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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
Want responses from parents who have kids at Luther Jackson Middle & falls Church HS
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Anonymous
| I want an honest opinion of these schools. I know I will get reamed for this because ppl will accuse me of being racist. But, I have looked on this forum at past postings about FC HS and Luther Jackson and I can't get an honest answer. I have looked at the statistics and it looks like a high level of free lunches and it's a very diverse school (whites being the minority). Looks like a high poverty level. What does this mean for a school? I am worried..... |
Anonymous
Why do you consider the answers dishonest? |
Anonymous
| i wanted to hear from parents who actually have kids there, not people who just comment on the school for the hell of it. |
Anonymous
|
We just sold our house that fed into those schools, but right after we did, I met a guy who has/had kids in the system. He said "don't believe the rep, it's been great." His daughter graduated FCHS and went on to UVA. His son is doing well academically and is on a couple of sports teams. He said it's just not as high-pressure as some of the other schools in Fairfax and that was great for both of his kids. He said that reports of gang activity, etc. are exaggerated. You have to remember that in a very diverse school, the kids aren't always mixing with all the other kids. The troublemakers aren't really hanging with the honors kids. (I went to a big high school that was economically mixed - I hung with the honors kids and the stoners and such were generally not in my classes.)
Another friend is a middle school teacher. He said that part of the reason for Luther Jackson's rep is that junior high is a really hard time for kids anyway - there are issues at all middle schools, supposedly. He's currently at Jefferson. So take stuff with a grain. Fairfax in general is pretty great, and there is something to be said for having your kid in a school where 90% of the kids aren't going to be trying to get into the same 6 colleges. |
Anonymous
|
One thing you may want to consider is that Falls Church HS had considerably more "in-boundary" students transferring out of the school last year than "out-of-boundary" students transferring in to the school. That would raise a question for me, since normally kids who are already assigned to a particular school want to attend that school with their friends. In Falls Church's case, there was a net loss of over 100 students last year.
It's not something that happens simply because the school has a high percentage of low-income students. Nearby Stuart HS also has many low-income students, but Stuart had more out-of-boundary students transferring in than transferring out last year. http://www.fcps.edu/fts/dashboard/10-11dashboard.html |