son’s writing has improved tremendously this year. I don’t know how the curriculum is any different than any other FCPS school so I’m not sure how to comment on that. My son is learning Arabic which I think is really cool. He comes home talking about Tunisia and Afghanistan (I know this isn’t the primary language there but he was talking about it the other day for some reason). My children who go here seem to have more friends (playdates, etc.) than my daughter but it is our neighborhood/base school (Baileys is actually one of the neighborhood schools too but just not ours). I’m not one to have meetings with the principal, but I have a lot of neighborhood friends who do and they all talk very highly of her. She is young with lots of energy and ideas. I've gone on two field school trips and the kids were great and really cute. At this age, my kids obviously notice that kids may look different but they don't care and they don't notice the SES differences. I love that. I know it may (will probably) change as they get older, but I hope it doesn't change too much.

What don’t I love about the school? I miss the arts integration and extra-curricular activities of Baileys. I don't love all the worksheets (ugh!) in my daughter's kindergarten class. I think my son could be challenged more in math but he is not getting that and I’m not sure why (maybe this goes back to that achievement gap issue).

All-in-all, I THINK my kids are doing well at their Title I schools, but I can't say if they would be better off in a non-Title I school. Maybe they would, but they are happy and learning a lot so although I do wonder at times, we are happy with our decision.

(Sorry for the rambling.)

[Anonymous]

Thanks PP---I was the one who said I was interested. We just put a contract on a house in S. Arlington that feeds into a Title I school with a very high FARMS rate. It is not one of the S. Arlington schools that we were aiming for, but we are okay with it. I realize FCPS is different, but I think many of the issues may also apply to our future school---just trying to get my head around it, although I do tihnk we will be okay.

[Anonymous]

I could have written the original post - we're about to put in an application for a rental in Douglas Park this week, and I'm very uncertain about the school situation. I have a 4 year old and a 6 year old, both of whom have been in Montessori programs since pre-k 3, and I don't want them to get lost in the shuffle of schools that have to focus on populations that aren't getting any support from their home environments. We're looking at Drew Model's program, at Randolph, and at Hoffman-Boston, but I'm not sure any of those will work. Any further feedback from parents who have been there would be helpful!