We know ACPS is bad but WHY

[Anonymous]

What elementary schools tend to have Maryland residents. Never seen or heard about it at our neighborhood elementary.

Not saying it doesn’t ever happen, but not sure it’s widespread like some are suggesting. A car’s license plate doesn’t tell a family’s full story in terms of where they reside. It may actually be more of a car registration issue than a school registration problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What elementary schools tend to have Maryland residents. Never seen or heard about it at our neighborhood elementary.

Not saying it doesn’t ever happen, but not sure it’s widespread like some are suggesting. A car’s license plate doesn’t tell a family’s full story in terms of where they reside. It may actually be more of a car registration issue than a school registration problem.

LC, Maury (Brooks), Mt Vernon- basically the ones closest to the bridge and Central Office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the 2020 census and school data and I'm curious. Does anyone know if ACPC has an issue with out of district kids enrolling through fraudulent means?


https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/alexandriacitycountyvirginia/PST045219

Go to the morning drop off at any of the east end elemntary schools. A solid 35% of the cars have Maryland tags. Residency fraud is rampant. Two of my DS's good friends live in Oxon Hill.

Nothing is done about it. Guess why.

I suspect (but maybe someone else can confirm) that it depends on how much the principal wants to press the issue.

Question for you PP--any idea why your son's friends' families commit fraud to enter a school system that no one seems particularly thrilled with?

DP, but I'll take ACPS over PG County schools all. day. long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adverse selection. Alexandria has a robust enough private school infrastructure that well-to-do parents can opt out. The result is greater concentration of problem children and underperformers as you get to higher grades. A lot of it dates back to the desegregation era, but the same effect can be found in jurisdictions that were never formally segregated to begin with. Other school districts avoided this by adding choice schools and being larger in general, which gave them flexibility to shuffle around pyramids just enough to prevent a mass exodus to private schools while still nominally desegregating. Over time many of those jurisdictions were able to gradually improve their racial and socioeconomic mix (though some took this more seriously than others).

ACPS was too small for this, and now they're stuck. If they open a second high school they'll unleash a mad scramble to get "good" kids in the "good" school and avoid getting put in the "bad" school. If they manage to fight off those forces and open a second high school with identical demographics then they won't actually do a better job of retaining all those kids who are currently going private. So they just keep plugging along.

They can also opt out by moving ...there are parts of FCPS like West Springfield that are full of people who left ACPS for the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having had kids at various schools over the years including expensive privates I have to say, and my kids would agree, that Lyles Crouch was our absolutely favorite school of them all. Great teachers, amazing community, and so many go on to attend top college or vocational programs. The place was so well run - such a focus on kindness and character. An amazing foundation. Wish all of the ACPS schools could follow their model.

Kids left Lyles Crouch to go onto great colleges and vocational schools? Fascinating.

Presumably after their parents enrolled them in private school.

Yep or they moved to Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the 2020 census and school data and I'm curious. Does anyone know if ACPC has an issue with out of district kids enrolling through fraudulent means?


https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/alexandriacitycountyvirginia/PST045219

Go to the morning drop off at any of the east end elemntary schools. A solid 35% of the cars have Maryland tags. Residency fraud is rampant. Two of my DS's good friends live in Oxon Hill.

Nothing is done about it. Guess why.

I suspect (but maybe someone else can confirm) that it depends on how much the principal wants to press the issue.

Question for you PP--any idea why your son's friends' families commit fraud to enter a school system that no one seems particularly thrilled with?

DP, but I'll take ACPS over PG County schools all. day. long.

This, plus there's no real effort in committing fraud. They know they won't be caught, plus many of those people probably work in Alexandria anyway so it's easy for them to drop their kids off. A huge number of people in Alexandria, especially in lower-paying jobs, live in PGC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adverse selection. Alexandria has a robust enough private school infrastructure that well-to-do parents can opt out. The result is greater concentration of problem children and underperformers as you get to higher grades. A lot of it dates back to the desegregation era, but the same effect can be found in jurisdictions that were never formally segregated to begin with. Other school districts avoided this by adding choice schools and being larger in general, which gave them flexibility to shuffle around pyramids just enough to prevent a mass exodus to private schools while still nominally desegregating. Over time many of those jurisdictions were able to gradually improve their racial and socioeconomic mix (though some took this more seriously than others).

ACPS was too small for this, and now they're stuck. If they open a second high school they'll unleash a mad scramble to get "good" kids in the "good" school and avoid getting put in the "bad" school. If they manage to fight off those forces and open a second high school with identical demographics then they won't actually do a better job of retaining all those kids who are currently going private. So they just keep plugging along.

They can also opt out by moving ...there are parts of FCPS like West Springfield that are full of people who left ACPS for the schools.

Uhhh, I'll bet you any amount that the top 10% graduating from TC get into way better schools than the top 10% of West Springfield.

Admissions officers know the difference between the two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elementary schools tend to have Maryland residents. Never seen or heard about it at our neighborhood elementary.

Not saying it doesn’t ever happen, but not sure it’s widespread like some are suggesting. A car’s license plate doesn’t tell a family’s full story in terms of where they reside. It may actually be more of a car registration issue than a school registration problem.

LC, Maury (Brooks), Mt Vernon- basically the ones closest to the bridge and Central Office.

Registered our children this summer, if we had said we were homeless there was no residency verification.

[Anonymous]

We left NOVA completely and moved elsewhere in Virginia. Hours away. My middle schooler's school has 500 students. It is so much better, but it was an adjustment because of the (1) individual attention; and (2) they do a ton of writing. Good manners are expected. Yes, sir. No, ma'am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having had kids at various schools over the years including expensive privates I have to say, and my kids would agree, that Lyles Crouch was our absolutely favorite school of them all. Great teachers, amazing community, and so many go on to attend top college or vocational programs. The place was so well run - such a focus on kindness and character. An amazing foundation. Wish all of the ACPS schools could follow their model.

Agreed. And the fact that the other elementary schools don't is inequitable, but I don't think we'll hear the superintendent add that to his talking points about equity.

Maybe he is waiting for the LC principal to retire, and then he'll dumb it down to the standard curriculum.

[Anonymous]

As a long time teacher who just moved to a different district, size is our number one issue at the high school. Also we do have many students from Maryland and D.C who use family or friends addresses in the city and it’s hard to track. They should require a mortgage/rent documentation check every few years.

One small thing I noticed from moving districts, it was a horrible decision to outsource our building cleaning and security guards. Once we went to contracted cleaners and security guards the quality went down and the turn over increased. Not to say those people who are in the positions aren’t doing their best, they are being paid minimally to do so and for the cleaners enough are not hired. The building was never clean. Security guards were young and became friends with the kids always in the hall. I’m amazed by how clean my new building is and the pride the county employees have in their job. The hall monitors are also county employees and have great relationships with the students, but make sure they get to class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a long time teacher who just moved to a different district, size is our number one issue at the high school. Also we do have many students from Maryland and D.C who use family or friends addresses in the city and it’s hard to track. They should require a mortgage/rent documentation check every few years.

One small thing I noticed from moving districts, it was a horrible decision to outsource our building cleaning and security guards. Once we went to contracted cleaners and security guards the quality went down and the turn over increased. Not to say those people who are in the positions aren’t doing their best, they are being paid minimally to do so and for the cleaners enough are not hired. The building was never clean. Security guards were young and became friends with the kids always in the hall. I’m amazed by how clean my new building is and the pride the county employees have in their job. The hall monitors are also county employees and have great relationships with the students, but make sure they get to class.

This is really interesting first-hand insight. Makes me sad, but it’s good to know. Thanks for posting.

[Anonymous]

What elementary schools tend to have Maryland residents. Never seen or heard about it at our neighborhood elementary.

Not saying it doesn’t ever happen, but not sure it’s widespread like some are suggesting. A car’s license plate doesn’t tell a family’s full story in terms of where they reside. It may actually be more of a car registration issue than a school registration problem.


LC, Maury (Brooks), Mt Vernon- basically the ones closest to the bridge and Central Office.

It's certainly not pervasive. My child went to Maury/Brooks and his class had one child that lived in MD, but one of her parents worked for ACPS, so I assume she had a legitimate right to attend for that reason.

[Anonymous]

BUT, I think the large middle and high school are an embedded and difficult barrier. There are fabulous teachers at both whom I know personally as well have heard from other parents, but when a school is that big it doesn’t matter how great the teachers or the leadership are. It’s just simply too big and there’s too much going on and at those ages it causes a lot of problems.

I could see that, but for my son, who is gay and also a bit quirky, the middle school has been a much better fit socially. More kids, more likely to find kids with common interests. He is much happier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having had kids at various schools over the years including expensive privates I have to say, and my kids would agree, that Lyles Crouch was our absolutely favorite school of them all. Great teachers, amazing community, and so many go on to attend top college or vocational programs. The place was so well run - such a focus on kindness and character. An amazing foundation. Wish all of the ACPS schools could follow their model.

They go to top colleges and vocational programs out of elementary school???? Impressive.