Arlington and Alexandria school districts

[Anonymous]

I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

That's a really cute idea, unless you want to attend Lyles Crouch but you can't afford to live in south Old Town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

That's a really cute idea, unless you want to attend Lyles Crouch but you can't afford to live in south Old Town.

Not a problem if you're poor and black.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Arlington's schools are completely segregated. We have elementaries that are 70% poverty and ones that are 3% poverty. It's ridiculous. People will tell you they are all fine, but the reality is that middle class and upper middle class will try to avoid anything over 40%. You can find all those stats online. Boundaries in Arlington are a mess and will be for years. I used to think the schools here were good, but then we went private for COVID and I see huge gaps in my kids' educations. I can't speak to other jurisdictions, but I would not move here for the schools. Arlington is a great place to live, though. No one has big yards. But people are friendly. Lots of trails. Walkable neighborhoods. Good parks.

Exact same issue in Alexandria, and we have some higher poverty schools than 70%

I do think it's easier to transfer schools in Alexandria, not as easy as say a few years ago, but still possible if you are persistent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

That's a really cute idea, unless you want to attend Lyles Crouch but you can't afford to live in south Old Town.

I think you are deliberately misinterpreting PPs statement. All schools can have good communities--yes even the Title I schools. PP was encouraging people to explore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

That's a really cute idea, unless you want to attend Lyles Crouch but you can't afford to live in south Old Town.

I think you are deliberately misinterpreting PPs statement. All schools can have good communities--yes even the Title I schools. PP was encouraging people to explore.

I'm not sure how you got that from their post, but by all means jump in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington's schools are completely segregated. We have elementaries that are 70% poverty and ones that are 3% poverty. It's ridiculous. People will tell you they are all fine, but the reality is that middle class and upper middle class will try to avoid anything over 40%. You can find all those stats online. Boundaries in Arlington are a mess and will be for years. I used to think the schools here were good, but then we went private for COVID and I see huge gaps in my kids' educations. I can't speak to other jurisdictions, but I would not move here for the schools. Arlington is a great place to live, though. No one has big yards. But people are friendly. Lots of trails. Walkable neighborhoods. Good parks.

Exact same issue in Alexandria, and we have some higher poverty schools than 70%

I do think it's easier to transfer schools in Alexandria, not as easy as say a few years ago, but still possible if you are persistent.

Transferring is generally not possible in Arlington at the elementary level, where the segregation is most acute. The reality is that ina. School with a high poverty rate, each classroom will have that rate. A teacher can’t be 5 people at once. The teacher has to just try to do they best they can for everyone and if over half the class is behind, wasn’t ready to as a toddler, hungry, or dealing with other stressors that accompany poverty, it’s just not going to leave a lot of bandwidth for the minority of kids who don’t have to deal with that stuff. Hence when middle class and upper middle class parents express that concern they are immediately told, “your kid will be fine.” Well, yeah she will, but no thanks to that school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

That's a really cute idea, unless you want to attend Lyles Crouch but you can't afford to live in south Old Town.

Is Lyles Crouch the exception to ACPS schools being crappy?

[Anonymous]

City of Falls Church too far? Taxes are high, but city management of schools is far superior to that of county-managed schools. Not much on the market, but perhaps you could snap something up in the spring.

It’s an IB, not AP school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:City of Falls Church too far? Taxes are high, but city management of schools is far superior to that of county-managed schools. Not much on the market, but perhaps you could snap something up in the spring.

It’s an IB, not AP school system.

We’re looking in the same price range/desired size as OP, open to FCC and Arlington, and based on what we’ve seen over the last year, OP is priced out of FCC. There just is so little on the market, and any SFH with that number of bedrooms is priced above $1.3 million, unless it needs a LOT of work or is very tiny, and that’s not even factoring in the higher taxes that would mean a higher monthly cost. OP’s better bet is Arlington, especially if public schools are in the plan. Alexandria just has a culture of private schools that Arlington does not and probably never will, since the only privates even located within Arlington are parochial, and not many at that. No private independent schools, and having to travel outside Arlington to attend them means fewer families are wiling to do that, especially when the public schools are good. And they are good. Even the higher poverty schools provide good outcomes for kids from MC homes. The kids who are being failed come to APS with many barriers to academic success, and like everywhere else throughout time, APS has not solved the issue. The main thing, as a PP pointed out, is that the “experience” won’t be the same in a high poverty neighborhood school. Fewer extracurriculars, fewer field trips, fewer “experiences,” because these are usually funded and organized by the PTA. But the education provided is the same. OP can probably find data on the PTA budgets and narrow their home search based on that info, if school “experience” matters to them.

[Anonymous]

Come to Arlington! Our family moved here about 5 years ago from a large metropolitan area and we are happy to have settled here. We considered McLean and Vienna quickly came to realize that Arlington was a good fit for us. We take advantage of being so close to DC for the museums, pro sports, and other cultural offerings. Generalizing here but we have found that the people who live in Arlington are well educated, into health and fitness, have interesting and diverse jobs, and live for experiences like travel (you will see that whenever the schools are closed even for one day to make a three day weekend, people leave to take their kids camping, up to NYC, etc). Another thing that is nice about Arlington is that there are nature trails in and around Arlington. There are so many old growth trees around here. A friend who came to visit from Chicago couldn’t believe all the trees we have in our neighborhood. Speaking of neighborhood, one of the things we noticed in Arlington over McLean was that Arlington has sidewalks and I do believe that it makes a neighborhood more cohesive. Our kids go to public schools here and they are doing well academically and socially. We live in N Arlington and the housing costs are getting ridiculous. But if you are willing to live in an older home that is smaller by N Arlington standards (so still quite large coming from the Bay Area), you can definitely get a house with $1.3m.

[Anonymous]

I’m in Arlington. If I could do it again, I’d go to FCC or near-in McLean. Haycock/Longfellow/McLean. I think FCPS are superior and that pyramid has lots of great homes with big yards and old trees for under 1.3m. Lovely area. But not super walkable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:City of Falls Church too far? Taxes are high, but city management of schools is far superior to that of county-managed schools. Not much on the market, but perhaps you could snap something up in the spring.

It’s an IB, not AP school system.

We’re looking in the same price range/desired size as OP, open to FCC and Arlington, and based on what we’ve seen over the last year, OP is priced out of FCC. There just is so little on the market, and any SFH with that number of bedrooms is priced above $1.3 million, unless it needs a LOT of work or is very tiny, and that’s not even factoring in the higher taxes that would mean a higher monthly cost. OP’s better bet is Arlington, especially if public schools are in the plan. Alexandria just has a culture of private schools that Arlington does not and probably never will, since the only privates even located within Arlington are parochial, and not many at that. No private independent schools, and having to travel outside Arlington to attend them means fewer families are wiling to do that, especially when the public schools are good. And they are good. Even the higher poverty schools provide good outcomes for kids from MC homes. The kids who are being failed come to APS with many barriers to academic success, and like everywhere else throughout time, APS has not solved the issue. The main thing, as a PP pointed out, is that the “experience” won’t be the same in a high poverty neighborhood school. Fewer extracurriculars, fewer field trips, fewer “experiences,” because these are usually funded and organized by the PTA. But the education provided is the same. OP can probably find data on the PTA budgets and narrow their home search based on that info, if school “experience” matters to them.

I’m curious why you think the classroom experience is uniform across the system. Presumably, you’ve had kids in both high poverty and low poverty
elementary schools? Or just the latter?

[Anonymous]

Small house / townhouse + private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am current ACPS parent and I've had kids a both private and public. The best teacher we've had so far was at an acps school and the worst teacher we've had was a private school. There are good and bad teachers at both. You can get a good eduction at ACPS - its just a choice of what community you want to be a part of and what is best for your child.

That's a really cute idea, unless you want to attend Lyles Crouch but you can't afford to live in south Old Town.

Is Lyles Crouch the exception to ACPS schools being crappy?

Lyles Crouch is a public elementary in Alexandria zoned for Old Town, which is one of the most expensive areas (per square foot) in the DC region.

There are SEVERAL highly regarded public elementary schools in Alexandria City (not Fairfax, which has even more). It's just the high school (maybe the middle schools too, depending on how picky you are) that is considered not so great, because it's huge and has a lot of FARMS kids (but, I'll note, it also has many upper middle class kids who do quite well).