Thoughts on McKinley or Discovery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Discovery parent here. I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head with the lack-of-cohesiveness remark. We've been lucky to have good teachers so far, but I do consider it luck and not a given. My feelings on the administration and front office are "meh." HUGE emphasis on technology, which follows them to WMS and has resulted in my perfectly-bright-but-distracted-by-shiny things middle-schooler learning zero this year, as far as I can tell.

Discovery parent here, emphatically agree with this poster. My biggest beef is the emphasis on technology and hasn't been great for my kids. Sometimes I feel the school is branding rather than teaching.

[Anonymous]

McK parent here. It's a good school but over-crowded. While Colin got Prince of the Year, I wonder what the crowding situation will do to that rating and the school's achievement.

Also, re the Monas. yes, there are a lot of SAHs and as a working person, I love it. They do everything and do it very, very well. I also don't feel excluded b/c I work.

Y'all is the plural form of the word you. It's an improvement to the English language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Discovery parent here. I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head with the lack-of-cohesiveness remark. We've been lucky to have good teachers so far, but I do consider it luck and not a given. My feelings on the administration and front office are "meh." HUGE emphasis on technology, which follows them to WMS and has resulted in my perfectly-bright-but-distracted-by-shiny things middle-schooler learning zero this year, as far as I can tell.

Discovery parent here, emphatically agree with this poster. My biggest beef is the emphasis on technology and hasn't been great for my kids. Sometimes I feel the school is branding rather than teaching.

Discovery parent here. I can't speak for the in-school stuff but my 3rd grader only ever had to use the Ipad for one publishing event. I love the Ipad for Reflex math. I see in extended day that they had implemented new restrictions for Ipad use so apparently the parents speaking out has worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An apple for AFAC? Yikes! That's shameful that th most wealthy population is so unaware of how to help others in need.

Y'all making a hatchet job.
Discovery PTA is involved in:

Borromeo Housing Holiday Drive
Care packages for the Children's National Medical Center.
Gifts that Give Hope
Food bus.

There. I admit I had to look it up but at least I am informed and won't make claims that I know little about.

Yes, I was going to come in and say this. Discovery does Food Bus, coat drives, food drives,

school supply drives (for both local and distant schools)

, and there are others, but I am spacing out on them. They ran a community service effort for MLK Day that was so well attended that they ran out of supplies. It's not just one suggested apple donation per student.

Now, I will say that I have run into some shockingly tone deaf parents at Discovery (I am no Discovery apologist), but I do not think Discovery has the monopoly on tone-deafness. I've met plenty upon plenty of parents in playgrounds across N Arlington that are equally clueless...so let's stop pointing fingers at one isolated school that is mere blocks from two other N Arlington schools not being named, but with similar demographics.

I'm really glad to hear that. The story with the apple for AFAC is true however. Perhaps it can be viewed in context with the fact, that the school was new at the time, and the parents/teachers/administration had other concerns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McK parent here. It's a good school but over-crowded. While Colin got Prince of the Year, I wonder what the crowding situation will do to that rating and the school's achievement.

Also, re the Monas. yes, there are a lot of SAHs and as a working person, I love it. They do everything and do it very, very well. I also don't feel excluded b/c I work.

Y'all is the plural form of the word you. It's an improvement to the English language.

I wouldn't worry too much about the ratings/achievements. The school overcrowding was a result of bringing in more students that mirrored the existing student population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McKinley is extremely overcrowded. Of course so is all of APS. Frankly I'd stay away from the county entirely (because it's managing its problems very poorly) but if I were picking between the two I'd elect for the less crowded Discovery (keeping in mind Williamsburg MS, where Discovery is colocated) has massive drug problems. Also badly handled by the county...

Do you have kids at WMS? Massive drug problem? Keep dreaming.

I'm a discovery parent. We are happy but not thrilled. There have been some growing pains. The school is still trying to develop its character and that takes time (I'm a teacher). This year has been much better than last year.

Yes! I have a son at Swanson. He does say that the three WMS he knows are really into drugs.

There are also the comments re WMS here:
https://www.arlnow.com/2017/05/25/just-in-police-dogs-to-search-schools-as-aps-addresses-drug-problem/

Yikes! Check out this thread! Holy cow...
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/644902.page

[Anonymous]

If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

In two years those capacity numbers are expected to shift so that McKinley, Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Jamestown are all clustered around each other. Discovery will be under capacity, but there's no way to move planning units to balance it better. I'm sure you don't expect APS to move kids between schools every year to make sure each year is as balanced as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

In two years those capacity numbers are expected to shift so that McKinley, Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Jamestown are all clustered around each other. Discovery will be under capacity, but there's no way to move planning units to balance it better. I'm sure you don't expect APS to move kids between schools every year to make sure each year is as balanced as possible.

In two years, but in the meantime 800 kids get shafted in an overcrowded school with no field space. This is the problem with APS's approach to the entire capacity crisis. Sooner or later numbers will go down, but in the meantime the kids in the system suffer the consequences of poor planning and decision-making. I don't want APS to move kids every year, but they were given data repeatedly showing that their projections were off and they chose to ignore them and go with their own flawed data. It didn't have to be like this, but they dug in their heels rather than evaluating different, better information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

Source for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

Source for this?

The administration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

Source for this?

The administration

So over 150 kindergarteners this year? Not sure how that's possible, since they appear to only have five kindergarten classes, and 30 kids per K class isn't even remotely close to being within APS policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So over 150 kindergarteners this year? Not sure how that's possible, since they appear to only have five kindergarten classes, and 30 kids per K class isn't even remotely close to being within APS policy.

They are adding a K class, and you're also not accounting for kids coming into other grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it matters, McKinley to date has 795 students registered to attend starting in September.

Great job with that redistricting, APS staff and board. Glad to know we have all these schools nearby that are under capacity with plenty of field space.

In two years those capacity numbers are expected to shift so that McKinley, Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Jamestown are all clustered around each other. Discovery will be under capacity, but there's no way to move planning units to balance it better. I'm sure you don't expect APS to move kids between schools every year to make sure each year is as balanced as possible.

Natch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So over 150 kindergarteners this year? Not sure how that's possible, since they appear to only have five kindergarten classes, and 30 kids per K class isn't even remotely close to being within APS policy.

They are adding a K class, and you're also not accounting for kids coming into other grades.

There are 6 K teachers listed in the notes from the principal. Does that mean that some grades are going to be out in the trailers again?