APS for a bright engaged student - APS in decline?

[Anonymous]

I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

I think recent past it a good school, but adding 1000 more kids seems like will sink it.

We understand sports can be competitive, but things like drama will be cut sports essentially

[Anonymous]

I observed rampant grade inflation at Williamsburg MS. Everyone who makes a half-decent effort gets an A thanks to class participation and homework grades. Our son's at a private HS now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a fan of differentiation and I get why it would be a problem not to offer it, my understanding is that there are three math tracks in middle school (or at least in sixth grade). Also my sixth grader is very bright and is plenty challenged in her language arts and humanities classes. So I don’t know, it might be a teacher thing.

They cancelled the highest track last year, because of the pandemic and everyone missing a quarter of the instruction, so now there are only two. Language arts needs more differentiation since there are kids who literally just arrived to the US and neither speak nor read English in the same classes as kids who are reading at a HS level. It’s impossible to serve such a spectrum adequately.

This is not quite right. There are always two math tracks in 6th grade, but usually it's Math 6 and Pre-Algebra for 6th Graders. This year, they changed it to be Math 6 and Math 6 Extended (which replaced Pre-Algebra) because, as you said, they need to incorporate the missed material from 5th grade and so can't get through the full pre-algebra curriculum. This year's 6th graders will have access to the three different math classes next year (Math 7, Pre-Algebra for 7th Graders and Algebra I, Integrated), although there may be some slight shifts in the syllabus for Algebra I to account for what wasn't covered in Math 6 Extended. After that, the kids have a lot of options for math tracks for the rest of middle school and through high school.

Also, at least at the 6th grade level, there is effectively a differentiation available for Reading as well. Instead of taking full-year Reading, students can also take an intensified semester-long Reading class and then take Spanish in the second half. It's unclear if this will continue to be an option after this year, though, since FLES was discontinued in the elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

I think recent past it a good school, but adding 1000 more kids seems like will sink it.

We understand sports can be competitive, but things like drama will be cut sports essentially

They are not going to add 1000 students. The Ed Center that is being remodeled will “only” fit 500 and was designed and is being built so that it can also function as an ES. I am on one of the APS committees that is involved with this. My prediction after being very involved with APS for almost 20 years is instead of re-doing boundaries for the 3 high schools, will each grow in student size but a portion of each HS student’s classes will be virtual in order to not spend money on construction or trailers. The SB has wanted that for a long time and now the virtual learning and financial impact of the pandemic have the excuse.

[Anonymous]

How would the virtual stuff work? Like two classes a year are virtual? Or maybe offering a virtual track altogether?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

I think recent past it a good school, but adding 1000 more kids seems like will sink it.

We understand sports can be competitive, but things like drama will be cut sports essentially

They are not going to add 1000 students. The Ed Center that is being remodeled will “only” fit 500 and was designed and is being built so that it can also function as an ES. I am on one of the APS committees that is involved with this. My prediction after being very involved with APS for almost 20 years is instead of re-doing boundaries for the 3 high schools, will each grow in student size but a portion of each HS student’s classes will be virtual in order to not spend money on construction or trailers. The SB has wanted that for a long time and now the virtual learning and financial impact of the pandemic have the excuse.

The projections are for 1000 students. They aren’t adding them, they are already here. So student body will be 1000 more students but at any given day 700 will be virtual?

That I guess helps space, but we all hate DL and that will be concurrent right? And DL doesn’t address extracurricular scarcity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

I think recent past it a good school, but adding 1000 more kids seems like will sink it.

We understand sports can be competitive, but things like drama will be cut sports essentially

They are not going to add 1000 students. The Ed Center that is being remodeled will “only” fit 500 and was designed and is being built so that it can also function as an ES. I am on one of the APS committees that is involved with this. My prediction after being very involved with APS for almost 20 years is instead of re-doing boundaries for the 3 high schools, will each grow in student size but a portion of each HS student’s classes will be virtual in order to not spend money on construction or trailers. The SB has wanted that for a long time and now the virtual learning and financial impact of the pandemic have the excuse.

The projections are for 1000 students. They aren’t adding them, they are already here. So student body will be 1000 more students but at any given day 700 will be virtual?

That I guess helps space, but we all hate DL and that will be concurrent right? And DL doesn’t address extracurricular scarcity.

The 1000 students may already be here but are they all in the WL boundary? Yes, most of us hate DL. APS ES parents have been arguing throughout the pandemic that HS could easily and should stay virtual, that HS students are last priority to return. Be careful what you wish for or current ES students may have a partial virtual HS experience for 4 years, not one or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

I think recent past it a good school, but adding 1000 more kids seems like will sink it.

We understand sports can be competitive, but things like drama will be cut sports essentially

They are not going to add 1000 students. The Ed Center that is being remodeled will “only” fit 500 and was designed and is being built so that it can also function as an ES. I am on one of the APS committees that is involved with this. My prediction after being very involved with APS for almost 20 years is instead of re-doing boundaries for the 3 high schools, will each grow in student size but a portion of each HS student’s classes will be virtual in order to not spend money on construction or trailers. The SB has wanted that for a long time and now the virtual learning and financial impact of the pandemic have the excuse.

That’s not going to happen. It may be “flexible” in design, but it’s not going to be repurposed. And the boundary tweak was already announced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve had 3 at WL and one at private HS. First, don’t judge APS HS by MS. My 2 who graduated from WL are in college and grad school now in STEM fields and felt well prepared by the AP and IB classes at WL. They are at schools that any Arlington parent would be thrilled to have their child to attend. My DC who went private needed a different environment to thrive in for HS. Extremely bright and needs a close relationship with her teachers to be engaged. That’s not easy to come by at WL, unfortunately. My current DC is a junior at WL. His class sizes have definitely been larger than older siblings but still excellent dedicated teachers for the most part. Since he is a serious athlete I’m ok with more competition to get on the teams; maybe WL will finally have better sports teams in a few years. As far as VL for Arlington HSs, that’s here to stay, regardless of the school, and should include HB. The SB has been advocating that for over a decade as a way to deal with overcrowding and this past year’s experiment will be the excuse for it to become the norm.

I think recent past it a good school, but adding 1000 more kids seems like will sink it.

We understand sports can be competitive, but things like drama will be cut sports essentially

They are not going to add 1000 students. The Ed Center that is being remodeled will “only” fit 500 and was designed and is being built so that it can also function as an ES. I am on one of the APS committees that is involved with this. My prediction after being very involved with APS for almost 20 years is instead of re-doing boundaries for the 3 high schools, will each grow in student size but a portion of each HS student’s classes will be virtual in order to not spend money on construction or trailers. The SB has wanted that for a long time and now the virtual learning and financial impact of the pandemic have the excuse.

The projections are for 1000 students. They aren’t adding them, they are already here. So student body will be 1000 more students but at any given day 700 will be virtual?

That I guess helps space, but we all hate DL and that will be concurrent right? And DL doesn’t address extracurricular scarcity.

The 1000 students may already be here but are they all in the WL boundary? Yes, most of us hate DL. APS ES parents have been arguing throughout the pandemic that HS could easily and should stay virtual, that HS students are last priority to return. Be careful what you wish for or current ES students may have a partial virtual HS experience for 4 years, not one or two.

Yorktown has little space to expand, and upper Arlington will oppose tooth and nail expanding that school too much.

W-L has space to expand between the admin office and Buck property, so its campus can be sized to hold 3000 students, one way or another, and you know community groups will go knives out to not be reasoned to Wakefield. So yes, they will all be zoned for Washington Liberty, because where else will they go?

This has been the plan since 2017, they had a whole seminar for parents to write up on the wall about what solutions they liked (night school, video learning, etc) and tried to sell the extracurricular issue as “with more students we can have obscure clubs, like mushroom farming”, but when it becomes your kid HAS to do mushroom farming rather than drama, suck to be you.

I had thought there was movement to build a 4th high school, the Carlin Springs VHC campus was an option, but basically it came to not, and now with pandemic, we see that differentiating for above average students is the lowest priority and is being ignored; they assume the kids will be fine, the parents can hire tutors, etc.

[Anonymous]

We are in Arlington and finally gave up.
Two gifted kids - but that was not the reason.

We (like many others) got one into private for second half of this school year and both for next.

They will stay in private until 8th then we will figure out next steps.

[Anonymous]

My firstborn is a freshmen in a private HS this year because of all of this. I definitely saw a decline. We had an excellent elementary experience and a “meh” middle school one. Night and day now. I’m so glad we decided this pre-Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I observed rampant grade inflation at Williamsburg MS. Everyone who makes a half-decent effort gets an A thanks to class participation and homework grades. Our son's at a private HS now.

We saw this at both Swanson & Hamm. Our son is also at a private HS now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in Arlington and finally gave up.
Two gifted kids - but that was not the reason.

We (like many others) got one into private for second half of this school year and both for next.

They will stay in private until 8th then we will figure out next steps.

many others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I observed rampant grade inflation at Williamsburg MS. Everyone who makes a half-decent effort gets an A thanks to class participation and homework grades. Our son's at a private HS now.

Interesting. I’ve had 2 at WMS and I’ve noticed a distinct shift to class grade formulas that are 90% assessments, 10% classwork/homework, and no participation grade at all.