Wakefield High School

[Anonymous]

Maybe for your kid who is "high achieving" and is separated out in the classroom. Not all kids are that smart. They work hard, but are not gifted. Kids in the middle who otherwise have no social issues get lost at Kenmore and have to deal with kids who clearly DO have social issues that are quite prevalent in the classroom. That is one of the key problems in south arlington schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the title I schools are less likely to hold on to kids in higher SES homes. I know Barcroft has lost kids who were unable to get into ATS or didn't want to go to Claremont. No one wants to send their kid to Kenmore if possible. That school is having serious problems both socially and academically.

Please. We have a good friend whose DC went to Taylor and CHOSE Kenmore. She's incredibly bright and is very happy there (and has no social/academic issues). Our DC, zoned for Williamsburg, attends Gunston. Similarly super happy there. At the risk of getting flamed, this discussion shows just how much racism there still is - even in liberal/progressive Arlington. The discussions center on white children/white scores, the "dangers" of FARMS kids, the "dangers" of life in (browner/blacker) S. Arlington...

Said as a white parent in N. Arlington whose DC attends school south of Rte. 50

[Anonymous]

I thought Arlington Ridge, Alcova Heights and Aurora Heights were supposed to be wealthy, high-SES neighborhoods full of high-achieving students going to Wakefield. Guess not.

[Anonymous]

And why does your kid go to Gunston, for the spanish immersion? Would you send your kid there if not for the special program? Having one friend or two is simply an anecdote. Obviously there was a reason for your friend to send their kid to Kenmore -a special program or something.

People make choices, and face it, and no one wants their kid to be in a low-achieving school where the only way your kid gets a decent education is if they are in the gifted program. Sorry, color of your skin is irrelevant. It is an SES thing that unfortunately is more likely to involve kids who are not white. With lower SES comes all of the discipline issues and lack of parental involvement in the kids' education because the parents are working all the time and the kids live in poverty. There isn't a "danger" - it is use of resources from the school system and distraction in and outside of the classroom that comes from poverty.

Said as the non-lower SES latina parent in S. Arlington whose child attends a S. Arlington school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And why does your kid go to Gunston, for the spanish immersion? Would you send your kid there if not for the special program? Having one friend or two is simply an anecdote. Obviously there was a reason for your friend to send their kid to Kenmore -a special program or something.

People make choices, and face it, and no one wants their kid to be in a low-achieving school where the only way your kid gets a decent education is if they are in the gifted program. Sorry, color of your skin is irrelevant. It is an SES thing that unfortunately is more likely to involve kids who are not white. With lower SES comes all of the discipline issues and lack of parental involvement in the kids' education because the parents are working all the time and the kids live in poverty. There isn't a "danger" - it is use of resources from the school system and distraction in and outside of the classroom that comes from poverty.

Said as the non-lower SES latina parent in S. Arlington whose child attends a S. Arlington school.

That just shows the blinders here. You don't think high SES families don't have discipline issues/lack of parental involvement (because they're working so much)? The stereotypes and bigotry here are astounding. FWIW, I've heard that there are far worse drug use problems at Yorktown than Wakefield -- because of the high SES of families there, plus the pressures typified by the hysterical posts here on DCUM and exerted on kids there.

The DC of friend is at Kenmore, gasp, for the diversity. Ditto for us at Gunston (plus immersion).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And why does your kid go to Gunston, for the spanish immersion? Would you send your kid there if not for the special program? Having one friend or two is simply an anecdote. Obviously there was a reason for your friend to send their kid to Kenmore -a special program or something.

People make choices, and face it, and no one wants their kid to be in a low-achieving school where the only way your kid gets a decent education is if they are in the gifted program. Sorry, color of your skin is irrelevant. It is an SES thing that unfortunately is more likely to involve kids who are not white. With lower SES comes all of the discipline issues and lack of parental involvement in the kids' education because the parents are working all the time and the kids live in poverty. There isn't a "danger" - it is use of resources from the school system and distraction in and outside of the classroom that comes from poverty.

Said as the non-lower SES latina parent in S. Arlington whose child attends a S. Arlington school.

That just shows the blinders here. You don't think high SES families don't have discipline issues/lack of parental involvement (because they're working so much)? The stereotypes and bigotry here are astounding. FWIW, I've heard that there are far worse drug use problems at Yorktown than Wakefield -- because of the high SES of families there, plus the pressures typified by the hysterical posts here on DCUM and exerted on kids there.

The DC of friend is at Kenmore, gasp, for the diversity. Ditto for us at Gunston (plus immersion).

Meant to say, "You think high SES families don't have discipline issues/lack of parental involvement?" LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe for your kid who is "high achieving" and is separated out in the classroom. Not all kids are that smart. They work hard, but are not gifted. Kids in the middle who otherwise have no social issues get lost at Kenmore and have to deal with kids who clearly DO have social issues that are quite prevalent in the classroom. That is one of the key problems in south arlington schools.

There may be some truth to this - but I still don't completely buy it. Yes - my kids are in a few classes that are academically advanced (e.g. math), but they are also in several "general" classes. There are some kids in these classes who are disruptive and/or clearly don't give a damn about grades. But - neither my sixth or eighth grader has had serious issues with these kids. They quickly learned to both pity and ignore them.

As an aside - Kenmore's population is changing. The school draws from a few neighborhoods north of 50 (e.g. Arlington Forest) that have experienced something of a kid boom. This has impacted the demographics a fair amount over the last few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And why does your kid go to Gunston, for the spanish immersion? Would you send your kid there if not for the special program? Having one friend or two is simply an anecdote. Obviously there was a reason for your friend to send their kid to Kenmore -a special program or something.

People make choices, and face it, and no one wants their kid to be in a low-achieving school where the only way your kid gets a decent education is if they are in the gifted program. Sorry, color of your skin is irrelevant. It is an SES thing that unfortunately is more likely to involve kids who are not white. With lower SES comes all of the discipline issues and lack of parental involvement in the kids' education because the parents are working all the time and the kids live in poverty. There isn't a "danger" - it is use of resources from the school system and distraction in and outside of the classroom that comes from poverty.

Said as the non-lower SES latina parent in S. Arlington whose child attends a S. Arlington school.

That just shows the blinders here. You don't think high SES families don't have discipline issues/lack of parental involvement (because they're working so much)? The stereotypes and bigotry here are astounding. FWIW, I've heard that there are far worse drug use problems at Yorktown than Wakefield -- because of the high SES of families there, plus the pressures typified by the hysterical posts here on DCUM and exerted on kids there.

The DC of friend is at Kenmore, gasp, for the diversity. Ditto for us at Gunston (plus immersion).

You've only "heard" there are worse drug problems at Yorktown because you probably don't hang out at laundromats on Columbia Pike eavesdropping on conversations in Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Sure there are discipline problems with high SES families, but not the same. And yes, some of their parents work hard, but they have tutors and nannies and summer camps and opportunities the kids that live in low income housing along columbia pike will never have As kids. Unbelievably different world, the fact that you would compare the two situations shows unreal ignorance of the reality of living in poverty and how it impacts behavior, goals and academic achievement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield is fine. The differences in graduation rates and test scores for white kids (for example) are not statistically significantly lower than those of white kids (for example) at Wash-Lee or Yorktown. But the perception is there. And if you spend $700K on a house zoned for a school ranked higher and that house gets re-districted, you are looking at a big hit to your equity. Nobody really wants that. as long as the perception that Wakefield is lesser is there, it will affect property values.

That said, I feel like enough white middle-class families are settling in South Arlington that at some point, things should be more balanced. This is especially likely if Wakefield can do something with immersion or a middle school feeding into it can do some sort of STEM focus. Then you'll have kids choosing to go there - like they choose to bus all over town to TJ in Fairfax.

here's the thing. Arlington is not unique. In every school district in the nation, there are schools with more expensive housing and less expensive housing. There are schools with more minority kids and fewer minority kids. I think people just talk about it in Arlington so much because Arlington is so small that it's easy to compare only 3 schools. It's harder in Fairfax - there you have to talk about entire tiers of high schools. You have your top tier (Langley, McLean, Woodson, etc.) and your middle tier (Fairfax, Robinson, Lake Braddock) and your lower tier (every Alexandria school, Edison, Stuart, Falls Church.)

Someone's gotta be the 3rd ranked out of 3.

See,I always hear people say that white kids perform equally at Wakefield as they do at the other two, but the info provided by a pp shows that there is a significant difference between white kids at Wakefield (avg. 1569) and at Yorktown and W-L (both in the 1800s). So no, educationally Wakefield does NOT seem just fine.

I think too much emphasis is placed on race with these scores. I think SES, more than race, drives these scores. In general, more higher SES whites attend WL and Yorktown than Wakefield. If a higher SES white child stays at Wakefield, they will probably do just as well as if they went to Yorktown, but their scores would be diluted by being averaged with other white kids at Wakefield from lower SES families. SAT scores can be vastly improved by taking classes or tutors, and by taking it multiple times. That alone gives kids from families with more resources an advantage. I have no clue if Wakefield is a good school or not, but the SAT scores aren't all about teacher or school quality. I see it all the time in my kids' Title I school. The higher SES kids tend to be the better performers across races.

Except white low SES families in Arlington either don't exist or live in condos in North Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure there are discipline problems with high SES families, but not the same. And yes, some of their parents work hard, but they have tutors and nannies and summer camps and opportunities the kids that live in low income housing along columbia pike will never have As kids. Unbelievably different world, the fact that you would compare the two situations shows unreal ignorance of the reality of living in poverty and how it impacts behavior, goals and academic achievement.

Just wrong -- and I'm not hiding my head in the sand. Poverty does create a lot of obstacles. If we all look a few generations back in our own families, I doubt we all were living in N. Arlington luxury and attending Harvard from time immemorial. People worked hard. Far harder than today. They persevered. They got lucky and got a mentor or some other break. And they rose out of poverty. It happens today.

The discussion here assumes that all our poor little N Arlington snowflakes will melt if they're educated in a diverse school. I've asked the question on other threads and really never gotten an answer: What do you think going to a mostly white high SES high school will guarantee for your child? What won't s/he learn -- and be forever crippled in the job market and in life -- if s/he's in a more diverse school? I work as a lawyer in a demanding position -- my colleagues come from very different walks of life and many grew up with far less than I had. Yet here we all are, doing the same intellectually demanding, rewarding, and well-remunerated work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And why does your kid go to Gunston, for the spanish immersion? Would you send your kid there if not for the special program? Having one friend or two is simply an anecdote. Obviously there was a reason for your friend to send their kid to Kenmore -a special program or something.

People make choices, and face it, and no one wants their kid to be in a low-achieving school where the only way your kid gets a decent education is if they are in the gifted program. Sorry, color of your skin is irrelevant. It is an SES thing that unfortunately is more likely to involve kids who are not white. With lower SES comes all of the discipline issues and lack of parental involvement in the kids' education because the parents are working all the time and the kids live in poverty. There isn't a "danger" - it is use of resources from the school system and distraction in and outside of the classroom that comes from poverty.

Said as the non-lower SES latina parent in S. Arlington whose child attends a S. Arlington school.

That just shows the blinders here. You don't think high SES families don't have discipline issues/lack of parental involvement (because they're working so much)? The stereotypes and bigotry here are astounding. FWIW, I've heard that there are far worse drug use problems at Yorktown than Wakefield -- because of the high SES of families there, plus the pressures typified by the hysterical posts here on DCUM and exerted on kids there.

The DC of friend is at Kenmore, gasp, for the diversity. Ditto for us at Gunston (plus immersion).

I'm in N. Arlington and have heard the same about drugs being a bigger issue at Yorktown vs. more southern schools. I'm not surprised since I attended a highly affluent (and 99% white) HS very similar to Yorktown's profile. IME, it was definitely the richer kids who were the hard partiers.

We're currently zoned for W-L, with kids now at TJ and I wouldn't be surprised if we end up shifted to Wakefield at some point since TJ currently splits between the two schools. Wakefield would be fine with me. And, to go back to an earlier concern, since we live 2 blocks from a metro station I don't think the school zone will have any impact on my housing value.