Alexandria schools - why so bad?!

[Anonymous]

My older sisters (2), brother and cousins (3) live in Alexandria but:

sister #1: 2 kids at SSSAS, 1 kid at Sidwell
sister #2: 1 kid at NCS
brother: 1 kids at SSSAS, 1 kid at Madeira
cousin #1: 2 kids at Sidwell, 1 kid at Gongaza
cousin #2: 1 kid at NCS, 1 kid at St. Albans

In summary, Alexandria schools are just BAD....

[Anonymous]

If you’re moving for good public schools I wouldn’t move to Alexandria City sadly.

[Anonymous]

ACPS refugee here.

Yes, they aren’t great. In fact, you don’t realize how bad they are until you go somewhere else.

That said, there is always a cohort of white, upper middle class kids who stay the course and graduate TC. But if you look at their prom and graduation pictures, they clearly interact and socialize and engage in school activities only with the small number of white, UMC students. So if you’re OK with living in a bubble (ie they self-segregate within the school so there’s no real benefit from “diversity,” it’s one way to get a good education. But the overall environment is about meeting then needs of the lowest performing kids, which they sort of need to do because of the poverty. It’s a bad dynamic and TC isn’t really an achievement culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here.

Yes, they aren’t great. In fact, you don’t realize how bad they are until you go somewhere else.

That said, there is always a cohort of white, upper middle class kids who stay the course and graduate TC. But if you look at their prom and graduation pictures, they clearly interact and socialize and engage in school activities only with the small number of white, UMC students. So if you’re OK with living in a bubble (ie they self-segregate within the school so there’s no real benefit from “diversity,” it’s one way to get a good education. But the overall environment is about meeting then needs of the lowest performing kids, which they sort of need to do because of the poverty. It’s a bad dynamic and TC isn’t really an achievement culture.

Where did you go, and how was it better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here.

Yes, they aren’t great. In fact, you don’t realize how bad they are until you go somewhere else.

That said, there is always a cohort of white, upper middle class kids who stay the course and graduate TC. But if you look at their prom and graduation pictures, they clearly interact and socialize and engage in school activities only with the small number of white, UMC students. So if you’re OK with living in a bubble (ie they self-segregate within the school so there’s no real benefit from “diversity,” it’s one way to get a good education. But the overall environment is about meeting then needs of the lowest performing kids, which they sort of need to do because of the poverty. It’s a bad dynamic and TC isn’t really an achievement culture.

Where did you go, and how was it better?

Arlington. More achievement-oriented, more resources, more enrichment in elementary school. But too crowded so we went to Loudoun, which has some very good schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Alexandria is full of public housing. It's like Hunger games with few rich and a lot of poors.

1. There are lots of lower income and POC kids in Alex from private market rate housing. West Alexandria in particular, still has lots of market rate affordable housing

2. There are plenty of middle class people in Alexandria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here.

Yes, they aren’t great. In fact, you don’t realize how bad they are until you go somewhere else.

That said, there is always a cohort of white, upper middle class kids who stay the course and graduate TC. But if you look at their prom and graduation pictures, they clearly interact and socialize and engage in school activities only with the small number of white, UMC students. So if you’re OK with living in a bubble (ie they self-segregate within the school so there’s no real benefit from “diversity,” it’s one way to get a good education. But the overall environment is about meeting then needs of the lowest performing kids, which they sort of need to do because of the poverty. It’s a bad dynamic and TC isn’t really an achievement culture.

This is not accurate. My husband (and friends) are TC grads. They played sports and had (and still have) a diverse group of friends. You as a parent teach your kid how to not F up and they will do fine. I know the term is "Yale or Jail", but there is also JMU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here.

Yes, they aren’t great. In fact, you don’t realize how bad they are until you go somewhere else.

That said, there is always a cohort of white, upper middle class kids who stay the course and graduate TC. But if you look at their prom and graduation pictures, they clearly interact and socialize and engage in school activities only with the small number of white, UMC students. So if you’re OK with living in a bubble (ie they self-segregate within the school so there’s no real benefit from “diversity,” it’s one way to get a good education. But the overall environment is about meeting then needs of the lowest performing kids, which they sort of need to do because of the poverty. It’s a bad dynamic and TC isn’t really an achievement culture.

This is not accurate. My husband (and friends) are TC grads. They played sports and had (and still have) a diverse group of friends. You as a parent teach your kid how to not F up and they will do fine. I know the term is "Yale or Jail", but there is also JMU

JMU = jail for the DCUM crowd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here.

Yes, they aren’t great. In fact, you don’t realize how bad they are until you go somewhere else.

That said, there is always a cohort of white, upper middle class kids who stay the course and graduate TC. But if you look at their prom and graduation pictures, they clearly interact and socialize and engage in school activities only with the small number of white, UMC students. So if you’re OK with living in a bubble (ie they self-segregate within the school so there’s no real benefit from “diversity,” it’s one way to get a good education. But the overall environment is about meeting then needs of the lowest performing kids, which they sort of need to do because of the poverty. It’s a bad dynamic and TC isn’t really an achievement culture.

This is not accurate. My husband (and friends) are TC grads. They played sports and had (and still have) a diverse group of friends. You as a parent teach your kid how to not F up and they will do fine. I know the term is "Yale or Jail", but there is also JMU

JMU = jail for the DCUM crowd

Ha! GMU must be like solitary confinement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of factors at play. There’s a lot of money in Alexandria, but comparatively few families compared to Arlington - lots of condos, and small, old but still $$$ townhomes. Del Rey is the outlier in terms of families but that’s about it. There are concentrated areas of poverty on the west end where you also have high ESOL populations. There’s just one huge high school for the whole city, so it gets students not just from the high-performing elementary schools but also from the schools that have a lot of poverty. And a lot of young families move before or shortly after elementary, or they choose private K-12.

A lot of young families tend to move into Fairfax county when elementary school hits. In particular, Burke and Kingstowne are
Full of families that left Alexandria City.

[Anonymous]

pp here. In fact, many families leave before school age because of the childcare situation, the waitlists for childcare in old town are insanely long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alexandria is full of public housing. It's like Hunger games with few rich and a lot of poors.

1. There are lots of lower income and POC kids in Alex from private market rate housing. West Alexandria in particular, still has lots of market rate affordable housing

2. There are plenty of middle class people in Alexandria.

Yup! I'm a middle class person (HHI $130k, one kid) in private market rate housing. So are my downstairs neighbors with a kid in public K, though i don't know the occupations of many other people in my complex. I see quite a few "TC Williams grad" signs in front of duplexes and SFHs this time of year, too.

No personal experience with schools yet but I'd be willing to at least send my kid to our in bounds elementary (MVCS) based on what I've heard from other parents in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

I've been reading about how terrible ACPS is for middle and high school on this site for years, so I was pretty surprised at how many UMC families in the Rosemont neighborhood missed the memo and are utilizing public schools. Most of the kids our older DC went with to Maury are now at Mini Howard (TC). He is in the STEM program there and he is getting a good education and positive social interaction. Our youngest is still at Maury. I've taught in FCPS and APS, and at the elementary level, it's definitely equitable. I can't speak as much for upper grades, but as long as our very smart, motivated DC is learning and happy, we're sticking with it. We know very few families that switched to private for middle or high school.--Usually it was because there were some special needs. We also know a family that did private for elementary but then later put their kids in GW and TC. You would think it's all gloom and doom from reading these boards, but I would suggest actually visiting some of these schools before passing them over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been reading about how terrible ACPS is for middle and high school on this site for years, so I was pretty surprised at how many UMC families in the Rosemont neighborhood missed the memo and are utilizing public schools. Most of the kids our older DC went with to Maury are now at Mini Howard (TC). He is in the STEM program there and he is getting a good education and positive social interaction. Our youngest is still at Maury. I've taught in FCPS and APS, and at the elementary level, it's definitely equitable. I can't speak as much for upper grades, but as long as our very smart, motivated DC is learning and happy, we're sticking with it. We know very few families that switched to private for middle or high school.--Usually it was because there were some special needs. We also know a family that did private for elementary but then later put their kids in GW and TC. You would think it's all gloom and doom from reading these boards, but I would suggest actually visiting some of these schools before passing them over.

But I always base important life decisions on anonymous opinions on an internet site. Don't you?

[Anonymous]

DD's TC education served her perfectly well at her top-3 Ivy.