what is the big deal about Woodson?

[Anonymous]

Can someone please tell me what the big deal is about woodson? All the Fairfax moms I meet go on and on and on about how its just the best school in the world. I just don't know why though. I'm just curious.( and sick of their snotty attitudes). For the record, their kids and mine are barely in elementary school yet, but if anyone is wondering, we live in Vienna and are zones for Marshall.

[Anonymous]

Op here, sorry for the typos, my Droid is acting up.

Also, any info on Marshall would be appreciated too!

[Anonymous]

Woodson has good demographics (almost no townhouses, few apartments in-boundary- so a reasonably wealthy, mostly white population) so it has good test scores. It is also closer-in to DC, Tysons and Metro than some of the other schools in Fairfax, and you can get a decent home in the boundary for a relatively decent price. (for DC. nearly anywhere else it would be insane.)

According to my friends who went there, it is also kind of a pressure cooker. They're all very smart, successful people but they say that it could be a tough place to go to school - their peer group was pretty driven. I think it's smaller than Oakton, which has a rep for being good, but really big.

A friend of mine teaches at Marshall, and I've heard some really good things. Marshall was kind of marginal, middle-of-the-road for Fairfax for a long time, and the last few years it has really climbed up the rankings of the school district. It's up there with the other M's now - Madison and McLean. Your kids should be fine. I'd be more worried about Tysons traffic if I were you than Marshall.

[Anonymous]

Woodson is in a kind of crappy area. There are lots of TH developments around it, and the SF homes are older and smaller. Guess the families value education and raise their kids with those values.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, good to know. You are right, Tyson's traffic is a bear!

[Anonymous]

The deal with Woodson is that there are no apartment complexes that feed into the school, so the average test scores are high and folks who live in typical suburban single-family homes feel they are getting a good deal. Marshall is more diverse but the typical home in Vienna zoned to Marshall will be worth considerably more than a house in Fairfax or Annandale zoned
to Woodson, and the kids there get a good education as well. Marshall is also being renovated now, so hopefully by the time your kids are there they will be in a very nice facility.

[Anonymous]

Woodson is safe, has high test scores and a reputation for being a pressure cooker for those kids that are really driven. There are some townhomes and apartments, but not like the ones in Annandale. The area is solidly middle and upper middle-class with some, but not a ton, of diversity. One of the few school districts where you can get a very solid education all the way through the school pyramid without Vienna, Arlington or Mclean homeprices. The east part of the boundary is a particular deal right now bc of the recent redistricting. Prior the the change, the homes east of wakefield chapel were a bit cheaper.

[Anonymous]

No poor kids.

[Anonymous]

I agree with 8:17. We do not live in the Woodson pyramid, but adjacent to it, and our child is at the AAP center at Mantua (an ES school that feeds to Woodson).

The areas that feed into Woodson tend to be upper middle class, almost all SFHs (but mostly older and smaller) with relatively few THs/condos/apartments, although there are some. So this makes Woodson pretty homogenous (economically and educationally) without being super wealthy. Lots of dual career fed/fed contractor families, one lawyer/one SAHM type families. And IMO, they tend not to be as WASPy as similar Vienna area neighborhoods. There is a relatively large Jewish population in this area as well due to the proximity to the JCCNV, the Chabad Lubavitch and Congregation Olam Tikvah. The "diversity" in this area tends to be well educated Asian families.

[Anonymous]

09:43: WASPy Vienna neighborhoods? Must be a different part of Vienna than I live in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:09:43: WASPy Vienna neighborhoods? Must be a different part of Vienna than I live in

I was just thinking the same thing. My kids class picture looks like a meeting of the UN and I love it. We're a bi-racial family and the last thing I want is my kid to be in a classroom full of WASPs. I like the diversity that seems to live around the Marshall tier. I think being exposed to all types of social and economic differences can be a good thing. We live in a large upscale TH by choice, so I don't know why people put THs down. We are not "backyard bbq" kind of people, so we don't feel the need to really have a SF. (We sold ours) We lived in a condo in the city and loved it, but needed room for the kids, I think a TH is a good compromise.

To stay on topic though, is Woodson its self really that great of a HS? I've driven past it and Frost and they seem a bit run down, as did the neighborhoods around them. I'm just wondering why all the hype- is it true or do some moms just want it to sound so good b/c they are insecure around people from wealthier areas?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No poor kids.

And this makes it that much better? Come on.

[Anonymous]

9:43 here. Of course I am speaking in generalizations. I feely admit my experience/impressions of Vienna were formed by house hunting there 10 years ago with a very WASPy Vienna realtor LOL! And by my experience with a Vienna preschool that was really an embodiment of old Virginia.

Woodson was renovated extensively a few years ago and Frost is due for a reno in a few years. And in recent years Woodson test scores are similar to Madison.

[Anonymous]

Woodson test scores have been higher than Madison for years.

Vienna isn't really super WASPy, but it doesn't have a large Jewish community or one or more large synagogues in town as there are in Fairfax, Falls Church or Alexandria. On the other hand, there are an increasing number of Asian families as well as families from the Mideast in Vienna.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:09:43: WASPy Vienna neighborhoods? Must be a different part of Vienna than I live in

I was just thinking the same thing. My kids class picture looks like a meeting of the UN and I love it. We're a bi-racial family and the last thing I want is my kid to be in a classroom full of WASPs. I like the diversity that seems to live around the Marshall tier. I think being exposed to all types of social and economic differences can be a good thing. We live in a large upscale TH by choice, so I don't know why people put THs down. We are not "backyard bbq" kind of people, so we don't feel the need to really have a SF. (We sold ours) We lived in a condo in the city and loved it, but needed room for the kids, I think a TH is a good compromise.

To stay on topic though, is Woodson its self really that great of a HS? I've driven past it and Frost and they seem a bit run down, as did the neighborhoods around them. I'm just wondering why all the hype- is it true or do some moms just want it to sound so good b/c they are insecure around people from wealthier areas?

It's a good school in most of the ways that count in NoVa. Woodson was just renovated, so it's not at all run down. And, yes, some Woodson parents are insecure, as evidenced by their putting Annandale HS down so vocally.