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Schools and Education General Discussion
Arlington Traditional School - did anyone get a spot?
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Anonymous
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We got our wait list number today for ATS - in the 90s. I'm just curious how many spots were actually available? Did any of you enter the lottery and get a spot?
Thankfully we are equally thrilled with our neighborhood school - I'm very impressed by ATS but the good news is now I don't have to choose! |
Anonymous
| bump |
Anonymous
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I'm guessing that's a no.....
Does anyone know how many people applied this year and/or how many spaces were available for the lottery after all the siblings and VPI kids got their spots? |
Anonymous
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We got a spot and are planning to send our DC there. Heard there were more spots than the expected 30-35 and 113 people on the waitlist.
Now if I could just get past all the eye rolling from friends and neighbors when I say we're going to ATS. It's unbelievable how opinionated people are both positively and negatively about this school. |
Anonymous
what are the (alleged) negatives? |
Anonymous
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22:36 here -- Before I went to tour the school I had a very different impression of it. I thought it was super structured and that meant a bunch of kids sitting in straight lines of desks, no room for creativity, etc. This is not the case AT ALL!
Wish I knew why folks have such a negative opinion about it. We loved it, and were lucky enough to get a spot, which is why we are sending DC there. |
Anonymous
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If you love it and think it will be a good choice for your child, who cares why other people didn't want it for theirs?
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Anonymous
| Neighbors of ours send their kids there and they and their kids love it. On the other hand, a friend of ours with a son our son's age toured the school and said that what struck her was that the kids were not smiling. |
Anonymous
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We have good friends (more than one family) who send their kids there and love it. Love it with the fervor of cult members.
The things they love, however, are things that I do not want for my kids: Using Happy Dog/Sad Dog charts for discipline all the way through fifth grade. The "tuck in your shirt" dress code stuff. The projects that seem to be more busywork than anything else and that seem to depend heavily on parental participation. A general smugness about how ATS is just the best school ever, for everyone. |
Anonymous
| I was the 11:18 poster and I second a lot of what the PP said. Something about the ATS program strikes me as just too intense, especially for younger kids, including the constant homework (DS has homework most nights at another Arlington school in kindergarten and it is not especially taxing - but is reinforcing - and certainly doesn't rely on parent involvement). On the other hand, our neighbors actually are quite normal people LOL and their kids are very sweet too. |
Anonymous
When I toured the school I saw behavior charts with color coded cards. Green, yellow, red. (You don't want to be on red) Each child had their own set of cards and it was hanging up in the room for everyone to see. So, your whole class knows how "good" you've been. Humiliating, in my opinion. A 2nd grade classroom with desks set up in rows and a "podium" in the middle with a laptop attached to a "smart" board and the teacher literally lecturing to the kids. The halls were pretty stark. Not too much art was hanging up. Not for my kids... |
Anonymous
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Before you judge this school, take a tour for yourself. I believed many of the things PPs have said, based on what other people told me about the school. I was surprised when I took the tour and actually found the school to be incredibly creative/artistic and structured in a positive way.
This is a "traditional" school which means stand alone classrooms (four walls), structured learning focusing on academics, behavior and character with one teacher for all subjects (except PE, art and music), homework daily. But it is also incredibly creative -- musical instrument instruction for all starting in grade 3, class plays for each grade, writing workshops, monthly fieldtrips for all kindergartners. Before you judge this school, or assume the judgments of others are spot-on, have a look for yourself. You might be pleasantly surprised OR SHOCKED LIKE I WAS. |
Anonymous
| It's also useful to know what parts of the ATS curriculum exist at every Arlington school (such as instrumental music instruction) and which (daily homework for every student in every grade) are only at some. |
Anonymous
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According to a friend who is very involved in Arlington community/education issues and a relative who has lived in the county for 40 years and was a public school teacher for 20, ATS's reputation is as the haven for the county's conservative families. This could account for the cult/smug thing -- ATS as traditional bastion in an otherwise dirty-hippi-fied Arlington County. They feel outnumbered among their liberal neighbors and believe that the neighborhood schools don't stress "values" -- or at least not the right values.
Obviously, this isn't based on personal experience; I offer more in service to discussion about people's perception of the school. |
Anonymous
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to PP, this is most definitely NOT true. I am NOT conservative and my children go to ATS. In fact, I am probably on the more liberal side of all of my friends and neighbors. I know many people who send their kids to the school and they too are liberal. Traditional does not equal conservative.
I find it ironic that when ATS parents stand up for their school it is considered cult-like, but when other school PTAs stand up for their schools it is considered "community." |