Arlington County schools....

[Anonymous]

thoughts? We have two preschool age kids. What are peoples thoughts on the schools? What are the best ones, the ones to stay away from?

[Anonymous]

Arlington has some of the best schools in the country. Honestly, you can't go wrong. No matter what you're looking for you should have no problem finding it through APS (options include Spanish immersion, science/math focus, Montessori to 5th grade, traditional school, neighborhood school, financial/racial/cultural diversity).

And if it's any indication of how great the schools are, the Secretary of Education sends his child to Science Focus in North Arlington. To me that's a wonderful endorsement of the schools.

[Anonymous]

Arlington schools are great! If you have gifted kids you may have to start looking at private or another school district, but you have years to go before being concerned about that.

[Anonymous]

Why would you need to go elsewhere if your child is gifted? Do they not have GT classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you need to go elsewhere if your child is gifted? Do they not have GT classes?

They do not have GT centers were academic peers are grouped together. Arlington does differentiated instruction in the classroom, which works great for most kids. But if your kids are in the top 5%, it's (usually) better to have them with their academic peers in a self-contained class.

[Anonymous]

It's true the children of all levels are kept together in the classroom in elementary school but smaller groups are always broken out for different subjects based on ability.

I grew up attending public schools and starting in kindergarten they were addressing the needs of children who were at different stages academically, such as sending children who could read to work with first graders while teachers worked with those who couldn't read.

In the later grades, children moved between classrooms for math and language arts instruction based on ability. Once you reach middle school there are separate classes by level as well.

Arlington does differ from Fairfax in that they don't send all their GT kids to separate schools but I think it's BS to suggest that gifted kids aren't grouped with other gifted kids in Arlington - that's simply not true. Personally I think it's great to keep all levels of kids together for the majority of the day and think it makes for a much more inclusive and diverse atmosphere.

[Anonymous]

PP here - meant to say attending public schools IN ARLINGTON.

[Anonymous]

I too like the fact that gifted and nongifted students are all together, but I think it works in Arlington because of all the Arlington way kumbayah group-hugginess that teaches all kids to treat others with respect, regardless of differing abilities.

[Anonymous]

Moderately gifted kids are grouped with other moderately gifted kids in Arlington public schools. It's the highly gifted and profoundly gifted kids (top 5%) that are not grouped together. Each school simply does not have the critical mass necessary to do so. Moderately gifted kids can absolutely be well served by Arlington public schools.