Oakton, Westbriar, Chesterbrook, Colvin Run

[Anonymous]

Does anyone here attend one of these schools and have any opinions on the environment? Teachers, admin, community feel especially.
TIA

[Anonymous]

What is/are the commutes?

[Anonymous]

Np... I’m interested and looking at a couple of these schools too. In my case commute doesn’t matter... I sahm and DH mostly travels or wfh.

[Anonymous]

All of those school are excellent options, use other determinants to decide on which area (house, location, …)

Quite a bit is the luck of the draw in your child's individual grade and that is unknown until they are there.

I have two children two years apart. They attended the same school, with the same teachers and same administration and about 25% of their grade had a sibling in my other child's grade- so many of the same parents. It was night a day because of the mix of personalities of the children. One was the meanest class (that became quite toxic at times) that no one wanted to teach as it moved up through the school. Both the girls and boys had issues and no matter how they mixed them up each year, there were many problems with ostracization, bullying...….. Then came my younger child and he had the nicest class ever. They currently finished their freshman year of college and the teachers in ES still fondly remember that class. As it rose through the school, teachers and aides were clamoring to teach them. It really just took a change of 4-5 personalities to make a difference. The naturally charming and popular kids were kind, inclusive and all around great kids and it floated out to everyone. Most grades are somewhere between these two extremes.

It just depends.

[Anonymous]

They are all nice schools.

[Anonymous]

My kids came though Oakton, and, at least a couple years ago, the LOIV program had made the school environment toxic. The bright class and the other classes. The parents who were pissed there was a “bright class”. They principal placed to fill the class out, and there was a lot of ugliness about whose kid got pupil placed. So, they stopped pupil placing, and their was ugliness about the AAP kids being in a class of 15 times while the other classes had 30-32. Oakton was too small, and parents were too competitive to make LLIV work. IMO, they need to drop the LLIV program. Although they won’t, because parents did not want to send their kids to Sunrise.

Also, if you put a group of (especially girls) together for 4 years and tell them their are the smart class, by 6th grade, some of them are bullies and mean girls. To other AAP kids and to GE. My own kids were not in that group, but did not get bullied. I know kids who were bullied so badly they refused to go to school.

And I say this as parent whose kids went through AAP.

DC1’s teachers were uniformly excellent. DC2 really hit terrible luck and only had a couple good teachers. So it depended who your kid got.

But, as I said, my info is a couple years old. Not sure what has happened with the LLIV program since them. Maybe the principal hasn’t been able to make positive changes

[Anonymous]

OP - commutes are not an issue at this point - can be worked out no matter what. Thx

[Anonymous]

I have an experience with Oakton ES. We moved to the area from the private school and decided to put the child to Oakton based on the good reviews. It was awful. They tested her early in fall and transferred to AAP classes around December. We ended up transferring to private school. Academics are very very poor. No books. Our experience with teacher was awful -- basically if you are a strong well behaved kid, you will be placed in the back of the class and forgotten for the rest of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an experience with Oakton ES. We moved to the area from the private school and decided to put the child to Oakton based on the good reviews. It was awful. They tested her early in fall and transferred to AAP classes around December. We ended up transferring to private school. Academics are very very poor. No books. Our experience with teacher was awful -- basically if you are a strong well behaved kid, you will be placed in the back of the class and forgotten for the rest of the year.

My kid was now MS kid was in the LLIV class at Oakton, which was capped— at 35 or 36 kids. There was supposed to be a dedicated aide. But there was not. The kids were pretty well behaved. The teacher was good and tried. But it was a zoo. They would not split the class. Because the prior year they had and had 2 AAP classes and 2 not. And there was nearly a riot over which 16 or so so kids would fill out the AAP classes. And parents very unhappy, because the 2 GE classes were left to also carry all the SN kids and ESL kids— one class with ESL push ins, one with SN pushins.

My kid also lost a teacher the first quarter of school in K,2,3 and 4 to pregnancy. And some years they did better than others. In 3rd the teacher said she would come back. Long term sub. She quit the day she was due back from maternity leave. The LT sub had other commitments. 35 kids and my kid had 4 teachers on a long term (more than a month basis). Not all the schools fault, of course. Pregnant teachers happen. But 4 out of 5 years? Seems like, at a minimum, the school should make sure the same kids don’t get hit 4 out of 5 years.

They also had a couple of terrible teachers, that everyone knew were terrible, and why, but that they were unable or unwilling to anything about.

I know of girls who were viciously bullied in the upper grades.