Alexandria Schools and Home Buying

[Anonymous]

My husband and I like the Alexandria area and want to know the best neighborhoods for schools. Any advice? We both work in DC s the commute is important to us too.

[Anonymous]

When you say "Alexandria", do you mean City of Alexandria or the Alexandria part of Fairfax Co.? I live in the former now and grew up in the later, so there is a difference. As to best schools in the City of Alexandria, for elementary, try getting into the Lyles Crouch area - Southeast quadrant of Old Town. There are some other nice areas as well, but I forget all of them. Of course, the middle school and TC Williams are probably not the greatest (at least in comparison to Fairfax Co.)...

For Alexandria part of Fairfax Co., I hear that Hollin Hall / Belle Haven / Collingwood is pretty nice. As is Waynewood.

[Anonymous]

Depending on when you need the schools, the Northeast quadrant of Old Town is going through significant transformation. This should have an effect on the schools in the area and the prices are slightly lower that in the Southeast quadrant.

[Anonymous]

We live south of Old Town toward Mt. Vernon and the commute into DC is generally fine. Waynewood is a family friendly neighborhood with a terrific elementary school. Other options are Stratford Landing (houses a GT center) and Fort Hunt (Spanish immersion). All feed into Sandburg Middle School and West Potomac, which seem to get regularly dismissed and problem schools. However, most kids from the neighborhoods south of Old Town go to them and from what we hear, parents are very pleased with the level of teacher support at Sandburg and the extracurriculars (particularly music and drama which are amazing) at West Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Fort Hunt High School, which now houses Sandburg Middle, used to be one considered one of the top schools in Fairfax. FCPS merged Fort Hunt and Groveton years ago, however, to create West Potomac HS. Perhaps declining enrollments made this necessary, but West Potomac has never quite enjoyed the reputation that Fort Hunt used to have.

[Anonymous]

In the City of Alexandria, George Mason and MacArthur are two good ones and some people love Barrett.

[Anonymous]

In the City of Alexandria, current parents also love Maury. However, I would look closely at class sizes. Some of the reasons why Mason/MacArthur/Barrett/Maury schools have good reputations is because they had class sizes of 12-15 kids and very involved parents for several years. Once the schools developed the good reputations, and more people with young children moved into the districts, there were more students per grade. Now the class sizes in those schools are growing to more like 21-24. As a result, the schools are now very different schools when they were when they earned those reputations. However, the class sizes are still smaller than Fairfax or Arlington classes.

[Anonymous]

I would also keep track of the local news from the school board in the City of Alexandria. Some Alexandria elementary schools are well loved, as described above, and bursting at the seams, and some are struggling and half empty. According to folks who were around at the time, in the late '90's, the Alexandria School Board made the decision to concentrate the disadvantaged school populations in certain schools as a means of attracting the wealthier folks back to the other public schools, created Lyles-Crouch Traditional Academy, etc. All you have to do is look at the statistics for the schools on the Alexandria public school web site, and the disparities are clear. The current Administration has proposed cutting off school enrollment at the "popular" schools, sending new students to other schools, whether or not they live in boundary. There have also been discussions regarding re-drawing boundaries. Who knows what they'll do, but the current situation is unsustainable.

[Anonymous]

Yes check out the website for City of Alexandria schools. Unless your child has a sibling in one of the popular schools they are going to reassign to anther school no matter what district you live in.

[Anonymous]

Belle View area. Fairfax county public schools.