If you left APS for private…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

As I’ve explained to you before, your child is much more likely to be surrounded by white people at W&L and YHS than top DC privates due to housing segregation. But, keep insisting your view of the world is correct.

And your nonsense idea that kids at W&L and YHS are less “sheltered” than my kid at a DC private is so questionable. I see you Jeep driving white kid with your music blasting from country club hills. That kid is really getting a dose of unsheltering forced to attend a “public” school with loads of kids from different backgrounds (hahahaha) at Yorktown. Give me a break.

W-L is majority minority. You don't seem very familiar with it.

It also has infinitely more socioeconomic diversity than any private school. Lots and lots of WL students are in apartments, not country club hills.

My APS public school with >50% hispanic population has been sending out information about preparing for ICE raids after Trump issued an executive order lifting a ban on immigration enforcement in schools. I'm pretty certain that fear has not entered your private school bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

As I’ve explained to you before, your child is much more likely to be surrounded by white people at W&L and YHS than top DC privates due to housing segregation. But, keep insisting your view of the world is correct.

And your nonsense idea that kids at W&L and YHS are less “sheltered” than my kid at a DC private is so questionable. I see you Jeep driving white kid with your music blasting from country club hills. That kid is really getting a dose of unsheltering forced to attend a “public” school with loads of kids from different backgrounds (hahahaha) at Yorktown. Give me a break.

That is certainly NOT the case for W-L.

You are clueless AF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

As I’ve explained to you before, your child is much more likely to be surrounded by white people at W&L and YHS than top DC privates due to housing segregation. But, keep insisting your view of the world is correct.

And your nonsense idea that kids at W&L and YHS are less “sheltered” than my kid at a DC private is so questionable. I see you Jeep driving white kid with your music blasting from country club hills. That kid is really getting a dose of unsheltering forced to attend a “public” school with loads of kids from different backgrounds (hahahaha) at Yorktown. Give me a break.

W-L is majority minority. You don't seem very familiar with it.

It also has infinitely more socioeconomic diversity than any private school. Lots and lots of WL students are in apartments, not country club hills.

My APS public school with >50% hispanic population has been sending out information about preparing for ICE raids after Trump issued an executive order lifting a ban on immigration enforcement in schools. I'm pretty certain that fear has not entered your private school bubble.

Agree completely. My W&L senior has a friend who needs to attend college locally because she will be the guardian of her younger sister since the parents have to move back to their country of origin. She has friends who work PT, not so they can blow their earnings at Chipotle and Sephora, but because they contribute to their family income. Kids should have friends who don't all live in $2M houses and drive their Teslas to their $50K private school.

[Anonymous]

We were in APS for ES but left for a tony parochial middle school. She's at W-L now partly because we turned off by peer influences at the parochial (at least 80% white). We grew weary of our daughter complaining about her non-brand name clothes, bags, our humble camping vacations and vehicles and more. She made friends with kids on a lot of fi aid but, overall, the peer influences became a drag. At W-L, she's stopped complaining. I second the comment above. She has kids in her classes who work part-time jobs after school rather than participate in ECs, to help pay for family groceries. Dealing with larger classes was an adjustment, but we hire tutors to ensure that she gets enough attention. We like the fact that she has new pals whose families are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The math and foreign language instruction at W-L seems to be miles ahead of that at the Catholic high schools we could have sent her to and the STEM comparable. Writing instruction is a big step down, but we'll survive.

[Anonymous]

My 6th grader at Williamsburg MS in pre-algebra has homework beyond what hasn't been finished in class. They are reading their second novel (as a class) in English right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DE isn’t as highly regarded as AP.

And class size matters A LOT. Public school student don’t get robust feedback on their writing assignments. Sometimes they get nothing at all. The teachers simply don’t have time to actually give meaningful feedback.

Right, granted. But you can pay a fine writing tutor, say 5K a year. Last time I checked, that was legal in this country. And there's probably nothing stopping your from providing regular input on student writing assignments yourself. My spouse and I do this with our two APS HS students several times a week. I have a PhD in a humanities subject and my spouse is a senior govt attorney. Goodness, we might be as qualified to provide "robust feedback" as your kid's private school humanities teachers.

Unless you're both loaded and lazy, don't pay a private school 30-55K a year. Don't drop your kid into a peer group where most of the others are well-off, pampered and white in a world where more than 80 percent of human beings are not. Don't raise absurdly sheltered teens.

Save your hard-earned dough to pay for college, retirement and whatever else.

As I’ve explained to you before, your child is much more likely to be surrounded by white people at W&L and YHS than top DC privates due to housing segregation. But, keep insisting your view of the world is correct.

And your nonsense idea that kids at W&L and YHS are less “sheltered” than my kid at a DC private is so questionable. I see you Jeep driving white kid with your music blasting from country club hills. That kid is really getting a dose of unsheltering forced to attend a “public” school with loads of kids from different backgrounds (hahahaha) at Yorktown. Give me a break.

W-L is majority minority. You don't seem very familiar with it.

Is the IBD path school within a school majority minority?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were in APS for ES but left for a tony parochial middle school. She's at W-L now partly because we turned off by peer influences at the parochial (at least 80% white). We grew weary of our daughter complaining about her non-brand name clothes, bags, our humble camping vacations and vehicles and more. She made friends with kids on a lot of fi aid but, overall, the peer influences became a drag. At W-L, she's stopped complaining. I second the comment above. She has kids in her classes who work part-time jobs after school rather than participate in ECs, to help pay for family groceries. Dealing with larger classes was an adjustment, but we hire tutors to ensure that she gets enough attention. We like the fact that she has new pals whose families are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The math and foreign language instruction at W-L seems to be miles ahead of that at the Catholic high schools we could have sent her to and the STEM comparable. Writing instruction is a big step down, but we'll survive.

What tony parochial doesn’t have uniforms?

[Anonymous]

Which tony middle school or high doesn't enroll loads of girls who are into brand name clothing their families can easily afford? Come on, these kids become the friends of yours, the people they hang out with after school, on weekends, on breaks.

Some of us can afford privates but don't want our kids in schools where the wealthy dominate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which tony middle school or high doesn't enroll loads of girls who are into brand name clothing their families can easily afford? Come on, these kids become the friends of yours, the people they hang out with after school, on weekends, on breaks.

Some of us can afford privates but don't want our kids in schools where the wealthy dominate.

We kept our kids in public but Burke has a bus from Arlington and is super non-fancy

[Anonymous]

We left in early elementary school because of Covid. Our kids could not learn to read online. Even though they were passing all the benchmarks, they really could only recognize their letters a little better than others in their classes.

We went to a Catholic school and they immediately started learning more. The Catholic school was actually in hybrid mode when we switched, but went back full-time before APS even went back in hybrid. Honestly, it wasn’t great until we went back full-time, and our kids were behind. Our DD is a quick learner and picked everything up well. Our DS, although never quite struggling enough to get a dyslexia diagnosis, definitely learned to read differently and really struggled. Their patient reading specialist stuck with him, and we had him keep reading whatever he liked, and his reading skills soared between 3rd and 4th grade. Now in 4th grade at the Catholic school, his reading scores are testing much higher than grade level. Their class is reading their second novel together in 4th grade. I give a lot of credit to the school, but I also think things just didn’t click for him until a little later. We were lucky that the school was really helpful with keeping at it, and it never became a situation where he hated reading.

We had always planned on APS, but we are happy at the Catholic school. (I grew up Catholic and we are happy to celebrate Catholic traditions at this very liberal DC Catholic school.) Our kids have also made great friends and we have a great community there. We don’t necessarily think the education is better at their Catholic school; we just think we found a school that has worked well for our kids and family. We will consider W-L, Bishop O Connell, Visitation and Gonzaga for HS. Nowhere in Maryland - it’s just too far for us. We could technically afford much higher tuition at independent privates, but think that is insane, and would rather use our money in other ways.

The only downside is we would love to attend our walkable neighborhood school and know more neighborhood kids and families. My kids are decent athletes and play Arlington sports, so they have met kids that way, and we are jealous of all of their connections in Arlington and the ease with which they can get together with friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We left in early elementary school because of Covid. Our kids could not learn to read online. Even though they were passing all the benchmarks, they really could only recognize their letters a little better than others in their classes.

We went to a Catholic school and they immediately started learning more. The Catholic school was actually in hybrid mode when we switched, but went back full-time before APS even went back in hybrid. Honestly, it wasn’t great until we went back full-time, and our kids were behind. Our DD is a quick learner and picked everything up well. Our DS, although never quite struggling enough to get a dyslexia diagnosis, definitely learned to read differently and really struggled. Their patient reading specialist stuck with him, and we had him keep reading whatever he liked, and his reading skills soared between 3rd and 4th grade. Now in 4th grade at the Catholic school, his reading scores are testing much higher than grade level. Their class is reading their second novel together in 4th grade. I give a lot of credit to the school, but I also think things just didn’t click for him until a little later. We were lucky that the school was really helpful with keeping at it, and it never became a situation where he hated reading.

We had always planned on APS, but we are happy at the Catholic school. (I grew up Catholic and we are happy to celebrate Catholic traditions at this very liberal DC Catholic school.) Our kids have also made great friends and we have a great community there. We don’t necessarily think the education is better at their Catholic school; we just think we found a school that has worked well for our kids and family. We will consider W-L, Bishop O Connell, Visitation and Gonzaga for HS. Nowhere in Maryland - it’s just too far for us. We could technically afford much higher tuition at independent privates, but think that is insane, and would rather use our money in other ways.

The only downside is we would love to attend our walkable neighborhood school and know more neighborhood kids and families. My kids are decent athletes and play Arlington sports, so they have met kids that way, and we are jealous of all of their connections in Arlington and the ease with which they can get together with friends.

COVID closures and the year and a half after schools reopened were a real low point for APS. It wasn't good. But things have gotten a lot better. This really is the first year where I haven't felt a significant covid-hangover for my APS kids. Teachers seem back to normal and kids are chugging along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were in APS for ES but left for a tony parochial middle school. She's at W-L now partly because we turned off by peer influences at the parochial (at least 80% white). We grew weary of our daughter complaining about her non-brand name clothes, bags, our humble camping vacations and vehicles and more. She made friends with kids on a lot of fi aid but, overall, the peer influences became a drag. At W-L, she's stopped complaining. I second the comment above. She has kids in her classes who work part-time jobs after school rather than participate in ECs, to help pay for family groceries. Dealing with larger classes was an adjustment, but we hire tutors to ensure that she gets enough attention. We like the fact that she has new pals whose families are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The math and foreign language instruction at W-L seems to be miles ahead of that at the Catholic high schools we could have sent her to and the STEM comparable. Writing instruction is a big step down, but we'll survive.

DD's complaining about not having "enough" is a parenting fail and possibly a school fail. We left APS for an independent private and never had this problem. Our kid is the opposite of spoiled. And its a joke that you W-L parents try to sell W-L as a down to earth, diverse place. I know W-L families very well and I most recently saw the ArlNow pictures of state championship teams for W-L and Yorktown; it is shockingly lacking in diversity. Now Wakefield, that is a diverse school. But W-L ain't it.

https://www.arlnow.com/tag/washington-liberty-high-school/

[Anonymous]

I went to a Catholic high school and sent my child to a parochial MS rather than APS. Even so, we’re at W-L now and happy. The private middle school enrolled, and employed, few minorities and non-Catholics, far from ideal from our point of view. The students were too sheltered for our liking. The adjustment to W-L wasn’t easy, but we prefer to have the kid struggle a little to cope with the rough and tumble of moving in a larger world now than later on. He has some excellent teachers in intensified classes and nice friends from all sorts of backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were in APS for ES but left for a tony parochial middle school. She's at W-L now partly because we turned off by peer influences at the parochial (at least 80% white). We grew weary of our daughter complaining about her non-brand name clothes, bags, our humble camping vacations and vehicles and more. She made friends with kids on a lot of fi aid but, overall, the peer influences became a drag. At W-L, she's stopped complaining. I second the comment above. She has kids in her classes who work part-time jobs after school rather than participate in ECs, to help pay for family groceries. Dealing with larger classes was an adjustment, but we hire tutors to ensure that she gets enough attention. We like the fact that she has new pals whose families are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The math and foreign language instruction at W-L seems to be miles ahead of that at the Catholic high schools we could have sent her to and the STEM comparable. Writing instruction is a big step down, but we'll survive.

DD's complaining about not having "enough" is a parenting fail and possibly a school fail. We left APS for an independent private and never had this problem. Our kid is the opposite of spoiled. And its a joke that you W-L parents try to sell W-L as a down to earth, diverse place. I know W-L families very well and I most recently saw the ArlNow pictures of state championship teams for W-L and Yorktown; it is shockingly lacking in diversity. Now Wakefield, that is a diverse school. But W-L ain't it.

https://www.arlnow.com/tag/washington-liberty-high-school/

What???? you are judging the diversity of a school by a few sports pics? Do you judge how tall New Yorkers are by looking at the Knicks? W&L is pretty diverse https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/washington-liberty-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-enrollment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were in APS for ES but left for a tony parochial middle school. She's at W-L now partly because we turned off by peer influences at the parochial (at least 80% white). We grew weary of our daughter complaining about her non-brand name clothes, bags, our humble camping vacations and vehicles and more. She made friends with kids on a lot of fi aid but, overall, the peer influences became a drag. At W-L, she's stopped complaining. I second the comment above. She has kids in her classes who work part-time jobs after school rather than participate in ECs, to help pay for family groceries. Dealing with larger classes was an adjustment, but we hire tutors to ensure that she gets enough attention. We like the fact that she has new pals whose families are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The math and foreign language instruction at W-L seems to be miles ahead of that at the Catholic high schools we could have sent her to and the STEM comparable. Writing instruction is a big step down, but we'll survive.

DD's complaining about not having "enough" is a parenting fail and possibly a school fail. We left APS for an independent private and never had this problem. Our kid is the opposite of spoiled. And its a joke that you W-L parents try to sell W-L as a down to earth, diverse place. I know W-L families very well and I most recently saw the ArlNow pictures of state championship teams for W-L and Yorktown; it is shockingly lacking in diversity. Now Wakefield, that is a diverse school. But W-L ain't it.

https://www.arlnow.com/tag/washington-liberty-high-school/

Yes, let’s gauge the diversity of a school based on a handful of kids in a few sports. Very analytical.

W-L is 42% white. 25% economically disadvantaged. Seems pretty diverse to me.

Which private do your kids attend? What are the demographics?