Should we leave Alexandria?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - what do you want for your child and from your school? I'm struggling with the shortcomings of the deficient physical space in our ACPS ES. I also know that my ES kids would be in a more pleasant space and better served in schools that had much fewer English language learners. But my older child is doing well at the HS, and will go to college and be set up for life that is realistic for that DC. But that DC was never ivy bound. ACHS served that DC well. My DC in a Virginia university is outperforming peers, and ACHS unquestionably academically prepared that DC. That DC also gets to come home to our great neighborhood on holiday and spend time with close friends.

I think you have touched on something, your older kids went through a different school system than your younger one is in. Education has changed a lot in a decade.

PP here. Agree. In 5 years. Our ES went from one of the better to Title I. There was also some really disheartening analysis on a FB page that it is white kids who are seeing marked performance declines. The elimination of meaningful gifted education seems to have consequences.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'll take the top 10% of ACHS college placement ANYDAY over the top 10% of any other HS in Arlington. It's not even close.

If your kid is normal and from a decent family they will crush it at AC. If your kid is damaged and you don't have the funds to deal with it, well, youre screwed everywhere.

is this what ACPS parents tell themselves to make you feel better? This is not true at all. Look at the instagram college feeds from APS high schools. Ivies, MIT, top SLACs - how can you do better than that?

ACHS grads crush Arlington grads and everyone knows this.That's the entire point that makes Arlington families so angry, that and their racist tendencies.

Go look at ACHSdecisions26 and try to claim it's worse than any of the WL, Yorktown feeds. Hint- it's not. It's leagues above.

Noe ask yourself why that bothers you so much.

Not the PP. They don’t know the bolded because it isn’t true.

Here are the destinations for ACHS class of 25 (page 11): https://alextimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/5.29.25-Layout-C.pdf

Here is the same for Yorktown, though this looks like an incomplete list (there are some people on the Instagram page not included in this list at a quick glance): https://yorktownsentry.com/16953/galleries/the-senior-issue-graduation-2025/

ACHS had 984 total grads. Yorktown had 641. Of the top 20 colleges using USNWR, ACHS had kids going to 7 of them. Yorktown had kids going to 6 of them, despite the class being a third smaller and not even having the full list. ACHS is not “crushing” or being “leagues above” anything. And I say this as an Alexandria parent who really wishes it were true.

The one area it probably excels is as a feeder to UVA, as it is easier to be toward the top at ACHS and UVA seems to limit how many kids they take from each school.

Tell me you don't work in statistics without telling me you don't work in statistics. Please God don't tell me you work in polling..... or admit that you do and really work in proving bias.

"incomplete list"

"of the top 20 that use USNWR"

Butttttttt, you still want to use the data to claim that APS is better when the data you supplied showed the actual opposite. But there are reasons!!!

Look, lady, IDGAF at this stage in the game (in terms of a pissing match) because TC/AC put my two oldest in top 20 schools and my youngest just got ED to UVA, but if you see some utility in trying to convince me they would have done better at... Wakefield.... keep pissing in the wind.

Lol you accuse people of not understanding statistics but you fail to see that the ACHS results are not better when adjusted for size or that the Yorktown list has acceptances missing. You also fail to see that your earlier argument was that ACHS results “crushed” Arlington schools and were “leagues above,” when they actually are worse (again, adjusted for size, which is likely a concept beyond your understanding).

More importantly, you sound completely crazy. OP, this is the fun you get to experience in Alexandria!

You can't adjust if the data is incomplete, fool. So, you dont know anything about statistics. Thanks for the admission. Now tell us why this bothers you so much that you had to rapid fire respond three times in a row when you were wrong?

You can if you know how many kids graduated, fool. The number of kids that graduated is not based on those lists—we know it separately through basic googling. So 6 (at a minimum) of the T20 schools for a class of 641, versus 7 of the T20 for a class of 984. Yorktown’s result is already better on a per capita basis without knowing if there are other schools we haven’t included yet beyond the 6. We can also conclude that a larger share of the top 10% (which was also being debated) goes to top schools at Yorktown than at ACHS. See? Not that hard if you apply even the slightest amount of brain power.

As to your question of why I responded when I was right*, the answer is that there is a pervasive myth in Alexandria that if you can survive ACHS, it offers better college outcomes than other places. The old “Yale or jail” trope. But it’s actually more like UVA/VT or jail. Which is fine. But people shouldn’t be tricked into staying in ACHS just for better college outcomes when there aren’t any.

Statistics are exact, fool. They are not to massaged to your conclusion. I have no doubt you know this but your odd anger is preventing you from playing by the rules so I call it out this last time. Two of my three kids got into T20 and the third s at UVA. Find me an APS family that can claim the same or STFU. I'm done being your therapist.

One anecdote doesn’t prove your point. And if you think this is hard to find in APS, well that just shows you don’t know anything about APS. My own family is one and there are many more. Look, a truly talented kid can do well from anywhere including ACPS. And I wonder if it’s easier for a high stats kid to get into UVA from ACPS because there’s less competition within the school for these slots. But that does not speak well of the school itself.

[Anonymous]

From the sidelines:

Interesting to see so much Confirmation Bias from so many people in one thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll take the top 10% of ACHS college placement ANYDAY over the top 10% of any other HS in Arlington. It's not even close.

If your kid is normal and from a decent family they will crush it at AC. If your kid is damaged and you don't have the funds to deal with it, well, youre screwed everywhere.

is this what ACPS parents tell themselves to make you feel better? This is not true at all. Look at the instagram college feeds from APS high schools. Ivies, MIT, top SLACs - how can you do better than that?

ACHS grads crush Arlington grads and everyone knows this.That's the entire point that makes Arlington families so angry, that and their racist tendencies.

Go look at ACHSdecisions26 and try to claim it's worse than any of the WL, Yorktown feeds. Hint- it's not. It's leagues above.

Noe ask yourself why that bothers you so much.

This has got to be a troll post and the cited instagram page is wrong. The 2026 decisions for both W-L and Yorktown far surpass ACHS. There's no argument there. It's not even close.

Here's the complete list for all area schools posting college acceptance. Go to the most recent page:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/315/1304598.page

"Not rven close"

The first ten pages of Wake's decisions are:

NC A&T
Elon
Howard
'Southern Utah University' Is that even real?
Liberty
VCU
And a smattering of brown kids who got into UVA

Yeah! They are killing it!!!



How embarassing.

It’s really awful behavior to belittle the colleges that kids are going to. What is wrong with you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. WL is even more embarassing. Rochester? Fordham? Gettysburg???Muhlenberg?? Alabama? Occidental? Ugg, this is painful to look at.

Don’t worry, just research the schools you listed other than Alabama and start spending time with people who went to college and the list won’t be so painful. They’re actually well known and well regarded, it’s just they’re more known amongst professionals and people who work with a lot of college graduates. Less known amongst lay people but trust me, all good schools

The PP was obviously trolling. The WL and Yorktown college lists are both impressive with all the typical top schools / ivies and strong, smaller schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. WL is even more embarassing. Rochester? Fordham? Gettysburg???Muhlenberg?? Alabama? Occidental? Ugg, this is painful to look at.

Don’t worry, just research the schools you listed other than Alabama and start spending time with people who went to college and the list won’t be so painful. They’re actually well known and well regarded, it’s just they’re more known amongst professionals and people who work with a lot of college graduates. Less known amongst lay people but trust me, all good schools

The PP was obviously trolling. The WL and Yorktown college lists are both impressive with all the typical top schools / ivies and strong, smaller schools.

Not so much. Hiring manager here. I'd never take a kid from those schools. Elon is a finishing school for rich druggies and Howard is an indoctrination facility. I wouldnt send my kids to either for free

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. When comparing ACPS v APS, remember that Arlington kids are eligible for TJ, so arguably, the best and brightest of Arlington are going to TJ and all of Alexandria kids are at AC. Hence I would have expected much better results from AC given their pool is the entirety of ACPS brain trust.

A precious few APS kids go to TJ. Overall , APS has far more students than ACPS, so this doesn’t seem like a valid argument.

If you enjoy your neighborhood and home and you’re zoned for one of the better ACPS schools, it could be worth giving the school a try. We love living in our very walkable neighborhood and have been happy with our neighborhood school. I have points of comparison since I’ve taught for many years in APS and FCPS. I’m confident that my kids are getting a comparable education. If at any point we feel it’s necessary, we’ll switch to private. That never became the case for our oldest, who is at an excellent college.

Which ones would you consider better? LC, Mason, Brooks?

Certainly LC and Brooks. Our younger DC (now at GW) has made friends with some former Mason students who seem great, but I don’t have as much insight on that school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. WL is even more embarassing. Rochester? Fordham? Gettysburg???Muhlenberg?? Alabama? Occidental? Ugg, this is painful to look at.

Don’t worry, just research the schools you listed other than Alabama and start spending time with people who went to college and the list won’t be so painful. They’re actually well known and well regarded, it’s just they’re more known amongst professionals and people who work with a lot of college graduates. Less known amongst lay people but trust me, all good schools

here's the actual WL link:
https://www.instagram.com/wldecisions26_/

You conveniently forgot about U Penn (2), Dartmouth (2), Kenyon, Duke (2), Richmond, Wesleyan, lots of UVA and W&M, Smith, NYU (2), Lehigh, and Brown.

ACPS is not even close to this.

[Anonymous]

I get that college acceptance rates are important, but there are other factors too.

My MS (Hammond) kid had to deal with not enough bathrooms, insufficient passing time between classes in an overcrowded building (and finding classroom doors locked per school rules when arriving 1 min. late as a result), administrators moving through the halls yelling at kids thru bullhorns, the cafeteria running out of food, and the general feel of a place that’s more like a prison than a human educational institution. The icing on the cake is watching a parent bring up the bathroom issue and the superintendent just responding, “bathrooms are available.”

So at least while they’re in MS, even fabulous college admissions are unable to compensate for daily life in these buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get that college acceptance rates are important, but there are other factors too.

My MS (Hammond) kid had to deal with not enough bathrooms, insufficient passing time between classes in an overcrowded building (and finding classroom doors locked per school rules when arriving 1 min. late as a result), administrators moving through the halls yelling at kids thru bullhorns, the cafeteria running out of food, and the general feel of a place that’s more like a prison than a human educational institution. The icing on the cake is watching a parent bring up the bathroom issue and the superintendent just responding, “bathrooms are available.”

So at least while they’re in MS, even fabulous college admissions are unable to compensate for daily life in these buildings.

Were bathrooms locked or just not enough of them? I’ve heard the former but never knew how prevalent it was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get that college acceptance rates are important, but there are other factors too.

My MS (Hammond) kid had to deal with not enough bathrooms, insufficient passing time between classes in an overcrowded building (and finding classroom doors locked per school rules when arriving 1 min. late as a result), administrators moving through the halls yelling at kids thru bullhorns, the cafeteria running out of food, and the general feel of a place that’s more like a prison than a human educational institution. The icing on the cake is watching a parent bring up the bathroom issue and the superintendent just responding, “bathrooms are available.”

So at least while they’re in MS, even fabulous college admissions are unable to compensate for daily life in these buildings.

Were bathrooms locked or just not enough of them? I’ve heard the former but never knew how prevalent it was.

Bathrooms were locked, apparently because of the shenanigans kids get into in them. Because the schools are overcrowded and can give no real consequences for bad behavior.

So they announced that “select” bathrooms would be locked during passing time but open only during class time. Not the first or last 10 minutes of class, or something to that effect. So kids have to miss instruction to use the bathroom. And because so many of them are locked allllll the time, they lose a lot of time walking to the few that are open and waiting to use those. Good times.

[Anonymous]

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.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. We were in the exact same position in 2004. We "emigrated" to Burke and never looked back. Bigger house, lovely community, wonderful school system that reminded me of my upbringing. Each of our 3 kids went to a T50 (or better).

[Anonymous]

Burke is great. I live close in because the commute to Burke is too much, but every time we visit friends there I think how lovely it would be to live there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...

I think you have touched on something, your older kids went through a different school system than your younger one is in. Education has changed a lot in a decade.

Yup. ACPS has never been spectacular, but (1) some of the individual Elementaries were very good, and (2) a student with strong support could go through the ACPS system and do very well. That's simply no longer the case. There is not a single good Elementary in Alexandria, and the Middles are in horribly rough shape. The former TC is mismanaged and the two-campus system doesn't;t work in the slightest. But if ACPS sets up two fully separate high schools, only one will have all the academic sweeteners (full roster of AP courses, an active HS newspaper, etc) - the School Board has indicated as much for years.

ACPS is completely busted. Nothing will bring it back. Literally no one with any authority cares. That's all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...

I think you have touched on something, your older kids went through a different school system than your younger one is in. Education has changed a lot in a decade.

Yup. ACPS has never been spectacular, but (1) some of the individual Elementaries were very good, and (2) a student with strong support could go through the ACPS system and do very well. That's simply no longer the case. There is not a single good Elementary in Alexandria, and the Middles are in horribly rough shape. The former TC is mismanaged and the two-campus system doesn't;t work in the slightest. But if ACPS sets up two fully separate high schools, only one will have all the academic sweeteners (full roster of AP courses, an active HS newspaper, etc) - the School Board has indicated as much for years.

ACPS is completely busted. Nothing will bring it back. Literally no one with any authority cares. That's all.

They should’ve done an HB Woodlawn type lottery school in the west end.