Tell me about Nottingham Elementary

[Anonymous]

What do you love? What are you not so crazy about? Is there are decent number of WAH moms? What about diversity---are their kids who attend from South Asian/Middle Eastern backgrounds?

[Anonymous]

In the district but DC goes to one of the countywide choice schools - in part because of lack of diversity. Have friends whose kids attend and it is a great school academically. But not diverse at all and some of the DCUM craziness you read about here definitely exists there.

[Anonymous]

very little diversity. You can look up the % online somewhere. Was recently at the K info session and confirmed the lack of diversity. It's not a big deal to me.

[Anonymous]

We've been there four years now, I love the vast majority of the teachers. Have had some great experiences with my challenging kids. I love the community feel - people care very much about what's going on and are engaged. I'm a WOHM, and there's a good number of us. However, I think partly from the waiting together to pick up kids at the end of the day more of the SAH moms make friends, so I can sometimes feel a little odd-parent-out at things where parents are talking with each other.

There is almost no ethnic diversity. My older child's class has one child whose family is ethnically Chinese and one child who is biracial (AA & caucasian). My younger child has a classmate whose family at some point came from India and one whose family is probably from south/central America. And I can name these four kids in their two classes because everyone else is white. (Not four kids in the entirety of their two grades, just their individual classrooms.)

In terms of not-so-crazy about - the crowding. The school is well past bursting at the seems. We're scheduled to have 10 trailers next year. This should be geratly alleviated in 2015 when the new school hopefully opens, but for right now it's making for a very full building and some wacky lunch times.

[Anonymous]

Is there an issue with bullying? I noticed that in their School Management Plan one of their SMART goals was about bullying. I didn't see that in any of the plans for other schools.

[Anonymous]

A significant portion of the school has been designated to move in a couple of years to the new elementary school that will be built on the site of Williamsburg Middle School. http://www.apsva.us/site/Default.aspx?PageID=19099

[Anonymous]

We have overall been very happy with Nottingham. Mostly wonderful teachers and in my experience a very responsive admin. We get lots of communication from the teachers. PTA organizes lots of fun activities. My kids are really happy there.

Downsides are that it is terribly overcrowded and the lunch and recess monitors are not up to the job in my opinion. I also don't like the way Blackboard is set up but it is better then nothing.

I have not seen a systemic bullying problem. They have a very proactive antibullying program and when things happen the school takes it seriously and shuts it down. I don't think the principal is loved by all and she uses a lot of annoying education speak but I think she runs a tight ship, gets a hard job done well and has the kids' best interests at heart. I respect her and I think the vice principal was a great addition as he has a more down to earth style that balances her out well.

I haven't found it to be an ubercompetitive environment. My kids aren't stressed at all by the work even in the upper grades. Have made lots of nice parent friends who seem reasonable and sane. I wohm and am satisfied with extended day because my kids are/ were happy there. Finally we are a "diverse" family and my kids are perfectly comfortable there but it is very noticeable how homogeneous the population is.

[Anonymous]

To respond to the poster who asked about bullying - I'd say no, extremely low bullying, possibly lower than normal even. The school was one of the first to try out an anti-bulling program that is going to be promoted countywide (I think). They take issues of potential bullying very seriously and I haven't heard of any big problems (my kids are in 3rd and K, so it's been a few years). I did hear about a teacher who contacted a mom and said something along the lines of "look, we need to talk, your daughter is exhibiting some 'mean girl' tendencies and we need to nip that in the bud" so I think the teachers are watching out for it. My older child is special needs and is pulled out for help and would be an easy target for mocking but I have never heard of anything.

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with the 10:40 poster. (Although my child does get somewhat stressed about performance, but that's more his quirks than the school I think.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you love? What are you not so crazy about? Is there are decent number of WAH moms? What about diversity---are their kids who attend from South Asian/Middle Eastern backgrounds?

What does WAH mean?

[Anonymous]

White Anglo-Hispanic mixed family?

[Anonymous]

OP here. First, thanks to everyone for responding. WAH...my mistake. I meant to say WOHM---work out of the home mom.

[Anonymous]

Work At Home. Usually Work At Home Mom, but more and more are Dads.

[Anonymous]

Ignore above post, I thought it was WAH not WOH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the district but DC goes to one of the countywide choice schools - in part because of lack of diversity. Have friends whose kids attend and it is a great school academically. But not diverse at all and some of the DCUM craziness you read about here definitely exists there.

why would you deliberately seek out diversity? that's really strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the district but DC goes to one of the countywide choice schools - in part because of lack of diversity. Have friends whose kids attend and it is a great school academically. But not diverse at all and some of the DCUM craziness you read about here definitely exists there.

why would you deliberately seek out diversity? that's really strange.