Thoughts on McKinley or Discovery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are all these "growing pains" at Discovery? Could the people claiming these pains please list them out?

My pains (none of them growing nor real) are:
1) longer walk to pick up kids (I was redistricted from Nottingham)
2) Sometimes it takes a while to gain access to the school during extended day pickup
3) Have to walk further within school because school is larger.

1) school is still working out its "personality"- doesn't feel super friendly when you visit.
2) LOTS of teacher turnover, including teachers who have left during the school year.
3) because it's a new school it's still a bit impersonal feeling and many families don't feel known. There's. It a history there you'd have at other schools among either parents or teachers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people I've talked to seem kind of lukewarm about discovery. I haven't talked to that many people since we aren't only in K, but no one has really said "we love it!" ITs. more like "there have been some growing pains". Friends at McKinley love it.

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are all these "growing pains" at Discovery? Could the people claiming these pains please list them out?

My pains (none of them growing nor real) are:
1) longer walk to pick up kids (I was redistricted from Nottingham)
2) Sometimes it takes a while to gain access to the school during extended day pickup
3) Have to walk further within school because school is larger.

1) school is still working out its "personality"- doesn't feel super friendly when you visit.
2) LOTS of teacher turnover, including teachers who have left during the school year.
3) because it's a new school it's still a bit impersonal feeling and many families don't feel known. There's. It a history there you'd have at other schools among either parents or teachers

Re: the teacher turnover -any insight as to why that is?

[Anonymous]

Down to earth?Ha. Westover is full of MONAs. Might be the epicenter. Discovery is where I'd look. Smaller school. Great play areas. Yes. Staff are still figuring it out. But McK is a mess right now. I believe Discovery had to fire two teachers who were having an affair this year and the Superintendent transferred their Vice Principal to help at a failing S Arl school.. unusual circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Down to earth?Ha. Westover is full of MONAs. Might be the epicenter. Discovery is where I'd look. Smaller school. Great play areas. Yes. Staff are still figuring it out. But McK is a mess right now. I believe Discovery had to fire two teachers who were having an affair this year and the Superintendent transferred their Vice Principal to help at a failing S Arl school.. unusual circumstances.

Wow. So full of shit on so many topics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Down to earth?Ha. Westover is full of MONAs. Might be the epicenter. Discovery is where I'd look. Smaller school. Great play areas. Yes. Staff are still figuring it out. But McK is a mess right now. I believe Discovery had to fire two teachers who were having an affair this year and the Superintendent transferred their Vice Principal to help at a failing S Arl school.. unusual circumstances.

Wow. So full of shit on so many topics.

So what was going on?
It's true that there has been a high teacher turnover and a lot of new young teachers.

I'm not sure what "finding its personality" is supposed to mean though.
Is that code for "no families have enough pull or years in yet to be the Queen Bees" ?!

[Anonymous]

Teacher turnover: first, definitely not an affair between anyone. But many of the teachers were from FCPS and new to Arlington. They aren't super cohesive as a community yet. That takes time. There are teachers at other APS elementary schools- at many APS schools- who have been there 10, 15 years. That kind of atmosphere of a shared history, knowing families with multiple kids going through a school, school traditions, that takes time to build.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Down to earth?Ha. Westover is full of MONAs. Might be the epicenter. Discovery is where I'd look. Smaller school. Great play areas. Yes. Staff are still figuring it out. But McK is a mess right now. I believe Discovery had to fire two teachers who were having an affair this year and the Superintendent transferred their Vice Principal to help at a failing S Arl school.. unusual circumstances.

Wow. So full of shit on so many topics.

So what was going on?
It's true that there has been a high teacher turnover and a lot of new young teachers.

I'm not sure what "finding its personality" is supposed to mean though.
Is that code for "no families have enough pull or years in yet to be the Queen Bees" ?!

exactly. As a new family, I wouldn't want to go somewhere with an established "club" already. You'd feel even more like an outsider.

[Anonymous]

The crowd at Discovery can be hard to break into if you don't have $$$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Down to earth?Ha. Westover is full of MONAs. Might be the epicenter. Discovery is where I'd look. Smaller school. Great play areas. Yes. Staff are still figuring it out. But McK is a mess right now. I believe Discovery had to fire two teachers who were having an affair this year and the Superintendent transferred their Vice Principal to help at a failing S Arl school.. unusual circumstances.

Wow. So full of shit on so many topics.

So what was going on?
It's true that there has been a high teacher turnover and a lot of new young teachers.

I'm not sure what "finding its personality" is supposed to mean though.
Is that code for "no families have enough pull or years in yet to be the Queen Bees" ?!

I know of two teachers who left in the middle of the school year. One last year, and one this year. Not sure anyone ever knew why. I would say that's unusual for whatever reason it happened.

[Anonymous]

These are some of the stupidest reasons I'm hearing. You choose a school to educate your kids. You may make a few few friends in the process but this ain't a country club.

[Anonymous]

One thing-- no one knows for sure what impact the Reed school will have on zoning. It's possible if you're now slated for Discovery you could end up there.

[Anonymous]

Agree- Reed is a huge wild card. Right now, APS is still sticking with its proposal to make Reed the location of a new choice IB program which would not impact boundaries. But Westover residents are fighting hard to make it a neighborhood school. However, now that ASF is being turned into a neighborhood school in 2019, it means that all the boundaries will be redrawn next year for Sept. 2019 implementation. It seems unlikely to me that APS will be up for redrawing ES boundaries again for Reed to come on-line two years later (scheduled to open Sept. 2021), but I've stopped trying to predict what APS will do. RE: the comment above about the Westover culture... I would not exactly consider it Ground Zero for MONA-- that's more Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Taylor, but it is fair to point out that McKinley's boundaries are huge now and cross multiple neighborhoods. So if OP is looking at a house in Tara, that is a very different neighborhood culture from Dominion Hills. Both are zoned for McKinley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if OP is looking at a house in Tara, that is a very different neighborhood culture from Dominion Hills. Both are zoned for McKinley.

Very true.

What's a Mona, if used to describe someone? I know what MONA is and that seems to apply to any mom living in N. Arl. So, I don't see how Westover could be ground zero for Monas when it isn't the most populated or the most active in the SB business.

[Anonymous]

Discovery parent here. I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head with the lack-of-cohesiveness remark. We've been lucky to have good teachers so far, but I do consider it luck and not a given. My feelings on the administration and front office are "meh." HUGE emphasis on technology, which follows them to WMS and has resulted in my perfectly-bright-but-distracted-by-shiny things middle-schooler learning zero this year, as far as I can tell.