What is the best public high school in Fairfax County?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Oh BS I have never heard any of that and have been to every Langley Football game the last 4 years and half the Lax games. It's just the same old "you suck" etc, that all the teams yell. No special rich kid cheers, sorry! |
Anonymous
I've heard this yelled by Langley students in parking lots after basketball games. There was also this incident a few years ago: http://mclean.patch.com/groups/schools/p/cost-of-vandalism-damage-at-mclean-high-by-langley-students Don't want to blow this out of proportion, but it happens whether you've witnesed it or choose to acknowledge it. |
Anonymous
| It's a huge rivalry and BBall games get heated but I don't think we're are really going to argue that Mclean kids are poor and Langley kids are rich are we? That's just the ordinary high school rivalry behavior. McLean has done similar stuff at Langley. It's not motivated by wealth... Just rivalry. |
Anonymous
OMG you save this one cite and parade it out every single time Langley is mentioned. It's ridiculous. You mean you can't find an article about the last food fight in the cafeteria? But please let's not blow anything out of proportion. |
Anonymous
I've never cited this article before on DCUM; if others have, it only goes to show that it made an impression on them. Honestly, if you minimize confirmed vandalism and alleged racism, rather than say it was an unfortunate but isolated incident, it only fosters a perception that some Langley parents make excuses when their kids misbehave. That is precisely what sends some parents who can afford a house in the Langley district to other schools. |
Anonymous
| You resort to a 2 yr old Patch squeal and wait for someone to say the incident was isolated? Really, because otherwise you fear it's commonplace? Come on. Langley's got the test scores and rankings that say it's the best. Agree or disagree. But the Langley hate on this board is more jealousy than real. |
Anonymous
| What total nonsense. No one condoned the behavior. Several kids were expelled over that incident. But as I said before, it had nothing to do with rich vs poor kids. It was just a few bad kids breaking old bleacher boards. When you are the on the top of the mountain everyone wants to knock you off I guess. OP Langley is your best choice. |
Anonymous
The bleachers were not that old at the time, and rich kids who do not worry about the costs of their actions may be more inclined to engage in destructive acts when they assume someone else will pick up the tab. It's not business as usual to cause almost $5,000 in property damage at a public facility. The comments here - variations on "don't hate us because we are beautiful" - do a pretty good job of illustrating why some people who can afford to live in the Langley district avoid this school, test scores and rankings notwithstanding. And, of course, the biggest criticisms of the school on DCUM in the past have come from parents who have pulled their kids from Langley, and presumably are not jealous, rather than from those in other district who simply point out some boorish behavior they have witnessed. |
Anonymous
Test scores are high because of the stidents' SES. Not because Langley is doing an amazing job with kids. |
Anonymous
let me guess Washington Lee and Wakefield are better than langley if you strip out all the bad scores? |
Anonymous
To add, maybe the parents care about their kids and don't rely on the schools to do their jobs |
Anonymous
Thanks 23:08. My jaw dropped too. What an deliberately unfair piece to post. Let's provide some perspective here. 1) there is an ancient rivalry between the two schools. 2) there is no mention in article about "rich kid" cheers which is what we were discussing (and I am disclosing that I am a happy ex-Langley parent of a graduate, but that makes me knowledgable about what happens and what doesn't happen, what's important and what's not, because we live in the community and had kids in the school. I have no dogs in this race). 3) the incident mentioned in the piece cites to a December 2010 incident. Hullo, it's almost September 2013. 4) my child was a student at Langley at that time and NO ONE talked about that step-dance incident at the school. The McLean principal didn't even respond to Bobbi Bowman's call or whatever she allegedly did at the time of writing the Patch article. 5) Bowman was a notoriously sloppy reporter. Many people wrote Times/AOL headquarters in New York and complained. She did not verify sources. She did not get two sources. She allowed unlimited hostile comments by anonymous sources which violated Patch rules. She had a very left-wing,anti-wealth bias which showed in everything she wrote (don't get me started on her false political reporting). She would show up at every single Republican fundraiser on private property and try to take photos of the nametags and then make a fuss when she was asked to leave for trespassing (the donations were completely legal of course, as was the fundraiser). She would then post a photo of the hostess of the fundraiser, name her, and say she "forced" the Patch off the property. False. I was there. She demonstrated poor judgment. She is no longer with the Time/WarnerAOL-owned Patch. You read into that what you want. The Patch has since gone through at least five new editors but has come up tremendously in professionalism within the last year. There is more accountability. 6) The article alleges that the Langley kids made fun of the McLean step-dancers. News to me. Bobbi states it was a black dance. Bobbi is black. You decide. 7) The REAL story is the end to Color Day. If you don't know about it, Color Day at Langley was held on the last day of spirit day and involved lots of green and gold paint. Parents were divided on it. Some were furious that their kids wound up with paint on them. Others were thrilled to get painted. But all agreed that property damage to local streetsigns and neighboring fences was unacceptable. Langley's principal, Matt Ragone, had just started at Langley about the time of this step-dancing incident (which I've never seen before tonight - trust me, it is a non-story here in McLean, and if 23:38 is correct that this poster keeps trotting out this old piece, I call foul). To his immense credit, he said there would be no more color day celebrations because kids had gotten out of control. Every single year he said it at PTSA: "This is it - we cannot afford the extra cops color day would require, the added security, or the bills from adjacent properties caused by damage on color day." I listened to idiot moms make pleas for the return of color day because "It was fun". Or "We need more spirit". Or "Can't we float a spirit float down Georgetown Pike" (seriously, a mom said that. Sure, think of how many permits that would take. Think of the traffic pile-up and the concerns that the CIA was being targeted by a rogue Langley High float). But Ragone stood firm. The first year there was, of course, some backlash. A few brought mason jars filled with paint and threw them in the lunchroom. Ragone suspended the kids. Year after year he stood firm. Moms would say "But the kids are going to do it anyways" to which Ragone would say "If I have to put in metal detectors and do searches, I will, but this school will act responsibly - we cannot afford to hire more police to monitor this and we cannot afford to pay for any damage". THAT's the story. Oh, but that would be a positive story so would have no place on DCUM. |
Anonymous
agree, and I covered volleyball games. And the dances. And all the PTSA meetings. Never did I hear "rich kid cheers". Ever. I did hear one anti-semitic remark five years ago at a Langley play, which surprised me. I turned around and told the young squirt how offensive his comment was and how surprised I was to hear the old canard coming our of such a young mouth. I don't even know if he was a student at the school. No, I'm not Jewish. In my five years in and out of the school that is the only offensive remark I have ever heard and I would have immediately shut it down if I had heard it. |
Anonymous
|
The poster was asking about best HS in FCPS. Not the pros and cons of Langley. For me it is not an issue, as when we bought our house 15 years ago, I as a lowly scientist working for a defense contractor, could not afford that area. I focused on where I could afford that had great schools.
There are multiple really great school in FCPS. I would argue all in the northern part (north of Fairfax) are fine. Others may be fine, but I do not know them. I would not hesitate to place DD in any of the following schools: Madison, Marshall, Oakton, McLean, Langley, South Lakes, Woodson. For me, the question is where do you want to live, and what is your budget? If you want to spend 600K, good luck in langley. Yet, it is possible to buy in Madison (or others) at that price. |
Anonymous
This. With no housing budget concerns, this is definitely the list. Throw in budget constraints and 2-4 become much closer to a toss up. |