Washington Liberty v Meridian HS

[Anonymous]

A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

[Anonymous]

We spent more than a year trying to find a decent 3-bedroom house to buy or rent in Falls Church City on what we thought was an ample budget. We gave up. But when we started looking in Arlington, we found a place a few blocks from W-L, and bought it, in less than a month.

There are disadvantages to being small where IB Diploma subject options go. For example, language study outside Spanish is much better at W-L. My kid is in their kick-ass Higher Level IBD Chinese class, which Meridian doesn't teach. He attends the Chinese club weekly. Three dozen kids routinely turn up to chat in Mandarin. I'm told that at least half of these kids speak Chinese really well, often because they're native speakers. Meridian is seriously white and blah. Chummy yes, but in an upscale heavily Caucasian way.

[Anonymous]

The housing crunch in the City of Falls Church only gets worse and worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WL IB Diploma is as good as anything Yorktown offers. My 9th grader’s pre IB classes attract many Dorothy Hamm MS grads, zoned for Yorktown. 9th grade pre IB learners at WL are grouped in “small learning communities” where most of the students in English, Biology and World History classes are the same. The groupings have made a big difference for my kid. She’s making a group of pals and study buddies that should last. Don’t worry about the size of WL if your kid is a good fit for IB studies.

So if you can’t cut it in IB and end up GenEd, it’s misery?

The majority of W-L students are in gen ed, which is a mix of advanced classes, AP classes, and regular classes open to all. It’s not misery at all.

OP here. I’m not that concerned about the academic piece but more the social - seems very hard to navigate such a big school without a smaller peer group.

Does your kid play sports, is in band, is science focused, or even just a bit outgoing? If so they will have several friend groups. W-L is very friendly, although at least according to my DD, the heavy partying "popular" friend group and the Hispanic friend groups are hard to break into. That still leaves a lot of great kids to hang out with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

Is your kid very young? Classes are larger than 24 at the high school frequently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

Is your kid very young? Classes are larger than 24 at the high school frequently.

I have kids at meridian and have yet to see a class over 24 (not including pe etc)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We spent more than a year trying to find a decent 3-bedroom house to buy or rent in Falls Church City on what we thought was an ample budget. We gave up. But when we started looking in Arlington, we found a place a few blocks from W-L, and bought it, in less than a month.

There are disadvantages to being small where IB Diploma subject options go. For example, language study outside Spanish is much better at W-L. My kid is in their kick-ass Higher Level IBD Chinese class, which Meridian doesn't teach. He attends the Chinese club weekly. Three dozen kids routinely turn up to chat in Mandarin. I'm told that at least half of these kids speak Chinese really well, often because they're native speakers. Meridian is seriously white and blah. Chummy yes, but in an upscale heavily Caucasian way.

OP, the bolded part above is something to keep in mind, even if you are renting and not buying. FCC is very small, so the housing stock is limited. We lived in FCCPS in early elementary, tried to find a house, and then moved on to APS (also zoned for W-L) when we couldn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

thanks!! at what age did you move them to FCCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We spent more than a year trying to find a decent 3-bedroom house to buy or rent in Falls Church City on what we thought was an ample budget. We gave up. But when we started looking in Arlington, we found a place a few blocks from W-L, and bought it, in less than a month.

There are disadvantages to being small where IB Diploma subject options go. For example, language study outside Spanish is much better at W-L. My kid is in their kick-ass Higher Level IBD Chinese class, which Meridian doesn't teach. He attends the Chinese club weekly. Three dozen kids routinely turn up to chat in Mandarin. I'm told that at least half of these kids speak Chinese really well, often because they're native speakers. Meridian is seriously white and blah. Chummy yes, but in an upscale heavily Caucasian way.

OP, the bolded part above is something to keep in mind, even if you are renting and not buying. FCC is very small, so the housing stock is limited. We lived in FCCPS in early elementary, tried to find a house, and then moved on to APS (also zoned for W-L) when we couldn't.

OP here. Yes I noticed this too. However there does not appear to be anywhere else in this area that has a public HS under 1000 students in size … so that’s why I have it on my list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We spent more than a year trying to find a decent 3-bedroom house to buy or rent in Falls Church City on what we thought was an ample budget. We gave up. But when we started looking in Arlington, we found a place a few blocks from W-L, and bought it, in less than a month.

There are disadvantages to being small where IB Diploma subject options go. For example, language study outside Spanish is much better at W-L. My kid is in their kick-ass Higher Level IBD Chinese class, which Meridian doesn't teach. He attends the Chinese club weekly. Three dozen kids routinely turn up to chat in Mandarin. I'm told that at least half of these kids speak Chinese really well, often because they're native speakers. Meridian is seriously white and blah. Chummy yes, but in an upscale heavily Caucasian way.

OP, the bolded part above is something to keep in mind, even if you are renting and not buying. FCC is very small, so the housing stock is limited. We lived in FCCPS in early elementary, tried to find a house, and then moved on to APS (also zoned for W-L) when we couldn't.

OP here. Yes I noticed this too. However there does not appear to be anywhere else in this area that has a public HS under 1000 students in size … so that’s why I have it on my list.

(Also for more info - I just need a 2 bd apartment and it looks like there are at least 3 well within my budget zoned for FFCPS. And more space for the money than DC or even Ballston!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We spent more than a year trying to find a decent 3-bedroom house to buy or rent in Falls Church City on what we thought was an ample budget. We gave up. But when we started looking in Arlington, we found a place a few blocks from W-L, and bought it, in less than a month.

There are disadvantages to being small where IB Diploma subject options go. For example, language study outside Spanish is much better at W-L. My kid is in their kick-ass Higher Level IBD Chinese class, which Meridian doesn't teach. He attends the Chinese club weekly. Three dozen kids routinely turn up to chat in Mandarin. I'm told that at least half of these kids speak Chinese really well, often because they're native speakers. Meridian is seriously white and blah. Chummy yes, but in an upscale heavily Caucasian way.

OP, the bolded part above is something to keep in mind, even if you are renting and not buying. FCC is very small, so the housing stock is limited. We lived in FCCPS in early elementary, tried to find a house, and then moved on to APS (also zoned for W-L) when we couldn't.

OP here. Yes I noticed this too. However there does not appear to be anywhere else in this area that has a public HS under 1000 students in size … so that’s why I have it on my list.

(Also for more info - I just need a 2 bd apartment and it looks like there are at least 3 well within my budget zoned for FFCPS. And more space for the money than DC or even Ballston!)

(I mean 3 apartment complexes, not 3 apartments total!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

Is your kid very young? Classes are larger than 24 at the high school frequently.

I have kids at meridian and have yet to see a class over 24 (not including pe etc)

There are classes over 24 there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

Is your kid very young? Classes are larger than 24 at the high school frequently.

I have kids at meridian and have yet to see a class over 24 (not including pe etc)

There are classes over 24 there.

Adding to my post. You can always make a FOIA request before quoting something as fact that is definitely not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WL pre IB essentially wants to see at least a B+ in each 8th grade intensified subject for a kid to qualify. Any less academically and the kid may struggle on the IB track at WL. You want to go the extra mile on language study if you’re serious about IB, e.g. summer immersion camps. Advanced language skills are common for pre IB students at WL. Good luck making your choice.

There is no grade requirement for IB. Every kid zoned for WL who has taken the qualifying classes (2 years of language in middle school and continuing in high school) is considered pre-IB. Anyone who thinks they want to continue with IB needs to take AP government in 10th grade. Those are the only requirements in 9th and 10th grade. The IB classes start in 11th grade.

I have not known a single kid to do a summer immersion program to prepare for IB and I've known a lot of IB kids. I'm not sure what this PP is talking about.

OP as to your question about making the school feel smaller for 9th graders, they use small learning communities (SLCs). There are 5 or 6 and all the core teachers in a SLC are the same. They coordinate planning so there isn't a biology and a history test on the same day, for example. Also, this means a lot of the same kids will be your kids classes because they are only pulling from a group of 100 or so. One of my kids had the exact same kids in both her English and history class, for example.

You may be able to go to the school website and find the presentation they do for incoming 9th graders and for IB to get more info. Check the IB page and also the counseling page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A huge difference between WL and Meridian (this is really a difference between FCCPS and APS) is class size. FCCPS uses a 24 student planning factor for HS. Its pretty rare for a class to be larger than 24 students. APS uses a 25.9 planning factor, and 25% of the classes are above that size.
https://www.fccps.org/page/section-6-instructional
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

We moved from APS to FCCPS- the class size difference is huge. It means my kids are known. The teachers have more time to reach out to parents when kids are struggling etc. My child at Meridian definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer. He is not a joiner. I think at a huge school like W&L he would just slip through the cracks. (These concerns are in large part why we moved to FCCPS a few years ago).

Another thing I love about FCCPS is that it is so geographically compact. My kids can bike or walk to any classmates house. Tons of kids who are 'bus eligible' take the bus in the morning, but then choose to walk home in the afternoon with friends- stopping at the plethora of stores likes starbucks etc.

All that being said- there are disadvantages to being small. e.g. there is no orchestral music at Meridian, your only option is band or choir.

thanks!! at what age did you move them to FCCPS?

We moved in late elementary. But certainly there are plenty of kids who move in later. The previously mentioned state dept kids. Also there is an influx of kids freshman year. At least some are coming from private k-8 schools and then go public for hs.