Is there really nothing "specialized" about the HB curriculum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

This must be Nancy Van Doren.

[Anonymous]

Those saying the experiences are equal didn't face the same overcrowding that is upcoming for anyone grades K-6. It's not the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

I want a normal HS experience for my kids. Not shift schedules or year-round calendar with kids going in cycles or kids doing distance learning from home because there's not enough space in a building. Unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

I hope you are right. And I hope you mean fine, because the kids will all have access to a traditional and equitable high school experience.
If it doesn’t work out, I hope it hurts your home value the very most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

I want a normal HS experience for my kids. Not shift schedules or year-round calendar with kids going in cycles or kids doing distance learning from home because there's not enough space in a building. Unacceptable.

But you don't want them being bused four miles, or going to a school that has 30% of the kids on FARMS, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

I want a normal HS experience for my kids. Not shift schedules or year-round calendar with kids going in cycles or kids doing distance learning from home because there's not enough space in a building. Unacceptable.

But you don't want them being bused four miles, or going to a school that has 30% of the kids on FARMS, right?

You really must not be following the career center discussion...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1. From the time the decision is made to build a school, it’s a minimum of five years before that school will open. If the parents of a current 1st grader wants there to be adequate high school seats when their child gets there, this is the CIP cycle when they need to get the school board to commit to the project. If you wait until 2020, there’s a good chance that by the time the funding is approved and the design process gets underway, it may not open by 2025 when that 1st grader will be entering high school.

[Anonymous]

speaking of which, did anyone watch the joint SB/CB work session last night? Can you summarize?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why tell the 1st grade parents to chill out? We're in the middle of the CIP cycle for 2018-2028. It is make or break time for a 4th comprehensive high school. The PP telling all the concerned elementary school parents to "chill out" clearly hasn't been following the Career Center conversation. She's probably too busy making plans to swim in the Long Bridge Park lap pool with the rest of Arlington's self-centered retirees.

+1000. Maybe the chlorine will neutralize some of the smugness.

Ha ha ha. You could not be more off base. Anyhow, you'll be in my position -- and wondering why you exhausted so much energy on this stuff -- sooner than you think. Because your kids are going to be fine, just fine, I can assure you.

I want a normal HS experience for my kids. Not shift schedules or year-round calendar with kids going in cycles or kids doing distance learning from home because there's not enough space in a building. Unacceptable.

But you don't want them being bused four miles, or going to a school that has 30% of the kids on FARMS, right?

My kids go to a Title 1 ES, and will go to a high fr/l MS and we're zoned Wakefield and probably would be even if they built a 4th. But yeah, I don't like segregation -OR- poor planning. The county has royally screwed both things up. Now they better pony up some land for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:speaking of which, did anyone watch the joint SB/CB work session last night? Can you summarize?

I’ve been trying to watch the recording the morning but I think APS is having some issues because it’s really balky even though my internet is otherwise fine. Once I’ve finish I was planning to start a new thread to summarize and discuss, hopefully later today. Of course, if someone else beats me to it, they should feel free to start the discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We put four kids all the way through APS, two at HB and two at their neighborhood high school. Our youngest graduated nearly a decade ago. Irate parents made the same arguments that you all are making now -- it's not fair, they need to expand, blah blah blah. Nothing ever changes. The fact is, all of our kids got good educations, went to good colleges, and turned out fine. I guarantee that, a decade from now, you are all going to laugh about how much time you wasted worrying about such trivial -- and, I have to say, snowflake -- stuff. Take a deep breath . . .

There will be over 3,000 kids at W-L. Much different now. The competition to get into a top State school from there —UVA, etc, incredibly hard with quotas by the iniversities and competition within. I heard kids have to do the IB program for top schools or they won’t even look at them. Many were completely stressed out by it.

See, you're just plain wrong and demonstrably so. According the SCHEV, when our youngest graduated from her Arlington high school nine years ago 43.4 percent of Arlington applicants to UVA and 42 percent of Arlington applicants to William and Mary were admitted. Average SAT scores of in state enrolled students were 1317 at UVA back then and 1324 at W&M.

Five years earlier than that, average SAT scores in state at UVA was 1315 and at W&M was 1331.

Last year 37.8 percent of Arlington applicants got into UVA and 53.6 percent of Arlington applicants got into W&M, with SATs in state averaging 1337 at UVA and 1329 at W&M.




The bottom line: SAT scores for in state students at W&M are actually lower now than they were 15 years ago, and at UVA they're only 20 points higher. And while the admissions rate for Arlington applicants has dropped over the years for UVA, it hasn't dropped for W&M. My hunch is that a big reason for the drop in admissions rate at UVA is because kids are applying to more schools than they did 10 or 15 years ago, and including more reach schools. The quality of admitted students hasn't changed very much though.

in the intervening years, UVA has become unbelievably sought after.

If you look at the data on the SCHEV site and also the institutional data on the school web sites, you'll see that W&M has generally had higher average SAT scores than UVA. Comparing UVA Arts and Sciences to W&M undergraduate (the most apples to apples comparison), W&M has had higher SAT scores for all but two years since 1993. UVA seems to be on an uptick, but it is likely that these things ebb and flow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We put four kids all the way through APS, two at HB and two at their neighborhood high school. Our youngest graduated nearly a decade ago. Irate parents made the same arguments that you all are making now -- it's not fair, they need to expand, blah blah blah. Nothing ever changes. The fact is, all of our kids got good educations, went to good colleges, and turned out fine. I guarantee that, a decade from now, you are all going to laugh about how much time you wasted worrying about such trivial -- and, I have to say, snowflake -- stuff. Take a deep breath . . .

Weird post, seeing as how you’re judging others for wanting the same snowflake option—HB—you wanted years ago.

+1 but keep judging others if it makes you feel better.

You're missing my point. All I'm saying is that I had kids who applied to HB and didn't get in -- and they went on to the neighborhood high school and did just fine. I didn't demand that the county expand the program or build a second HB. HB is not a panacea, and Arlington's neighborhood schools are all first-rate. You're lucky to have such "problems."

What you are completely missing, is that the neighborhood schools are not the same anymore, or will not be the same in 10 years from now, as they were when your kids went through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We put four kids all the way through APS, two at HB and two at their neighborhood high school. Our youngest graduated nearly a decade ago. Irate parents made the same arguments that you all are making now -- it's not fair, they need to expand, blah blah blah. Nothing ever changes. The fact is, all of our kids got good educations, went to good colleges, and turned out fine. I guarantee that, a decade from now, you are all going to laugh about how much time you wasted worrying about such trivial -- and, I have to say, snowflake -- stuff. Take a deep breath . . .

Weird post, seeing as how you’re judging others for wanting the same snowflake option—HB—you wanted years ago.

+1 but keep judging others if it makes you feel better.

You're missing my point. All I'm saying is that I had kids who applied to HB and didn't get in -- and they went on to the neighborhood high school and did just fine. I didn't demand that the county expand the program or build a second HB. HB is not a panacea, and Arlington's neighborhood schools are all first-rate. You're lucky to have such "problems."

What you are completely missing, is that the neighborhood schools are not the same anymore, or will not be the same in 10 years from now, as they were when your kids went through.

How, exactly? They offer the same classes that they always have -- if anything, they're more rigorous -- and the test scores are the same as they've always been. I can't see how, by any quantifiable measure, they're not just as good as they've long been. Sure, there's an overcrowding issue. But one way or another they're figure it out. And remember, when our kids went through all of the neighborhood high schools (and HB) were in buildings that were decades old and well past their useful lives.

The sky is not falling in Arlington, I assure you.