Someone tell me about Luther Jackson Middle School
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Anonymous
| Besides the fact that it's in a terrible area, is the school good? Principal? I heard there were new renovations being paid for by Mosiac District that is going up. I heard they paid for the fields or something? Astroturf? Does someone know? Also i keep hearing that they have GT at Luther. Don't all the schools have GT? |
Anonymous
| All schools have honors. Luther Jackson is an AAP center. I know that, in Vienna, a lot of parents do not send their Level IV AAP students to Luther Jackson, and instead send the children to Thoreau. |
Anonymous
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I have a student at Luther Jackson, in the AAP center. We are very pleased with the school and the staff. The teachers know my child, the staff are friendly, and I've gotten good responses when I have had (minor) issues that need attention. The academics are good, the quality of instruction high, and the facilities comparable to other FCPS schools of that age.
There is a new artificial turf field at the school that had a grand opening a few weeks ago. I am not a sports person so I don't know much about it, but the school seemed very happy about it. It is true that some parents don't send their kids to Luther Jackson, but based on my conversations with some of those parents, their decision seems to be based more on fear than actual information. We are very happy with the school and have not seen any evidence of the things Vienna parents were afraid of (other than higher melanin content and a greater number of ESL parents, which might well have been what they were afraid of. I'm saying this because it's an anonymous forum.) I also think that the more intensely gifted kids were among the group who chose to go to LJMS, and that may actually be a good thing for the school. |
Anonymous
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Merrifield isn't a "terrible area." Parts of it are semi-industrial, but the Mosaic District is going to be great.
My bet is that most Thoreau parents whose kids get into AAP now send their kids to Jackson, not Thoreau. To put it in perspective, when the GT program started at Jackson in 2008, there were 117 GT students. The number has grown every year to 160 (2009), 188 (2010), and 220 (2011). In addition, I think some parents keep their kids at Thoreau, rather than send them to Jackson, so they'll be at middle school with other kids going to Madison HS, since the rest of Jackson feeds into Oakton and Falls Church HS. That was less of an issue when these kids were assigned to the AAP center at Kilmer, because Kilmer splits between Madison and Marshall. |
Anonymous
| I don't see why you'd refer to it as a terrible area. I live a couple miles up the street, and it seems very safe to me, albeit a bit too industrial and dusty as all the new construction is going on. |
Anonymous
I live in the area too and i call it terrible b/c it IS terrible. I do not mean filled with crime -- I mean messy, traffic, filled with construction dust, major dangerous roads and the Middle school is right there on 3 major highways -- Rt 50, 496 and Gallows and it's too close to the road. That's what I mean by terrible. |
Anonymous
I guess it is a busy area, though Kilmer MS is also just off of Gallows (closer to Tysons), Thoreau MS is across from a strip mall and a 7-11 where a bunch of day laborers usually congregate, and Frost MS is very close to Route 236, which gets a lot of traffic. Maybe it will seem less chaotic when some of the construction settles down. |
Anonymous
| What is the chance that these children will go back to Kilmer verses Luther Jackson? As a parent living in Vienna with a student scheduled to go to Kilmer I am upset that there are few children going on to Madison from Kilmer. Originally when we bought our house all the AAP kids in Vienna went to Kilmer so it wasn't a big deal that we weren't slated to go to Thoreau, but now the Vienna children are split between 3 schools. I have nothing against either school except that I want my children to not have to start high school with a lot of people they don't know and have to leave behind friends going on to a different high school. It made much more sense when these children went to Kilmer. If not, when Thoreau gets redone could all the children from Vienna go to AAP there? |
Anonymous
Even after the shift of some of the Kilmer AAP students to Jackson, FCPS is projecting Kilmer to be over 120% capacity in 2015. So I wouldn't expect a change in the AAP assignments from Jackson to Kilmer. Maybe they could add capacity to Thoreau when it gets renovated and put an AAP program there, too. The cleanest solution to your issue would be to have all of Kilmer (which now splits about 30% Madison, 70% Marshall) go to Marshall and all of Thoreau (which now splits about 20% Marshall, 80% Madison) assigned to Madison. That would probably require some boundary adjustments at both the middle and high school level, though, since the neighborhoods right around Thoreau currently are assigned to Marshall, even though most Thoreau students go to Madison. For various reasons, FCPS hasn't been willing to consider that change, even though it would result in more closely aligned "pyramids." |
Anonymous
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I know this post from a couple months ago but still, this is in case anyone else sees the post. I personally am I student at Luther Jackson Middle School that is part of the AA (Advanced Academics also known as GT program) program. It truly is a great school. I must admit that there was once an incident involving drug use but other than that, the school has a generally clean record. None of the rumors that I had heard before attending the school turned out to be true. I feel that it is a very safe and secure environment for students.
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Anonymous
| I wouldn’t say terrible area but terrible staff working for the school, starting from the Principal, Counselors, they care nothing about the students. You cannot trust them, they are just bad news! Everything is just a mess! |
Anonymous
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Middle school years can be tough on everyone. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any middle school where all the parents and students are satisfied.
Since the first series of posts, however, FCPS has noted in the latest CIP that, at some point years from now, it wants to build an addition at either Kilmer or Jackson. If the addition were built at Kilmer, perhaps some of the Vienna students sent to Jackson for AAP could move back to Kilmer. Not sure how likely that would be, however, since it would leave Jackson with a much smaller AAP program. |
Anonymous
| We are interesting in the 22124 zip code of Oakton. We like the area because of the approximity to vienna metro, the townhouses are realatively affordable. However, I have heard only negative things about Luther Jackson. For parents who lives in the area with children in elementary school. I wonder if most are sending their kids to luther jackson or are there any alternatives. |
Anonymous
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If you're patient, you could find a townhouse in Vienna (22180 or 22181) near the Metro that feeds into Thoreau instead. Otherwise, the area you're describing is assigned to Jackson. If you can afford a private middle school, you could always look at Flint Hill.
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Anonymous
| to 18:16: If you've only heard negative things about Luther Jackson, scroll up and read some positive ones. My child is there now and I am very, very happy with it. |