Are there any small elem. schools in NoVA?

[Anonymous]

Considering Fairfax, Arlington cos. Class sizes for K-2 are approaching 30! Are there any 'small' elementaries, w/small class sizes around? Good lord, anything UNDER 25 students at all?

[Anonymous]

Bush Hill, off of Franconia Road is one of the smallest. It doesn't have the #1 test scores; it has a range of kids, including some excellent students. Kids can walk to school, though of course, many are walked by parents. Tree lined streets, metro close, affordable homes. HS is Edison, which has an IB program.

Lemon Road, in Falls Church is also one of the smallest.

[Anonymous]

Olde Creek in the Woodson High School district is another small school.

[Anonymous]

Assuming you are referring solely to public schools, you could look for Title I schools where they intentionally have smaller class sizes. As an example, our neighborhood Title I elementary school will not exceed 18 children in Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Just as they managed to reduce class sizes, budget changes will probably affect this in most districts. There's still a tiny bit of luck involved, in that a class has to exceed a certain number of students (I don't have the current district data) before the school is allocated an additional teacher, and the large class is divided into two. Recently (last year or the year before, not sure) at Bush Hill, a second grade class hit the tipping number, was allocated an additional teacher, and the class size went down to 17 kids. There's no way you can count on this though. Sadly, the class sizes will probably be creeping up all over now.

[Anonymous]

The smallest elementary school in FC is Lemon Road Elementary in the Marshall pyramid.

[Anonymous]

are you looking for a small elementary school? Or a school with small class sizes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The smallest elementary school in FC is Lemon Road Elementary in the Marshall pyramid.

Lemon Road is small, but definitely not the smallest elementary school in Fairfax County. FYI - Franklin Sherman in McLean is also relatively small. Neither Lemon Road nor Sherman are Title 1 schools.

[Anonymous]

Smaller class sizes are guaranteed at Title I schools. Not so at smaller population schools due to budget cuts.

[Anonymous]

Lemon Road is the smaller per their profile on the FCPS website.

[Anonymous]

Yes, Lemon Road is smaller than Sherman. But Bucknell and Mt. Eagle are smaller than Lemon Road. In any event, the other poster was right that non-Title I schools such as Lemon Road with smaller enrollments aren't guaranteed smaller class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, Lemon Road is smaller than Sherman. But Bucknell and Mt. Eagle are smaller than Lemon Road. In any event, the other poster was right that non-Title I schools such as Lemon Road with smaller enrollments aren't guaranteed smaller class sizes.

FCPS has smaller class sizes based on demographics and some based on programs that were also put in at schools with higher average family income. You can also pupil place for programs like French at Herndon, magnet [Bailey's]. Good luck on trying to get actual pupil:teacher ratios at any given school. If you try for schools with lots of programs that have demonstrated need based on demographics you will get lower class sizes.

Anything with IB in elementary school or the middle school can be lower.

http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/OEIAS/focus.htm#anchor-excel

Also check when they got full day kindergarten. Needier schools [thus those more likely to have lower class sizes in tight budgets] usually got it first. Another clue to predicting future funding is if had Excell and a broader list is if it a Virginia K- grade 3 reduced ratio school.

[Anonymous]

I think part of it is just luck. Our school is lucky in that we have "just" enough kids at K-3 level to have 4 classes rather than 3. So our class size averages for those grades is 21/22 vs 28. The sizes jump a fair bit at 4+ .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think part of it is just luck. Our school is lucky in that we have "just" enough kids at K-3 level to have 4 classes rather than 3. So our class size averages for those grades is 21/22 vs 28. The sizes jump a fair bit at 4+ .

I agree. I think that public school populations will likely increase anyway as less people are moving out of the area due to the economy, and some families are opting away from private school and going to public.

Then there's plain demographics as to how many kids are at that particular school age in the neighborhood. I recall reading somewhere that last school year's 3rd graders were going to have the easiest time getting into college in the future due to the demographics of just being far fewer of them than there were in last year's high school graduating class.

[Anonymous]

Arlington kindergarten classes never have more than 22 pupils/class (teacher and aide in each class). This past year, my son's class had 18 students. One had 17.

The schools themselves, however, can get pretty big; some have four classes for each grade.