Tell me about Annandale HS - why the bad rap?

[Anonymous]

I just moved to the Annandale HS district and my kids are not in school yet. They are young -- 2 and 4. Everyone keeps telling me how awful the school is and I checked test scores, poverty levels online and it does appear unfavorable with statistics. I don't understand this -- Annandale HS is in a really nice area, with nice homes, great families, etc. It's not like the area it pulls from is a housing project, ghetto with everyone on welfare (not that there is anything wrong with that, but it just is not that kind of area). It's upper middle class with families in single-family homes. I don't understand the weak test score, performance, free-lunches, etc and it's bad reputation for gangs, etc. Where are these gangs? We are in the 'burbs in upper middle class neighborhoods!! Can someone shed some light?

[Anonymous]

You're missing the trees for the forest. Annandale is an upper middle class suburb with many, many low income, immigrant workers spread throughout the community in apartment complexes and low income housing. I think Annandale High gets a bad rap because the school is very diverse - both socioeconomically and culturally. Also, and this is just a guess, I think the school skews towards the lower end because many of those beautiful homes are owned by original owners (who no longer have kids in school) or by those who can afford to send their kids to private schools. There is also a very high Korean population there - many are looking to live near TJ, so they are close when their children go there. These are just observations, of course. No real data for my conclusions.

[Anonymous]

The upper middle class families in single-family homes opt to send their kids to private school or pupil place to an AP high school (Woodson or Lake Braddock depending upon address) to avoid sending their kids to Annandale HS.

Annandale HS is filled with kids from the apartments on 236 and off Heritage Drive.

[Anonymous]

Hi there,
Ok so it pulls from apartments that are very low income? There must be a lot of those around here -- I know of some but not many.

My Dh and I are trying to decide if we should move.....

[Anonymous]

Your kids are 2 and 4, right? Why be in a such a rush to move now? See how the school system works for you and then decide. If you bought a house in Annandale without realizing that Annandale High is one of the top Fairfax County schools and are now shocked to see that's the case, I'd say you were awfully short-sighted the first time around. Don't repeat that mistake by acting too irrationally right now when your kids aren't even in school yet. Plus, there are some great preschools and Catholic schools in Annandale.

[Anonymous]

Greatschools.net

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi there,
Ok so it pulls from apartments that are very low income? There must be a lot of those around here -- I know of some but not many.

My Dh and I are trying to decide if we should move.....

I would not move yet as your kids are young. A lot can change in a decade -- your job situation might change, for example, so you would want to move to fit a new commute.

Here is the current Annandale HS boundary - this is subject to change over the next decade, too:

http://www.fcps.edu/images/boundarymaps/annandalehs.pdf

[Anonymous]

Most of the neighborhoods that feed into Annandale HS are quite nice. The poverty in Annandale is concentrated in the two areas - the Landmark/Lincolnia area and the garden apartment complexes off Heritage and west of Ravensworth Road. These areas aren't as distressed as Culmore in Falls Church or the Route 1 corredor in Alexandria, but they are up there. Go further west to the Woodson HS district, and you're in an area where it's almost entirely SFHs. Obviously, people are going to compare the two schools and say Annandale suffers by comparison. If you're prepared to look past that, you'd find that there are a lot of "people like you" who do send their kids to Annandale and are happy with the school. When FCPS decided to redistrict part of the Wakefield Forest area to Woodson a year or two ago to relieve overcrowding at Annandale, the community was split, but there were dozens of Wakefield Forest parents who did not want their kids moved to Woodson.

[Anonymous]

The single-family home parts of Annandale are probably just fine. I'd at least give the schools a chance. If you have to move, rent out your home for a couple years, and rent a place in one of the better-regarded HS zones.

[Anonymous]

We are in a somewhat similiar boat in the Franconia-Twain-Edison pyramid. Our kids are the same age and we just bought a nice single family house and can't understand why our school system is deemed so poor. We are surrounded by nice single family homes in the $700k-$1 million range and townhouses in the $500k range.

We are new to the area but from what I gather, many wealthier families send their children to private school and/or move by the time the children are in junior high/high school. I think if they are smart enough, they test into GT centers and eventually attend TJ. I have not met one person in the area who actually attended or currently attends TJ even though we live so close to this school. This probably has more to do with the fact that my kids are under age 5 so we don't know many high schoolers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to the Annandale HS district and my kids are not in school yet. They are young -- 2 and 4. Everyone keeps telling me how awful the school is and I checked test scores, poverty levels online and it does appear unfavorable with statistics. I don't understand this -- Annandale HS is in a really nice area, with nice homes, great families, etc. It's not like the area it pulls from is a housing project, ghetto with everyone on welfare (not that there is anything wrong with that, but it just is not that kind of area). It's upper middle class with families in single-family homes. I don't understand the weak test score, performance, free-lunches, etc and it's bad reputation for gangs, etc. Where are these gangs? We are in the 'burbs in upper middle class neighborhoods!! Can someone shed some light?

I have been to Annandale high once, and it was many years ago, but it was enough to know not to ever live in that district. I remember looking for a women's bathroom, but every bathroom that I found had no doors. The doors had been removed from the bathrooms and you could see right in to where the stalls were...which also had no doors. They had also been removed. And there was graffiti everywhere. That told me everything I needed to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I have been to Annandale high once, and it was many years ago, but it was enough to know not to ever live in that district. I remember looking for a women's bathroom, but every bathroom that I found had no doors. The doors had been removed from the bathrooms and you could see right in to where the stalls were...which also had no doors. They had also been removed. And there was graffiti everywhere. That told me everything I needed to know.

Yes. The quality of a school can always be determined by the state of its toilets and urinals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I have been to Annandale high once, and it was many years ago, but it was enough to know not to ever live in that district. I remember looking for a women's bathroom, but every bathroom that I found had no doors. The doors had been removed from the bathrooms and you could see right in to where the stalls were...which also had no doors. They had also been removed. And there was graffiti everywhere. That told me everything I needed to know.

Yes. The quality of a school can always be determined by the state of its toilets and urinals.

In fact, it can. This tells you that things were going on in the bathrooms that the school felt needed to stop - that's almost certainly drugs, drinking, vandalism, sex, and similar. Then it tells you that the school's solution to this was to remove all doors, leaving students no privacy to break the rules and laws....or to use the bathroom. So the students act like criminals, and the school treats them like prisoners. What a great learning environment, I can't wait to send my kid there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

In fact, it can. This tells you that things were going on in the bathrooms that the school felt needed to stop - that's almost certainly drugs, drinking, vandalism, sex, and similar. Then it tells you that the school's solution to this was to remove all doors, leaving students no privacy to break the rules and laws....or to use the bathroom. So the students act like criminals, and the school treats them like prisoners. What a great learning environment, I can't wait to send my kid there.

My guess is that you'll send your child to a school with nicer bathrooms; drugs, drinking and sex, if not vandalism, will occur in the stalls; the administration won't lift a finger unless someone ODs on school grounds; and everyone will be happy, because the parents don't see much graffiti and the kids can get away with things they couldn't get away with if they went to Annandale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been to Annandale high once, and it was many years ago

and your post is relevant because?