Your thoughts on Haycock elementary please

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Timber Lane and Chesterbrook both have Local Level IV I think and are in Haycock's AAP boundaries. Where are all the students coming from anyway? Haycock itself or one of the other 6 schools that feed into it?

Franklin Sherman and Shrevewood send a lot of kids to Haycock for AAP. They could probably fill a class and a half with those two schools alone and neither has LLIV. Each year, a few more trickle in from Chesterbrook after being unhappy with their LLIV program. An argument could be made for switching the Franklin Sherman Kids to Churchill Road, but the Shrevewood kids don't have another center within a 20 minute drive.

[Anonymous]

20:43. Someone on another post was just commenting that there were 30 children in each of three 1st grades for a total of 90 students. I saw about 82 students listed in 1st grade in Haycock and four classrooms. So to me it appears there are more teachers at Haycock this year than some other local schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the more well off local schools surrounding Haycock have larger classes. Haycock even has a 1st grade of 15 children when neighboring schools have combination classes when they can't make a full class work. Not sure why, but they really do have lower class sizes compared to other schools. By at least 2-3 teachers per school it seems. I think it's great. I think all schools should have those size classes.

Haycock K & 1st grade classes last year were larger --mostly upper 20s creeping on 30. They must have added additional classes/ teachers for this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the more well off local schools surrounding Haycock have larger classes. Haycock even has a 1st grade of 15 children when neighboring schools have combination classes when they can't make a full class work. Not sure why, but they really do have lower class sizes compared to other schools. By at least 2-3 teachers per school it seems. I think it's great. I think all schools should have those size classes.

This is the problem with judging from the outside. That first grade class is in a classroom that is about half the size of other classrooms. It likely cannot legally accommodate a larger number of students.
Last year, Haycock had at least two 5th grade classes that had 32 students...so they are not above experiencing large class sizes. Last year the third grade classes were some of the smallest in the school. This year, they dropped a third grade class and allocated those teachers elsewhere so the third grade has class sizes on the larger end of the spectrum. Haycock class sizes fluctuate each year, just like every other school.

My child had 32 in a fourth grade class at Haycock last year. Everyone there was complaining about large class sizes, so I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that they are smaller than local schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My child had 32 in a fourth grade class at Haycock last year. Everyone there was complaining about large class sizes, so I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that they are smaller than local schools.

I think people were looking at the class lists posted on Haycock's web page for this fall. However, the class sizes may end up larger than those lists suggests, since the school noted that some students whose parents had not completed all the paperwork had not yet been assigned to classrooms.

[Anonymous]

I'm happy the school has smaller class sizes this year. I don't think any mom of a first grader should be worried about her child going into a class of 30 children either in the beginning of the school year or later on in the year. There should be caps on regular school classrooms as well both for the sanity of the teacher and to allow enough space per pupil.

[Anonymous]

I'd move a mile down the road and buy in the Jamestown district. My friend's fourth grader there has 21 students in her class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd move a mile down the road and buy in the Jamestown district. My friend's fourth grader there has 21 students in her class.

Yep, everyone is super happy at Jamestown:

http://www.arlnow.com/2012/05/25/jamestown-pta-upset-with-trailer-placement/

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1101930342444-43/JES+Relocatables+052312.pdf

Also, be sure that your child is in the right grade the right year, since some classes there are over 25 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd move a mile down the road and buy in the Jamestown district. My friend's fourth grader there has 21 students in her class.

Yep, everyone is super happy at Jamestown:

http://www.arlnow.com/2012/05/25/jamestown-pta-upset-with-trailer-placement/

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1101930342444-43/JES+Relocatables+052312.pdf

Also, be sure that your child is in the right grade the right year, since some classes there are over 25 students.

Because a brush up at Jamestown over new trailers somehow puts Haycock in a better light?? Haycock surely has more trailers than Jamestown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd move a mile down the road and buy in the Jamestown district. My friend's fourth grader there has 21 students in her class.

There are severe capacity issues on the horizon in North Arlington:

http://www.arlnow.com/2011/01/21/capacity-crisis-looming-for-arlington-public-schools/

If you want to move into that the Jamestown district with these uncertainties, go ahead. It is one way to hold down the enrollment at Haycock, but people may end up in over-crowded schools at all three levels (elementary, middle and high school) in Arlington instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd move a mile down the road and buy in the Jamestown district. My friend's fourth grader there has 21 students in her class.

There are severe capacity issues on the horizon in North Arlington:

http://www.arlnow.com/2011/01/21/capacity-crisis-looming-for-arlington-public-schools/

If you want to move into that the Jamestown district with these uncertainties, go ahead. It is one way to hold down the enrollment at Haycock, but people may end up in over-crowded schools at all three levels (elementary, middle and high school) in Arlington instead.

+1. In fact, most if not all of the public schools that are considered "more desirable" in the area are having overcrowding and/or large class size issues, or see those issues looming in the near future. There have been numerous threads here and elsewhere (city-data forums, etc.) about these issues in North Arlington, MoCo, and some of the JKLM schools in NW DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd move a mile down the road and buy in the Jamestown district. My friend's fourth grader there has 21 students in her class.

There are severe capacity issues on the horizon in North Arlington:

http://www.arlnow.com/2011/01/21/capacity-crisis-looming-for-arlington-public-schools/

If you want to move into that the Jamestown district with these uncertainties, go ahead. It is one way to hold down the enrollment at Haycock, but people may end up in over-crowded schools at all three levels (elementary, middle and high school) in Arlington instead.

The trailer thing is over. It's a non-issue at Jamestown now.

Even with the capacity issues in Arlington, class sizes will remain much lower relative to Fairfax and Haycock.

The new Williamsburg ES will be built within a year or so, and that will absorb much of the capacity.

My 2nd grader has 23 in her class. My 4th grader has 21.

K registration is lower than expected b/c parents who know they'll be rezoned for the new ES are holding off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The trailer thing is over. It's a non-issue at Jamestown now.

Even with the capacity issues in Arlington, class sizes will remain much lower relative to Fairfax and Haycock.

The new Williamsburg ES will be built within a year or so, and that will absorb much of the capacity.

My 2nd grader has 23 in her class. My 4th grader has 21.

K registration is lower than expected b/c parents who know they'll be rezoned for the new ES are holding off.

Remind us again why Arlington Magazine just published an article last month on APS called "Bursting at the Seams"?

It's hard to build a new school in a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The trailer thing is over. It's a non-issue at Jamestown now.

Even with the capacity issues in Arlington, class sizes will remain much lower relative to Fairfax and Haycock.

The new Williamsburg ES will be built within a year or so, and that will absorb much of the capacity.

My 2nd grader has 23 in her class. My 4th grader has 21.

K registration is lower than expected b/c parents who know they'll be rezoned for the new ES are holding off.

Remind us again why Arlington Magazine just published an article last month on APS called "Bursting at the Seams"?

It's hard to build a new school in a year.

Because Arlington magazine is behind the curve on this, plans were already well under way to build new schools? And, yes, I think the new ES is scheduled to be online by 2015. The design work in fact is entering a new phase: http://www.apsva.us/Page/18930

It's really cute that you believe everything you read in a less-than authoritative publication, but the fact remains that even with Arlington's capacity issues, class sizes will be dramatically smaller than they are in Fairfax.

They got this. It's cool. No problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The trailer thing is over. It's a non-issue at Jamestown now.
Even with the capacity issues in Arlington, class sizes will remain much lower relative to Fairfax and Haycock.
The new Williamsburg ES will be built within a year or so, and that will absorb much of the capacity.
My 2nd grader has 23 in her class. My 4th grader has 21.
K registration is lower than expected b/c parents who know they'll be rezoned for the new ES are holding off.

Remind us again why Arlington Magazine just published an article last month on APS called "Bursting at the Seams"?
It's hard to build a new school in a year.

Because Arlington magazine is behind the curve on this, plans were already well under way to build new schools? And, yes, I think the new ES is scheduled to be online by 2015. The design work in fact is entering a new phase: http://www.apsva.us/Page/18930
It's really cute that you believe everything you read in a less-than authoritative publication, but the fact remains that even with Arlington's capacity issues, class sizes will be dramatically smaller than they are in Fairfax.
They got this. It's cool. No problems.

I don't believe everything I read in Arlington Magazine, but I assume they don't just look for ways to piss off their Arlington readers with inaccurate information. Of course, I don't believe everything I read here either. 2015 is three years from now, not "a year or so."