Should we leave Alexandria?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest daughter will enter kindergarten next year. We had planned to send her to the elementary we are zoned for, one of the ones that's supposed to be "better" - but the recent abysmal report card from the state is seriously disturbing. Not a single school fully accredited in ACPS, almost all elementaries (including ours) listed as off track. I've seen many defend clerical issues that led to the scores, but even if that's true - it's no prize. It's also bad and indicative of the kind of environment that's been allowed to continue in the system here it seems.

It would be a huge stretch to pay for private. We love living in ALX, but it seems like the families around us much be much much richer if they can afford to send multiple kids to private school and continue to live in the community.

Do we just leave Alexandria for Bethesda or somewhere else? Uprooting our lives to move? Do we plant a money tree and hope for the best? What are families here doing?

Thanks.

Which school are you zoned for?

George Mason

[Anonymous]

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Ahhhh, I'll go out on a limb and say because people like you fled to the white rural suburbs in Loudon....

So ..

Alexandria is whiter than Loudoun County, pp. (And FTR, that's how you spell Loudoun).

Loudoun is whiter, sweetie. Also poorer. And just crappier.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/virginia.html

So embarrassing....

Loudoun county is not poorer than Alexandria. It’s the wealthiest county in the US. Falls Church, Arlington and Fairfax are all more wealthy than Alexandria

Wrong again! Can you get anything right? City of Alexandria HHI is higher than Loudoun, not that anybody other than you would even question it.

How's life in the redneck sticks today? Lots of guns going off? Dogs barking wildly?

Man, you really need to stop confusing what you hear at The Whitley or whatever other housing project you pass by on your into Old Town with coming from Loudoun, PP. You sound deranged.

Anyway, Loudoun is higher income, has higher home values, is nearly exactly as white and as educated as Alexandria. We just have a better lifestyle. And our schools are much better.

Loudoun median income: $178,707
Alexandria media income: $113,638

Median value of home (Loudoun): $701,000
Median value of home (Alexandria): $696,800

Foreign born (Loudoun): 26.7%
Foreign born (Alexandria): 24.6%

Loudoun proportion of white alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 50.4%
Alexandria proportion of white alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 49.5%

High school education, Loudoun: 94.1%
High school education, Alexandria: 92.9%

Bachelors degree, Loudoun: 64%
Bachelors degree, Alexandria: 65.8%


And just to cut you off before you make a straw man argument about commutes:

Mean travel time to work (Loudoun): 31.1 minutes
Mean travel time to work (Alexandria): 29.3 minutes




https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/loudouncountyvirginia,alexandriacityvirginia/COM100223

Ha.

All that and you cherry picked the data. Sad. You had to lie.

Look, there are a lot of ways that Alexandria is nicer than Loudoun or Fairfax or Arlington. The schools are the weak point.

You're just never going to get it. ACHS produces much better outcomes for UMC kids than any other school in the area with the exception of TJ, Langley and maaaaaaybe Mclean.

If you moved out of ACPS so your kid could attend Edison, South Lakes, Herndon, Chantily, Battlefield, Falls Church, Broad Run or a dozen others, you are a fool.

You don't have to like being wrong, but you are.

I would like to see what percentage of ACHS students get into top schools versus others. Their size is almost twice as big as some of these other schools so it makes sense. They’d be sending more kids to UVA, etc.But as I said elsewhere on this thread, admittance to top college is not the only thing that matters to me the overall school experience is important too.

There’s no evidence at all that ACHS produces better college acceptance outcomes.

The closest you can get is that each year the Alexandria Times publishes all of the schools where students are going. Some years it is better than others. Last year the list was pretty good. I recall a few years ago (the year the kid got stabbed in Bradlee right before graduation), there were only six T20 schools listed. Out of a class of 800 kids, that was pretty bad. Sure, a few of those schools may have had more than one attendee, and a few kids did ED to UVA that could have gotten into a higher ranked school or got in higher but went in-state. But even generous estimates maybe put the number of T20 admittances at 3-5% of the class.

Again, last year looked better. It varies from year to year but it isn’t clearly better than most of the top public high schools in the region, and maybe worse.

Well, that year, our kid got into a T40 school and will graduate in a few months. Plenty of his cohorts will do so as well from excellent schools. But please do sell and move to the burbs.

Alexandria is the burbs.

Not sure I understand your defensiveness. The point being debated was that ACHS has demonstrably better college acceptances than other schools. That’s not the case, but it doesn’t mean that kids don’t still get into good colleges. They just seem to get into good colleges at a similar or maybe somewhat slightly less frequent rate than other high schools in the region.

The City of Alexandria is not the burbs. Where do you people come up with this bs?

It’s a suburb of DC? This has been the case for like 170 years now, since I have a feeling you’re about to give me the whole “it used to be part of DC” thing.

[Anonymous]

We moved from 22314 last year after one year at GWMS. OP, I would start your child in ACPS for K and stay through mid-to-late elementary.

We loved our ACPS elementary school and had a fantastic experience there. Warm community, excellent teachers, and strong, responsive, caring admin. This was not our experience at GWMS. The admin 6th grade principal screamed at the students and threatened all of them with loss of privileges (despite it being only a few acting up), only one person in the entire administration would respond to anything even when we were having issues with a class transfer and time was of the essence, restrooms were locked, some teachers were excellent and some were going through the motions (including a math teacher who disappeared during the school year leaving revolving subs for the remainder).

Our experience at the current middle school has been the opposite, just a wonderful experience. The flip side is that our experience at the current elementary is not as great as at our ACPS elementary. The test scores are through the roof and it got "distinguished" instead of "off track" but it's triple the size of our ACPS elementary with a concomitant loss of community, and my middle child had the worst teacher any of my kids have ever had (shouldn't be in a classroom) last year and now the most disruptive student any have ever had (finally removed from the school for the remainder of this school year after yet another child was injured). Would we move again? Yes, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns here either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ahhhh, I'll go out on a limb and say because people like you fled to the white rural suburbs in Loudon....

So ..

Alexandria is whiter than Loudoun County, pp. (And FTR, that's how you spell Loudoun).

Loudoun is whiter, sweetie. Also poorer. And just crappier.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/virginia.html

So embarrassing....

Loudoun county is not poorer than Alexandria. It’s the wealthiest county in the US. Falls Church, Arlington and Fairfax are all more wealthy than Alexandria

Wrong again! Can you get anything right? City of Alexandria HHI is higher than Loudoun, not that anybody other than you would even question it.

How's life in the redneck sticks today? Lots of guns going off? Dogs barking wildly?

Man, you really need to stop confusing what you hear at The Whitley or whatever other housing project you pass by on your into Old Town with coming from Loudoun, PP. You sound deranged.

Anyway, Loudoun is higher income, has higher home values, is nearly exactly as white and as educated as Alexandria. We just have a better lifestyle. And our schools are much better.

Loudoun median income: $178,707
Alexandria media income: $113,638

Median value of home (Loudoun): $701,000
Median value of home (Alexandria): $696,800

Foreign born (Loudoun): 26.7%
Foreign born (Alexandria): 24.6%

Loudoun proportion of white alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 50.4%
Alexandria proportion of white alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 49.5%

High school education, Loudoun: 94.1%
High school education, Alexandria: 92.9%

Bachelors degree, Loudoun: 64%
Bachelors degree, Alexandria: 65.8%


And just to cut you off before you make a straw man argument about commutes:

Mean travel time to work (Loudoun): 31.1 minutes
Mean travel time to work (Alexandria): 29.3 minutes




https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/loudouncountyvirginia,alexandriacityvirginia/COM100223

Ha.

All that and you cherry picked the data. Sad. You had to lie.

Look, there are a lot of ways that Alexandria is nicer than Loudoun or Fairfax or Arlington. The schools are the weak point.

You're just never going to get it. ACHS produces much better outcomes for UMC kids than any other school in the area with the exception of TJ, Langley and maaaaaaybe Mclean.

If you moved out of ACPS so your kid could attend Edison, South Lakes, Herndon, Chantily, Battlefield, Falls Church, Broad Run or a dozen others, you are a fool.

You don't have to like being wrong, but you are.

I would like to see what percentage of ACHS students get into top schools versus others. Their size is almost twice as big as some of these other schools so it makes sense. They’d be sending more kids to UVA, etc.But as I said elsewhere on this thread, admittance to top college is not the only thing that matters to me the overall school experience is important too.

There’s no evidence at all that ACHS produces better college acceptance outcomes.

The closest you can get is that each year the Alexandria Times publishes all of the schools where students are going. Some years it is better than others. Last year the list was pretty good. I recall a few years ago (the year the kid got stabbed in Bradlee right before graduation), there were only six T20 schools listed. Out of a class of 800 kids, that was pretty bad. Sure, a few of those schools may have had more than one attendee, and a few kids did ED to UVA that could have gotten into a higher ranked school or got in higher but went in-state. But even generous estimates maybe put the number of T20 admittances at 3-5% of the class.

Again, last year looked better. It varies from year to year but it isn’t clearly better than most of the top public high schools in the region, and maybe worse.

Well, that year, our kid got into a T40 school and will graduate in a few months. Plenty of his cohorts will do so as well from excellent schools. But please do sell and move to the burbs.

Alexandria is the burbs.

Not sure I understand your defensiveness. The point being debated was that ACHS has demonstrably better college acceptances than other schools. That’s not the case, but it doesn’t mean that kids don’t still get into good colleges. They just seem to get into good colleges at a similar or maybe somewhat slightly less frequent rate than other high schools in the region.

There’s a big difference in “burbs” inside the Beltway and those located in the middle of nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Can folks say which elementary schools they are having positive / negative experiences with in ACPS? Zoned for Douglas Macarthur with a 3 year old and having similar debates as OP...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can folks say which elementary schools they are having positive / negative experiences with in ACPS? Zoned for Douglas Macarthur with a 3 year old and having similar debates as OP...

One of the problems on this thread is that people are commenting looking back or with kids in middle and high school and things are so different in all of Elementary education now. I hope that you get people with children currently in the schools who can give you information

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ahhhh, I'll go out on a limb and say because people like you fled to the white rural suburbs in Loudon....

So ..

Alexandria is whiter than Loudoun County, pp. (And FTR, that's how you spell Loudoun).

Loudoun is whiter, sweetie. Also poorer. And just crappier.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/virginia.html

So embarrassing....

Loudoun county is not poorer than Alexandria. It’s the wealthiest county in the US. Falls Church, Arlington and Fairfax are all more wealthy than Alexandria

Wrong again! Can you get anything right? City of Alexandria HHI is higher than Loudoun, not that anybody other than you would even question it.

How's life in the redneck sticks today? Lots of guns going off? Dogs barking wildly?

Man, you really need to stop confusing what you hear at The Whitley or whatever other housing project you pass by on your into Old Town with coming from Loudoun, PP. You sound deranged.

Anyway, Loudoun is higher income, has higher home values, is nearly exactly as white and as educated as Alexandria. We just have a better lifestyle. And our schools are much better.

Loudoun median income: $178,707
Alexandria media income: $113,638

Median value of home (Loudoun): $701,000
Median value of home (Alexandria): $696,800

Foreign born (Loudoun): 26.7%
Foreign born (Alexandria): 24.6%

Loudoun proportion of white alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 50.4%
Alexandria proportion of white alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 49.5%

High school education, Loudoun: 94.1%
High school education, Alexandria: 92.9%

Bachelors degree, Loudoun: 64%
Bachelors degree, Alexandria: 65.8%


And just to cut you off before you make a straw man argument about commutes:

Mean travel time to work (Loudoun): 31.1 minutes
Mean travel time to work (Alexandria): 29.3 minutes




https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/loudouncountyvirginia,alexandriacityvirginia/COM100223

Ha.

All that and you cherry picked the data. Sad. You had to lie.

Look, there are a lot of ways that Alexandria is nicer than Loudoun or Fairfax or Arlington. The schools are the weak point.

You're just never going to get it. ACHS produces much better outcomes for UMC kids than any other school in the area with the exception of TJ, Langley and maaaaaaybe Mclean.

If you moved out of ACPS so your kid could attend Edison, South Lakes, Herndon, Chantily, Battlefield, Falls Church, Broad Run or a dozen others, you are a fool.

You don't have to like being wrong, but you are.

I would like to see what percentage of ACHS students get into top schools versus others. Their size is almost twice as big as some of these other schools so it makes sense. They’d be sending more kids to UVA, etc.But as I said elsewhere on this thread, admittance to top college is not the only thing that matters to me the overall school experience is important too.

There’s no evidence at all that ACHS produces better college acceptance outcomes.

The closest you can get is that each year the Alexandria Times publishes all of the schools where students are going. Some years it is better than others. Last year the list was pretty good. I recall a few years ago (the year the kid got stabbed in Bradlee right before graduation), there were only six T20 schools listed. Out of a class of 800 kids, that was pretty bad. Sure, a few of those schools may have had more than one attendee, and a few kids did ED to UVA that could have gotten into a higher ranked school or got in higher but went in-state. But even generous estimates maybe put the number of T20 admittances at 3-5% of the class.

Again, last year looked better. It varies from year to year but it isn’t clearly better than most of the top public high schools in the region, and maybe worse.

Well, that year, our kid got into a T40 school and will graduate in a few months. Plenty of his cohorts will do so as well from excellent schools. But please do sell and move to the burbs.

Alexandria is the burbs.

Not sure I understand your defensiveness. The point being debated was that ACHS has demonstrably better college acceptances than other schools. That’s not the case, but it doesn’t mean that kids don’t still get into good colleges. They just seem to get into good colleges at a similar or maybe somewhat slightly less frequent rate than other high schools in the region.

There’s a big difference in “burbs” inside the Beltway and those located in the middle of nowhere.

I don’t disagree, actually. It’s just that moving to the burbs is also what people say when moving out of DC to Alexandria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can folks say which elementary schools they are having positive / negative experiences with in ACPS? Zoned for Douglas Macarthur with a 3 year old and having similar debates as OP...

Same, we are zoned for MVCS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved from 22314 last year after one year at GWMS. OP, I would start your child in ACPS for K and stay through mid-to-late elementary.

We loved our ACPS elementary school and had a fantastic experience there. Warm community, excellent teachers, and strong, responsive, caring admin. This was not our experience at GWMS. The admin 6th grade principal screamed at the students and threatened all of them with loss of privileges (despite it being only a few acting up), only one person in the entire administration would respond to anything even when we were having issues with a class transfer and time was of the essence, restrooms were locked, some teachers were excellent and some were going through the motions (including a math teacher who disappeared during the school year leaving revolving subs for the remainder).

Our experience at the current middle school has been the opposite, just a wonderful experience. The flip side is that our experience at the current elementary is not as great as at our ACPS elementary. The test scores are through the roof and it got "distinguished" instead of "off track" but it's triple the size of our ACPS elementary with a concomitant loss of community, and my middle child had the worst teacher any of my kids have ever had (shouldn't be in a classroom) last year and now the most disruptive student any have ever had (finally removed from the school for the remainder of this school year after yet another child was injured). Would we move again? Yes, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns here either.

Can you give an indication of what area you moved to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved from 22314 last year after one year at GWMS. OP, I would start your child in ACPS for K and stay through mid-to-late elementary.

We loved our ACPS elementary school and had a fantastic experience there. Warm community, excellent teachers, and strong, responsive, caring admin. This was not our experience at GWMS. The admin 6th grade principal screamed at the students and threatened all of them with loss of privileges (despite it being only a few acting up), only one person in the entire administration would respond to anything even when we were having issues with a class transfer and time was of the essence, restrooms were locked, some teachers were excellent and some were going through the motions (including a math teacher who disappeared during the school year leaving revolving subs for the remainder).

Our experience at the current middle school has been the opposite, just a wonderful experience. The flip side is that our experience at the current elementary is not as great as at our ACPS elementary. The test scores are through the roof and it got "distinguished" instead of "off track" but it's triple the size of our ACPS elementary with a concomitant loss of community, and my middle child had the worst teacher any of my kids have ever had (shouldn't be in a classroom) last year and now the most disruptive student any have ever had (finally removed from the school for the remainder of this school year after yet another child was injured). Would we move again? Yes, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns here either.

Can you give an indication of what area you moved to?

Budget and distance to DC were issues so we focused on Springfield/Burke (VRE/395) and Oakton/Chantilly/Fair Oaks (Metro/66) because one of us commutes into DC once/week for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can folks say which elementary schools they are having positive / negative experiences with in ACPS? Zoned for Douglas Macarthur with a 3 year old and having similar debates as OP...

I’m one of the pp’s with a generally positive experience. Our kids went through Brooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can folks say which elementary schools they are having positive / negative experiences with in ACPS? Zoned for Douglas Macarthur with a 3 year old and having similar debates as OP...

I’m one of the pp’s with a generally positive experience. Our kids went through Brooks.

Another PP with a positive elementary experience. Our kids were in Lyles Crouch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved from 22314 last year after one year at GWMS. OP, I would start your child in ACPS for K and stay through mid-to-late elementary.

We loved our ACPS elementary school and had a fantastic experience there. Warm community, excellent teachers, and strong, responsive, caring admin. This was not our experience at GWMS. The admin 6th grade principal screamed at the students and threatened all of them with loss of privileges (despite it being only a few acting up), only one person in the entire administration would respond to anything even when we were having issues with a class transfer and time was of the essence, restrooms were locked, some teachers were excellent and some were going through the motions (including a math teacher who disappeared during the school year leaving revolving subs for the remainder).

Our experience at the current middle school has been the opposite, just a wonderful experience. The flip side is that our experience at the current elementary is not as great as at our ACPS elementary. The test scores are through the roof and it got "distinguished" instead of "off track" but it's triple the size of our ACPS elementary with a concomitant loss of community, and my middle child had the worst teacher any of my kids have ever had (shouldn't be in a classroom) last year and now the most disruptive student any have ever had (finally removed from the school for the remainder of this school year after yet another child was injured). Would we move again? Yes, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns here either.

Can you give an indication of what area you moved to?

Budget and distance to DC were issues so we focused on Springfield/Burke (VRE/395) and Oakton/Chantilly/Fair Oaks (Metro/66) because one of us commutes into DC once/week for now.

Moving to Burke from Alexandria is like going to Chipotle because Le Dip was booked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest daughter will enter kindergarten next year. We had planned to send her to the elementary we are zoned for, one of the ones that's supposed to be "better" - but the recent abysmal report card from the state is seriously disturbing. Not a single school fully accredited in ACPS, almost all elementaries (including ours) listed as off track. I've seen many defend clerical issues that led to the scores, but even if that's true - it's no prize. It's also bad and indicative of the kind of environment that's been allowed to continue in the system here it seems.

It would be a huge stretch to pay for private. We love living in ALX, but it seems like the families around us much be much much richer if they can afford to send multiple kids to private school and continue to live in the community.

Do we just leave Alexandria for Bethesda or somewhere else? Uprooting our lives to move? Do we plant a money tree and hope for the best? What are families here doing?

Thanks.

Which school are you zoned for?

George Mason

I would not move if I was zoned for George Mason. They are getting a brand new beautiful school and the principal has a good reputation.

MacArthur is also currently a good school. There is no need to currently move if you you're zoned there. Also has a beautiful new school however the principal does not have a great reputation.

Rezoning goes into effect next year and this is something to keep an eye on if you have very young children. The makeup of both schools will look very different going forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can folks say which elementary schools they are having positive / negative experiences with in ACPS? Zoned for Douglas Macarthur with a 3 year old and having similar debates as OP...

My kid is at MacArthur it's generally been positive.