Should we leave Alexandria?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we've been in Del Ray since 2001 and have three kids. My oldest is still asleep upstairs while home on break from UVA. My middle kid is a senior this year and they will be attending Georgetown next year. My youngest is, surprisingly, a very talented athlete getting D1 recruiting looks as a Freshman, but they are also a 4.0 GPA honors track kid.

We were Maury- GW, then ACHS. We are white with a HHI of 280k.

The thought of leaving never even crossed our minds. But then again, we aren't xenophobic racists.

FWIW- I know plenty of people like you that moved or went private and still ended up with a kid at JMU.

Best of luck!

This almost reads like satire.
✔️Silly reference to xenophobia
✔️Smug about luck with real estate (or did your parents fund your home!)
✔️Namedropping schools
✔️Virtue-signaling (who’re family living in Del Ray deserves…accolades)?

If Del Ray living means a virtuous lifestyle, then you’d have to praise the Vance’s.

They bought in 2001, dumbass. Real estate was dirt cheap then. Sorry you missed out, I guess. So sensitive about naming schools in a thread.... about education. Odd. Super defensive.

I guess you ended up with a crappy mcmansion and a kid at ODU. Literally no one wants that.

This is the type of open-minded kindness you’ll encounter if you stay in Del Ray 🤣🤣🤣🤣.

My kids are young but I’d love for them to go to a cheap, in-state school. And I say that as an HYSP undergrad alum. Decent grad school + network (including parents’ network) + hard work + kindness + ability to speak to other humans is actually what people look for in new hires.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we've been in Del Ray since 2001 and have three kids. My oldest is still asleep upstairs while home on break from UVA. My middle kid is a senior this year and they will be attending Georgetown next year. My youngest is, surprisingly, a very talented athlete getting D1 recruiting looks as a Freshman, but they are also a 4.0 GPA honors track kid.

We were Maury- GW, then ACHS. We are white with a HHI of 280k.

The thought of leaving never even crossed our minds. But then again, we aren't xenophobic racists.

FWIW- I know plenty of people like you that moved or went private and still ended up with a kid at JMU.

Best of luck!

They probably moved because you let them live in your head rent free instead.

I live in Del Ray too and I cannot imagine caring that anyone stays or leaves, nor would it bother me in the slightest.

Also lol at calling people xenophobic racists for moving. Both because of the complete illogic of the statement and because you live in one of the whitest and most upper class parts of Alexandria and sent your kids to what was one of the whitest and most upper class elementary schools in the whole system at the time.

DP.

Maury in 2010ish (when PP would have had a kid there) was anything but the whitest or most upper class. That was the heyday of bussing kids from the burg to Maury, all the while forcing the Del Ray rich white families to JH in a wild attempt to bolster the failing scores at JH. The solution to pollution is dilution was their approach. They didnt try to help the poor black kids; they instead hoped the rich white kid's scores would buoy the overall scores. That's when most of us in the SE corner of Del Ray ended up in privates.

Ask me how I know.

2010 would have been the absolute earliest start for the oldest, who then would have run through 2016 or so, with later starts for the others (probably 2012/3 and 2016/17). People could opt out of J-H starting in 2012 when it lost accreditation which many white families did. Hard to find old data but at least back in 2016-17 Maury was 57% white, even though kids in the school zone were 50% white, which was one of the highest for an ACPS elementary. And it’s not like that suddenly just happened in 2016-17. The second people could leave J-H they did.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest daughter will enter kindergarten next year. We had planned to send her to the elementary we are zoned for, one of the ones that's supposed to be "better" - but the recent abysmal report card from the state is seriously disturbing. Not a single school fully accredited in ACPS, almost all elementaries (including ours) listed as off track. I've seen many defend clerical issues that led to the scores, but even if that's true - it's no prize. It's also bad and indicative of the kind of environment that's been allowed to continue in the system here it seems.

It would be a huge stretch to pay for private. We love living in ALX, but it seems like the families around us much be much much richer if they can afford to send multiple kids to private school and continue to live in the community.

Do we just leave Alexandria for Bethesda or somewhere else? Uprooting our lives to move? Do we plant a money tree and hope for the best? What are families here doing?

Thanks.

I mean, this is the dilemma parents have been struggling with for at least the entire 30 years I have lived here. We lived Alexandria for North Arlington. And then Arlington for Loudoun, which has far better schools. Don't regret it. Added bonus is it was easier to get into UVA and VT as top students from those schools than it might have been from Yorktown. There are some cynics who say if you can thrive at Alexandria City High School (previously TC Williams) that can help your college admissions because you will have seemed to have survived a bad school. But IMO, schools shouldn't be something one has to "survive."

*left

We went MacArthur ES in Alexandria to Jamestown ES in Arlington/Williambsurg MS to Loudoun Valley in Loudoun. No regrets.

Can you elaborate on what made Loudoun schools so much better than Arlington in your view?

Smaller, more opportunities to get involved with extracurricular, less intense (not a pressure cooker), better to be big fish in smaller pond. They had great teachers, AP, DE opportunities. House twice the size at half the cost on three acres of land.

Mind you I worked from home since before Covid so commute wasn’t a concern.

This is just... horseshit trolling. Assuming a 1900 sqf house n Del Ray goes for 1.2, please tell us where you got a 4000sqf house on three acres in Loudon for 600,000.

We'll wait!

What is it about ACPS that brings out the trolls? Is it jealousy?

We moved in 2017. We sold our 3,000 square foot house in 22207 on a fifth of an acre for $1.1 million and bought a 5,700 square foot home on a 3.5 acre lot in Oak Knoll Farms in 20132 for $750,000. So, maybe exaggerated slightly and it wasn’t precisely half the price and twice the house but it was damn close.

Kids matriculated to UVA and Brown.

22207 is Arlington, dumb ass. Arlington county in 2017 did not permit 3000 sqf houses on 8000 sqf lots. And half of 1.1, is 550,000, not 750,000. So, you are FOS three times over And, most importantly of all, you're still in .....podunk Loudon county.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Alexandria gets losers so frothed up that they cant help themselves but make up complete and total lies. Sad.

I think some of us losers get frothed up because we liked living in Alexandria but don’t appreciate being called racist because we didn’t want to put our kids in failing, unsafe schools (mold and violence) I don’t understand why people insist on denying things are bad.

And it’s not just denying things are bad—as I fully understand there are varying views on this, including over time—but a refusal to even engage on any areas that are commonly identified as weak points. Mention something that even ACPS cites as a problem and it’s: “you don’t live here, your kids are dumb, everyone is jealous.” Feels incredibly provincial.

The Alexandria City Community for Public Education FB page is better but you lose your anonymity.

[Anonymous]

No one who actually knows DC area school believes that m Loudoun Valley is a better school than Yorktown. Seriously. Dumbest part of this whole thread.

And I wouldn’t send my kid to ACHS for all the money in the world.

[Anonymous]

For those who attended ACPS and then left, would be interesting to hear why? Certain need for your kid that couldn’t be met, moved for other reasons, liked elementary but didn’t want the middle school, general lack of quality/too many problems, or something else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who attended ACPS and then left, would be interesting to hear why? Certain need for your kid that couldn’t be met, moved for other reasons, liked elementary but didn’t want the middle school, general lack of quality/too many problems, or something else?

I loved my house and the area. Crime started happening more frequently in the area. My kids started getting older and I wanted to live in a neighborhood where I didn’t have to have a second thought about them freely wandering around the neighborhood. I realized out of our neighborhood, so many went to private schools. Our cars on the street kept getting broken into.

I thought of our investment and how maybe they could be okay in the public schools but I heard stories from a friend with an older kid in advanced classes how they just put in him the grade two years older for that content area in elementary school. This was over ten years ago.

No regrets to moving. Again, maybe it could have been okay but hearing the stories of safety at the HS and middle schools and how break ins are continuing in our old neighborhood. There is nothing like that where we moved and our kids played freely and ran house to house with friends for all of elementary school, like I did in the 80s. My car has never been broken into here.

[Anonymous]

^ we moved before K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who attended ACPS and then left, would be interesting to hear why? Certain need for your kid that couldn’t be met, moved for other reasons, liked elementary but didn’t want the middle school, general lack of quality/too many problems, or something else?

I loved my house and the area. Crime started happening more frequently in the area. My kids started getting older and I wanted to live in a neighborhood where I didn’t have to have a second thought about them freely wandering around the neighborhood. I realized out of our neighborhood, so many went to private schools. Our cars on the street kept getting broken into.

I thought of our investment and how maybe they could be okay in the public schools but I heard stories from a friend with an older kid in advanced classes how they just put in him the grade two years older for that content area in elementary school. This was over ten years ago.

No regrets to moving. Again, maybe it could have been okay but hearing the stories of safety at the HS and middle schools and how break ins are continuing in our old neighborhood. There is nothing like that where we moved and our kids played freely and ran house to house with friends for all of elementary school, like I did in the 80s. My car has never been broken into here.

So many Karens clutching their pearls over crime. It's so tiresome.

How many kids did you know in your old Alexandria neighborhood who were crime victims of any kind?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who attended ACPS and then left, would be interesting to hear why? Certain need for your kid that couldn’t be met, moved for other reasons, liked elementary but didn’t want the middle school, general lack of quality/too many problems, or something else?

I loved my house and the area. Crime started happening more frequently in the area. My kids started getting older and I wanted to live in a neighborhood where I didn’t have to have a second thought about them freely wandering around the neighborhood. I realized out of our neighborhood, so many went to private schools. Our cars on the street kept getting broken into.

I thought of our investment and how maybe they could be okay in the public schools but I heard stories from a friend with an older kid in advanced classes how they just put in him the grade two years older for that content area in elementary school. This was over ten years ago.

No regrets to moving. Again, maybe it could have been okay but hearing the stories of safety at the HS and middle schools and how break ins are continuing in our old neighborhood. There is nothing like that where we moved and our kids played freely and ran house to house with friends for all of elementary school, like I did in the 80s. My car has never been broken into here.

So many Karens clutching their pearls over crime. It's so tiresome.

How many kids did you know in your old Alexandria neighborhood who were crime victims of any kind?

You don’t have to be a direct victim of a crime to be impacted. Going to a school with frequent violence, or witnessing it when walking to school can be traumatic. I heard gunshots 5 times in a couple years living in North old town. I’ve been in Arlington a decade and heard zero. That’s worth it for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one who actually knows DC area school believes that m Loudoun Valley is a better school than Yorktown. Seriously. Dumbest part of this whole thread.

And I wouldn’t send my kid to ACHS for all the money in the world.

Because you are a racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who attended ACPS and then left, would be interesting to hear why? Certain need for your kid that couldn’t be met, moved for other reasons, liked elementary but didn’t want the middle school, general lack of quality/too many problems, or something else?

I loved my house and the area. Crime started happening more frequently in the area. My kids started getting older and I wanted to live in a neighborhood where I didn’t have to have a second thought about them freely wandering around the neighborhood. I realized out of our neighborhood, so many went to private schools. Our cars on the street kept getting broken into.

I thought of our investment and how maybe they could be okay in the public schools but I heard stories from a friend with an older kid in advanced classes how they just put in him the grade two years older for that content area in elementary school. This was over ten years ago.

No regrets to moving. Again, maybe it could have been okay but hearing the stories of safety at the HS and middle schools and how break ins are continuing in our old neighborhood. There is nothing like that where we moved and our kids played freely and ran house to house with friends for all of elementary school, like I did in the 80s. My car has never been broken into here.

So many Karens clutching their pearls over crime. It's so tiresome.

How many kids did you know in your old Alexandria neighborhood who were crime victims of any kind?

You don’t have to be a direct victim of a crime to be impacted. Going to a school with frequent violence, or witnessing it when walking to school can be traumatic. I heard gunshots 5 times in a couple years living in North old town. I’ve been in Arlington a decade and heard zero. That’s worth it for me.

You're just so ridiculous. I can't imagine being that afraid of my own shadow. We lived in 22207 for twenty years and it's an absolute snore. We've been in downtown DC for the last dozen years or so and it's fantastic. In the last 30 years we've been crime victims twice, both car break ins. One in 22207, the other in 20009. None in the last ten years.

Hundreds of thousands of people living in DC and Alexandria somehow manage to make it through the day without being mugged, shot at, murdered, raped, pillaged, etc. Get a grip man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who attended ACPS and then left, would be interesting to hear why? Certain need for your kid that couldn’t be met, moved for other reasons, liked elementary but didn’t want the middle school, general lack of quality/too many problems, or something else?

I loved my house and the area. Crime started happening more frequently in the area. My kids started getting older and I wanted to live in a neighborhood where I didn’t have to have a second thought about them freely wandering around the neighborhood. I realized out of our neighborhood, so many went to private schools. Our cars on the street kept getting broken into.

I thought of our investment and how maybe they could be okay in the public schools but I heard stories from a friend with an older kid in advanced classes how they just put in him the grade two years older for that content area in elementary school. This was over ten years ago.

No regrets to moving. Again, maybe it could have been okay but hearing the stories of safety at the HS and middle schools and how break ins are continuing in our old neighborhood. There is nothing like that where we moved and our kids played freely and ran house to house with friends for all of elementary school, like I did in the 80s. My car has never been broken into here.

So many Karens clutching their pearls over crime. It's so tiresome.

How many kids did you know in your old Alexandria neighborhood who were crime victims of any kind?

You don’t have to be a direct victim of a crime to be impacted. Going to a school with frequent violence, or witnessing it when walking to school can be traumatic. I heard gunshots 5 times in a couple years living in North old town. I’ve been in Arlington a decade and heard zero. That’s worth it for me.

You're just so ridiculous. I can't imagine being that afraid of my own shadow. We lived in 22207 for twenty years and it's an absolute snore. We've been in downtown DC for the last dozen years or so and it's fantastic. In the last 30 years we've been crime victims twice, both car break ins. One in 22207, the other in 20009. None in the last ten years.

Hundreds of thousands of people living in DC and Alexandria somehow manage to make it through the day without being mugged, shot at, murdered, raped, pillaged, etc. Get a grip man.

+1

I love all the posts (probably from the same ACPS lunatic lady that is still mad about something from 2008) about how 'we moved for crime'. Like FCPS doesnt have crime. The gang siutaion in Arlington, Reston and the Hybla Valley area of FCPS is OFF THE HOOK. There are routine stabbings and brawls. There are gang tags on EVERYTHING on Rt 1. I've seen the brawls on instagram so don't try and say it isn't real. But the white people feel isolated from it because it mostly stays in the HIspanic community.

A white kid at ACHS is ten times safer than a white kid at WEPO or South Lakes.

[Anonymous]

What gang situation in APS? We're in 22207. We have car break ins. I've never heard of gangs in the schools.

[Anonymous]

Vote with your feet. Leave.

[Anonymous]

There are a few different types of people with regards to Alexandria schools:
1.Those who know they will not be happy and plan on moving or going private
2.Those who plan on giving it a try and have a good or good enough experience
3. Those who are so smug in their superiority over those who choose not to go to ACPS that they will stay no matter what. They’ll rationalize that the issues are the same in Arlington, Fairfax, etc.