Question about re zoning elementary schools in S. Arlington

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yeah. Former SA parent at one of the schools mentioned. Now in NA. I spent innumerable hours meeting with classroom teacher, RTG, and principal attempting to get appropriate differentiation for my child. I can only imagine how much harder that is for a parent with an advanced child new to the country with language barriers. But i moved to NA and I have not been involved one bit. My child is challenged by the teachers and peers. Night and day. There are crazy helicopters in NA and SA. But this is not that.

Arlington Blvd is magic. Cross the golden road and all your child's problems disappear...

Or stay and have everyone assume because your kids first language is English and they were born here that they have no problems of consequence compared to their poorer immigrant classmates and "will be fine" and can be ignored.

Congrats. Now your poor child doesn't have to be ignored & victimized. Once the SA teachers got a look at your son's birth certificate, they knew it was ok to let him flounder in class. Being native born, they had no reason to care about his well being.

It's not about "floundering." SA neighborhood elementaries are specialist when it's comes to floundering. It's about accepting mediocrity from the most capable students in the class because ESL, SOL are simply a higher priority. No one will admits that publicly but it's just common sense and the experience of people who have moved bears it out.

I am a N. Arlington parent in an elementary school and also a former teacher. I have not been overly impressed with my DC's teacher from last year; however, I did notice that there were wide disparities in the classroom this year in terms of reading ability, etc. What I noticed is that the vast majority were not able to read and the teacher had to spend a lot of time with them this year. The few that could were left to read to the other kids. I can imagine that if the classroom is even further behind grade milestones, how that could slow down the pace even further. I'm sure there are exceptions in every school, and if the teacher had fewer kids in his/her class who were behind, they could challenge the kids more who could.

Careful, careful....that sounds like tracking.

Tracking is cool now - they do it at Barcroft. I think that's why so many people are changing their minds about it.

No one is changing their mind about Barcroft. The Barcroft delusion is incredible.

Well, we can't all go choice, can we? And those bungaloids in Barcroft and Alcova Heights keep getting built - and remember, east of Mason is well past gentrification.

[Anonymous]

And west of Mason is Barcroft Apartments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah. Former SA parent at one of the schools mentioned. Now in NA. I spent innumerable hours meeting with classroom teacher, RTG, and principal attempting to get appropriate differentiation for my child. I can only imagine how much harder that is for a parent with an advanced child new to the country with language barriers. But i moved to NA and I have not been involved one bit. My child is challenged by the teachers and peers. Night and day. There are crazy helicopters in NA and SA. But this is not that.

Arlington Blvd is magic. Cross the golden road and all your child's problems disappear...

Or stay and have everyone assume because your kids first language is English and they were born here that they have no problems of consequence compared to their poorer immigrant classmates and "will be fine" and can be ignored.

Congrats. Now your poor child doesn't have to be ignored & victimized. Once the SA teachers got a look at your son's birth certificate, they knew it was ok to let him flounder in class. Being native born, they had no reason to care about his well being.

It's not about "floundering." SA neighborhood elementaries are specialist when it's comes to floundering. It's about accepting mediocrity from the most capable students in the class because ESL, SOL are simply a higher priority. No one will admits that publicly but it's just common sense and the experience of people who have moved bears it out.

So the "most capable" students are getting mediocre grades. But yet, you know - probably because your child was one of them - that they couldn't possibly just be mediocre students. No, there must be another reason. Oh yeah, it's those darn ESL kids: they're sapping all the teacher's attention, and now she doesn't have time to bring out the best in my budding genius.

Dp - you really don’t get it. Your kid will get high marks and fly like a super star... until middle. They’ll be the smartest kid in class. They will be unchallenged. And then you will be shocked at middle school.

[Anonymous]

I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

It's called Carlin Springs, and it just teaches kids how to pass the SOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And west of Mason is Barcroft Apartments.

Which are primarily zoned Randolph, because they are not actually in Barcroft, despite the name, and the kids aren't allowed to walk across Columbia Pike. Only a small sliver of the apartments were carved out and bused to Barcroft school years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

Huh?

After school learning enrichment. If so many people are complaining about the schools, why isn't (or is there) a market for after school enrichment to fill the gaps so that kids aren't behind for middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah. Former SA parent at one of the schools mentioned. Now in NA. I spent innumerable hours meeting with classroom teacher, RTG, and principal attempting to get appropriate differentiation for my child. I can only imagine how much harder that is for a parent with an advanced child new to the country with language barriers. But i moved to NA and I have not been involved one bit. My child is challenged by the teachers and peers. Night and day. There are crazy helicopters in NA and SA. But this is not that.

Arlington Blvd is magic. Cross the golden road and all your child's problems disappear...

Or stay and have everyone assume because your kids first language is English and they were born here that they have no problems of consequence compared to their poorer immigrant classmates and "will be fine" and can be ignored.

Congrats. Now your poor child doesn't have to be ignored & victimized. Once the SA teachers got a look at your son's birth certificate, they knew it was ok to let him flounder in class. Being native born, they had no reason to care about his well being.

It's not about "floundering." SA neighborhood elementaries are specialist when it's comes to floundering. It's about accepting mediocrity from the most capable students in the class because ESL, SOL are simply a higher priority. No one will admits that publicly but it's just common sense and the experience of people who have moved bears it out.

I am a N. Arlington parent in an elementary school and also a former teacher. I have not been overly impressed with my DC's teacher from last year; however, I did notice that there were wide disparities in the classroom this year in terms of reading ability, etc. What I noticed is that the vast majority were not able to read and the teacher had to spend a lot of time with them this year. The few that could were left to read to the other kids. I can imagine that if the classroom is even further behind grade milestones, how that could slow down the pace even further. I'm sure there are exceptions in every school, and if the teacher had fewer kids in his/her class who were behind, they could challenge the kids more who could.

Careful, careful....that sounds like tracking.

Tracking is cool now - they do it at Barcroft. I think that's why so many people are changing their minds about it.

No one is changing their mind about Barcroft. The Barcroft delusion is incredible.

They've been doing clustering at Barcroft for years. In fact, one of the former RTGs at Barcroft is the one who brought it to APS and Barcroft. Regardless of what it's called or how it's done, it's still essentially tracking. One form works better than the other; while the other looks better than the first.


Not with the current calendar they aren't, not in a significant way.

Anyway, what PP has described isn't tracking. It's clustering of students, and it's what every APS school is supposed to do so that kids have academic peers. If they weren't doing that under the last principal, no wonder parents left the school.

That's not tracking. If you call that tracking, then any differentiated curriculum is tracking, any delivery of services (gifted, ESL, SpEd) is tracking. I don't know what to tell you. Not every kid is at the same level to start, then some catch up and some fall behind. As long as kids can move in and out of their groupings, it's not tracking. They aren't all the same, instruction can't all be the same. Some kids need more help and others need a faster pace/greater depth. And sometimes those things change year over year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

Huh?

After school learning enrichment. If so many people are complaining about the schools, why isn't (or is there) a market for after school enrichment to fill the gaps so that kids aren't behind for middle school?

Not the PP you were responding to, but how could after school enrichment help kids who are missing out on daily instruction? If kids aren't keeping pace with kids in other parts of Arlington, what is an hour after school going to do? If half the schools are covering an entire year's worth of curriculum in a far more accelerated way (and I don't know that this is true, it's just what I've heard from a couple people who have moved or switched to option schools and found their kids who had been "advanced" were now "behind"), what type of enrichment do you envision that can replace daily instruction? Also, the schools where this might be an issue are also the ones whose PTAs do not have the $$ or organizational manpower to offer these enrichment programs. Again, I don't know that this is true, but it does seem that a couple high-needs schools have lower targets for their students, so students who could be learning might be missing out. This would include children from every demographic. My general observation is that, barring an educational impediment, kids will rise to the occasion. If you expect excellence, you will get excellence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

Huh?

After school learning enrichment. If so many people are complaining about the schools, why isn't (or is there) a market for after school enrichment to fill the gaps so that kids aren't behind for middle school?

Not the PP you were responding to, but how could after school enrichment help kids who are missing out on daily instruction? If kids aren't keeping pace with kids in other parts of Arlington, what is an hour after school going to do? If half the schools are covering an entire year's worth of curriculum in a far more accelerated way (and I don't know that this is true, it's just what I've heard from a couple people who have moved or switched to option schools and found their kids who had been "advanced" were now "behind"), what type of enrichment do you envision that can replace daily instruction? Also, the schools where this might be an issue are also the ones whose PTAs do not have the $$ or organizational manpower to offer these enrichment programs. Again, I don't know that this is true, but it does seem that a couple high-needs schools have lower targets for their students, so students who could be learning might be missing out. This would include children from every demographic. My general observation is that, barring an educational impediment, kids will rise to the occasion. If you expect excellence, you will get excellence.

I don't know, which is why I asked. You do raise valid points, I am asking if there were efforts or ways to address the problem. For example, if you can't get into a choice school, can't move, but you don't want your child to be behind when they move to middle school, do you supplement with such a program? It would nice if a PTA sponsored something like this, but I assumed it would be something commercial, like Kumon, that a family would pursue on their own. It would not replace daily instruction, but would add to it.

If daily instruction is so bad that the kids aren't being educated, that is a whole different issue. From what I have heard, no one is complaining about that, but rather N Arlington schools seem to be ahead in subject matter, versus kids in the South not learning anything.

[Anonymous]

Yes. These "capable students" aren't getting mediocre grades in the SA schools like Barcroft. They are getting As and being given the impression that their mediocre effort/work is incredibly impressive because they are ahead of their peers. Until they need to swim in a bigger pond. It's not a great situation when an entire grade level has only 4-5 kids who are the higher achievers (and this includes kids of all income levels and ethnic backgrounds). You want a significant cohort. Better shot at a Henry or Oakridge and definitely at a Long Branch or Glebe or Ashlawn or McKinley or Jamestown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

Huh?

After school learning enrichment. If so many people are complaining about the schools, why isn't (or is there) a market for after school enrichment to fill the gaps so that kids aren't behind for middle school?

Not the PP you were responding to, but how could after school enrichment help kids who are missing out on daily instruction? If kids aren't keeping pace with kids in other parts of Arlington, what is an hour after school going to do? If half the schools are covering an entire year's worth of curriculum in a far more accelerated way (and I don't know that this is true, it's just what I've heard from a couple people who have moved or switched to option schools and found their kids who had been "advanced" were now "behind"), what type of enrichment do you envision that can replace daily instruction? Also, the schools where this might be an issue are also the ones whose PTAs do not have the $$ or organizational manpower to offer these enrichment programs. Again, I don't know that this is true, but it does seem that a couple high-needs schools have lower targets for their students, so students who could be learning might be missing out. This would include children from every demographic. My general observation is that, barring an educational impediment, kids will rise to the occasion. If you expect excellence, you will get excellence.

I don't know, which is why I asked. You do raise valid points, I am asking if there were efforts or ways to address the problem. For example, if you can't get into a choice school, can't move, but you don't want your child to be behind when they move to middle school, do you supplement with such a program? It would nice if a PTA sponsored something like this, but I assumed it would be something commercial, like Kumon, that a family would pursue on their own. It would not replace daily instruction, but would add to it.

If daily instruction is so bad that the kids aren't being educated, that is a whole different issue. From what I have heard, no one is complaining about that, but rather N Arlington schools seem to be ahead in subject matter, versus kids in the South not learning anything.

The thing is, a family can always move if they want to badly enough. It might be expensive and inconvenient, but moving is always an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. These "capable students" aren't getting mediocre grades in the SA schools like Barcroft. They are getting As and being given the impression that their mediocre effort/work is incredibly impressive because they are ahead of their peers. Until they need to swim in a bigger pond. It's not a great situation when an entire grade level has only 4-5 kids who are the higher achievers (and this includes kids of all income levels and ethnic backgrounds). You want a significant cohort. Better shot at a Henry or Oakridge and definitely at a Long Branch or Glebe or Ashlawn or McKinley or Jamestown.

Yes, this is an accurate description. And it explains why Henry and Oakridge are the most over capacity schools in the district, and Randolph and Barcroft the lowest. People vote with their feet. The market is not wrong about this. Hundreds of families are not simply closed-minded. These schools are different, and offer less to middle class and upper middle class families who want more. That is unfortunate and I hope the boundary process can address those inequalities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sort of surprised there isn't some type of cottage industry cram schools in S Arlington for elem, they way people talk. Or there is and I just missed it?

Huh?

After school learning enrichment. If so many people are complaining about the schools, why isn't (or is there) a market for after school enrichment to fill the gaps so that kids aren't behind for middle school?

Not the PP you were responding to, but how could after school enrichment help kids who are missing out on daily instruction? If kids aren't keeping pace with kids in other parts of Arlington, what is an hour after school going to do? If half the schools are covering an entire year's worth of curriculum in a far more accelerated way (and I don't know that this is true, it's just what I've heard from a couple people who have moved or switched to option schools and found their kids who had been "advanced" were now "behind"), what type of enrichment do you envision that can replace daily instruction? Also, the schools where this might be an issue are also the ones whose PTAs do not have the $$ or organizational manpower to offer these enrichment programs. Again, I don't know that this is true, but it does seem that a couple high-needs schools have lower targets for their students, so students who could be learning might be missing out. This would include children from every demographic. My general observation is that, barring an educational impediment, kids will rise to the occasion. If you expect excellence, you will get excellence.

I don't know, which is why I asked. You do raise valid points, I am asking if there were efforts or ways to address the problem. For example, if you can't get into a choice school, can't move, but you don't want your child to be behind when they move to middle school, do you supplement with such a program? It would nice if a PTA sponsored something like this, but I assumed it would be something commercial, like Kumon, that a family would pursue on their own. It would not replace daily instruction, but would add to it.

If daily instruction is so bad that the kids aren't being educated, that is a whole different issue. From what I have heard, no one is complaining about that, but rather N Arlington schools seem to be ahead in subject matter, versus kids in the South not learning anything.

The thing is, a family can always move if they want to badly enough. It might be expensive and inconvenient, but moving is always an option.

This is what is wrong with Arlington and this area. No one wants to fix them problem - they just run away.