Does anyone here actually send their kid to Hayfield/Edison/West Potomac/5 or lower GS high schools?
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Anonymous
In terms of average SOL scores, not resources or breadth of opportunities for above-average students. There are schools in rural counties in VA where the average SOLs or SATs may be about the same as Hayfield, but it's unlikely they'll also be able to offer over 20 AP courses, etc. |
Anonymous
I've heard from people whose kids have gone to Lee and liked it. It's possible for a smart kid to be a big fish in a very little pond. That being said, I'm still undecided. I want my kids to have a large peer group of motivated students who will push them to do their best. I don't want them in a pressure cooker environment, but a little competition is a good thing. |
Anonymous
| Nope. No one does. Buildings are actually empty |
Anonymous
I send my kids to Lee and they are doing fine. Great Schools is not a good source to use. And it is a self fulfilling prophecy - the more educated focused families avoid a school the worse it becomes. If that continues then FCPS might as well write off Lee, Annandale, Falls Church, Stuart, Mt. Vernon, and West Potomac. Herndon, South Lakes, Westfield, Edison, and Hayfield are all fives right now, so they may be doomed as well. Once a school reaches a certain point, it is hard to turn it around. Pay close attention to the fact that I just named 11 of the 24 regular high schools in FCPS. That means that almost half of the high schools score a five or below on Great Schools. I have decided people around here are crazy. FCPS provides excellent resources and opportunities at all of its high schools. Do some schools have opportunities that others do not? Sure. Do some schools have more successful football teams or bands? Sure. Are some schools richer than the others? Obviously. FCPS and the Fairfax Board of Supervisors should be held accountable for concentrating poverty, particularly at the five lowest rated schools. Still, if your child is motivated they should do fine at any of the FCPS high schools. And if your student easily finds trouble, they will find it at any of the FCPS high schools. Lee, the smallest high school in the county, is 1100 students smaller than Lake Braddock (the largest). That is 275 more kids per grade at Lake Braddock. Considering that each school only has one soccer team, or basketball team, or school play, where do you think a student would have more opportunity to participate? Obviously that shows the biggest difference in the county, but the county looks to average about 2250 kids per high school. That is close to 500 students more than Lee currently has. 125 more per grade. So I would ask everybody around here to take a deep breath and stop abandoning schools because of what you read on the internet. I would at least ask, that before you move or transfer away from your school, that you speak with the Principal, the PTSA, and parents of recent graduates (or the graduates themselves). |
Anonymous
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My kids are still young so maybe my tune will change. But both DH and I went to large high schools - mine was medium-large (I graduated with 350ish but that was on the small side) and his was huge (500+). My HS was a 9 or 10 on Greatschools and his is now a 2 but probably would have been a 4 or 5 when he went there. With a big school you have SO many opportunities. If your kid doesn't necessarily excel in academics, at a big school you'll have more choices for art, music, drama, or various niche classes like speech/debate or graphic design, etc.
I honestly think any HS that offers honors and AP classes and a large variety of classes in general is going to be fine for the vast majority of students. I'm less sure about IB - it seems less flexible. But then again, the smartest person I know graduated from an IB high school. The kids who really struggled in college always seemed to be the kids who graduated from Podunk Country High School with 75 kids in a grade and no AP and only one or two honors classes. Or my friends who went to a small but overall very wealthy Christian school but were talented artists but the school had next to no art program, so their talents were basically wasted. We're currently zoned for a 5 elementary and a 7 HS and are fine with it. We'd actually like to move in bounds for Hayfield because some of the neighborhoods are nice and convenient. |
Anonymous
I don't think that many people really obsess about GS scores. I think they do avoid high school pyramids in FCPS if the area doesn't seem to be improving and there are no signs that FCPS (or the School Board) is actively looking for ways to shore up the schools. By those standards, the pyramids most at-risk in FCPS are probably Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon, not your entire group of 11 schools. People can see that FCPS moved single-family neighborhood after single-family neighborhood out of Annandale, and turned Poe MS into the county's poorest middle school. They can see that FCPS isn't lifting a finger to move kids to under-enrolled Mount Vernon from over-crowded West Potomac. They can see that central Springfield still looks rundown and that FCPS never raises the prospect of moving kids from West Springfield to Lee. Compare that to Falls Church, where the Mosaic District was built and where people priced out of Arlington are moving, or Hayfield, where FCPS actually moved kids back to the school after they realized they'd previously moved too many kids to South County. It sends a very different signal about where the pyramid is headed. |
Anonymous
| If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide. |
Anonymous
Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students. |
Anonymous
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Such a shame. I had many friends at Lee in the late 90's. They had a good choral program and theatre department. Those kids went on to good colleges. It makes me very sad to hear the the school talked about in such a way.
I went to Lake Braddock and also had friends at TJ. These schools were diverse and had so much offer. What has changed? If I had to guess, all of these ranking systems. Now, you search for a home and a simple number 1-10 pops up. Everyone with means methodically self segregated in the last 2 decades. It might protect home values, but it hurts the schools and it hurts kids. FWIW - my toddler would be going to Wakefield. It's a 4 on great schools. We will be transferred in the next two years to a different city where we have much greater buying power. We can afford the best school with a great house and commute. I can have it all. Interesting that when I dug through the numbers of the highly regarded school, it actually is comparable to Wakefield. Sadly, not as diverse, but that is something really unique to NOVA. So, what are we panicking about? Truly our worst schools are wonderful schools. Send your kids to Lee, Stuart or wherever. Your kids need you, more than they need a GS 9. Buy where you can see them the most. They need you. |
Anonymous
The School Board is reluctant to make any of those changes. They know the F/R lunch rate has gone up considerably across the county in the last 15 years and they seem to prefer concentrating poverty so that they can protect other schools. Also doesn't help that it is hard to assemble a large movement of parents at schools where the F/R lunch rate exceeds 50% and where many of the education focused families have transferred. Those transfer families are the types of families that would typically back a movement for change. The taxpayers of the county should be up in arms about the West Potomac / Mt. Vernon situation. FCPS cannot justify spending money to enlarge West Potomac when there are hundreds of seats available at Mt. Vernon and Hayfield. As for the Woodson to Annandale and West Springfield to Lee situations, I just don't think the School Board will make such changes. Back in the day when the F/R lunch gap was not so extreme they probably could do it, but now the gap is so large that families from Woodson and West Springfield would riot. It would take a strong Board that didn't care about reelection to make those changes (such a Board would be a refreshing change). I do find it very hypocritical of our liberal Board to be herding immigrants into particular schools. IB should go. Period. |
Anonymous
| Simple. Stay away from Lee, Stuart, and Mount Vernon. Hayfield, West Potomac, and Edison are a touch better, but not much. Best to stay away if you can. That's all you really need to know. Move west or north my dear friend, just not into Alexandria city or south Arlington. |
Anonymous
I'll send my kid to one of the lower schools. She can be valedictorian, student council president, head cheerleader, and get into UVA because of less competition. ? |
Anonymous
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We're at West Potomac, and content (one in 10th grade, one in college). I did some thought experiments along the way, considering alternatives of moving and private. We stayed. Why?
1. We never had any real problems. There were plenty of 'maybe this will be a problem in the future'. I worried about those, but when I really paused and thought about it, I realized I was borrowing trouble. YMMV. 1b. My kids have had appropriate peer groups all along. Not huge but hey, family of introverts here. They certainly weren't with the same 20 kids all day in a set of advanced classes, and had plenty of classes to chose from. 2. We live in an area zoned for West Potomac because of commutes, which are short and predictable. The places I considered moving would be longer and more variable commutes. I decided that I placed considerable value on having that time at home with my kids (or at their activities) and my lower stress associated with extra time. 3. Private would have been doable, but a stretch that would have impacted college savings and family activities. So basically ... I was never doing a pure school vs school comparison. I was comparing WestPo + life factors to Other Schools + life factors, which is what most of us are doing most of the time. |
Anonymous
Sounds great but people don't really like to play on losing teams (or the other "big fish, small pond" scenarios). |
Anonymous
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Well, our DKs attend one of the schools on this lower tier list and I just looked at the email from FCPS yesterday and 2 kids they grew up with (1 at TJ now, other at "terrible" HS) won some sort of Natl Merit scholarships so as others have said, there are plenty of bright kids/opportunities available at all FCPS high schools. There are lots of AP classes for kids who want/need them. Many kids are headed to UVA/WM next year.
Our kids love the crazy mix of socio-econ and international diversity. And they've learned to deal with all types of people and situations - more so than DH and I who had very UMC experiences at our lily white mid-western schools. One thing that irks me is that all the families fleeing IB at the other low performing HS nearby end up in our schools, making them terribly overcrowded. It starts in elementary with families sneaking in to our pyramid via foreign language, then AAP in 3rd grade and so on. It's led to overcrowding in middle and high school. FCPS refuses to shut the door at any level and it's very dysfunctional. |