Does anyone here actually send their kid to Hayfield/Edison/West Potomac/5 or lower GS high schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All else being equal schools have almost no influence on how smart your kid is.

That combined with the big fish small pond phenomena is lower GS schools in a slam dunk

Good luck paying for college overpaying for a house too lolz

then why send them to school at all?

There is something to be said for the upward "peer pressure" of a school where most of the kids are thinking about college and want to pass exams. vs. a school where the academically inclined segment is a small subset and the focus is on athletics or simply behavior management. Of course the high flyers (extremely motivated and mature students) will do well anywhere. But, what of the kids who are capable, but could go either way? What of the kid who sees few others pushing themselves to take higher classes and says "Most people aren't taking AP". What of the students who lose their teachers mid-year b/c they quit as a result of a frustrating set of kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

Np-That's hardly the situation anywhere in FCPS. I've raised a bright, confident kid. They will bloom where planted. It's a shame you have such a volatile student. Maybe you should reexamine what's happening at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

Np-That's hardly the situation anywhere in FCPS. I've raised a bright, confident kid. They will bloom where planted. It's a shame you have such a volatile student. Maybe you should reexamine what's happening at home.

Nice effort to deflect, but still a fail. Maybe you should be honest next time about the low number of high-achievers at the GS 4 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

Np-That's hardly the situation anywhere in FCPS. I've raised a bright, confident kid. They will bloom where planted. It's a shame you have such a volatile student. Maybe you should reexamine what's happening at home.

Nice effort to deflect, but still a fail. Maybe you should be honest next time about the low number of high-achievers at the GS 4 schools.

Why should I when my child and their friends are the high achievers? It's a shame you don't have more faith in your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

Np-That's hardly the situation anywhere in FCPS. I've raised a bright, confident kid. They will bloom where planted. It's a shame you have such a volatile student. Maybe you should reexamine what's happening at home.

Nice effort to deflect, but still a fail. Maybe you should be honest next time about the low number of high-achievers at the GS 4 schools.

Why should I when my child and their friends are the high achievers? It's a shame you don't have more faith in your kid.

More of a shame you couldn't have done better for your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide.

Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students.

There is no reason to move any of West Springfield oer to Lee. It just makes zero sense.

West springfield has the most logical boundaries in all of Fairfax County. It does not have capacity problems and will actually be under capacity when renovations are complete.it is not the wealthiest zone by any stretch of imagination, just solidly middle/upper middle class. It has done an exceptional job educating all of its students, with some of the highest black and hispanic achievement in the county and state. It is not a large or oversized school like LB, Robinson or many of the other schools.

The only reason to rezone WSHS is to try to socially engineer things and to appease Lee parents. Moving a neighborhood from WSHS to Lee will do nothing to raise achievement at Lee. The only thing it would achieve would be to drive down property values i whatever neighborhood got rezoned to Lee.

If you look at attendance numbers and capacity from the Mt. Vernon area west toward Lake Braddock, I think it would be possible to consolidate and eliminate one school entirely. WSHS will be under capacity after renovation, Lee and Mt. Vernon are way under. I'm not sure about Edison, Hatfield, or Stuart. FCPS needs a comprehensive boundary study.

[Anonymous]

Hayfield, not Hatfield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide.

Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students.

There is no reason to move any of West Springfield oer to Lee. It just makes zero sense.

West springfield has the most logical boundaries in all of Fairfax County. It does not have capacity problems and will actually be under capacity when renovations are complete.it is not the wealthiest zone by any stretch of imagination, just solidly middle/upper middle class. It has done an exceptional job educating all of its students, with some of the highest black and hispanic achievement in the county and state. It is not a large or oversized school like LB, Robinson or many of the other schools.

The only reason to rezone WSHS is to try to socially engineer things and to appease Lee parents. Moving a neighborhood from WSHS to Lee will do nothing to raise achievement at Lee. The only thing it would achieve would be to drive down property values i whatever neighborhood got rezoned to Lee.

If you look at attendance numbers and capacity from the Mt. Vernon area west toward Lake Braddock, I think it would be possible to consolidate and eliminate one school entirely. WSHS will be under capacity after renovation, Lee and Mt. Vernon are way under. I'm not sure about Edison, Hatfield, or Stuart. FCPS needs a comprehensive boundary study.

Something needs to be done about Edison and Lee. They're both IB (less desirable), and they're about 2 miles apart on the same road. If anything needed to be consolidated or changed, it's there. At least change one of them to AP. Annandale is right up the road from both and is also IB. Too much IB in the east/northeast part of our county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you're pointing out that rich kids who have opportunity rammed down their throats from the day they are born have higher test scores?

I think it just shows that either good students don't always rise to the top or there aren't many good students at some schools.

I think this statement shows that you don't know much about statistics.

Those scores are AVERAGES. You understand what that means, right? They are a mix of good students and bad students. A school with a lower average score could have just as many perfect scores as a school with a higher average score. The average can't tell you whether good students are "rising to the top," whatever that means. The average can't even tell you if there are more good students at one school than the other.

Then there is also the question, at such large high schools, of how much "good" is enough. Is it enough for your kid to have 50 high SAT-scoring peers in a high school class of 400? Or does your kid need 150 high-scoring peers in order to succeed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

...which means your schools bore no relationship whatsoever to what FFX offers at every one of its high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

OP here. I agree with the first part of this post. I went to a GS 4 with no AP's and have no desire to put my kid through that particular sort of ringer socially. On the second part of this post though, the lower rated schools do have a s*load of programs. Hayfield for example has a ton of AP's, offer multivariable calculus, Japanese and Arabic. You really do get a ton of resources just by virtue of being in FCPS.

It's great to have the options, but then you need to look at the actual results. If you compare Hayfield to Lake Braddock, the AP participation rate is about 8% lower, and the pass rate for the smaller percentage of students taking AP classes is 15% lower. Which school do you really think has the stronger peer group?

Again, this isn't a comparison that shows which peer groups are *stronger.* It's a comparison that shows which peer groups are *bigger.* And the question to ask is, how big is big enough?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

Np-That's hardly the situation anywhere in FCPS. I've raised a bright, confident kid. They will bloom where planted. It's a shame you have such a volatile student. Maybe you should reexamine what's happening at home.

Nice effort to deflect, but still a fail. Maybe you should be honest next time about the low number of high-achievers at the GS 4 schools.

Why should I when my child and their friends are the high achievers? It's a shame you don't have more faith in your kid.

More of a shame you couldn't have done better for your kid.

Goodness! I'm not sure how they could be doing better? Summers in Europe. We're so well connected, they couldn't possibly take advantage of all the internships handed to them. It's been so lovely not stressing about being in the top 2 percent of their class. What a headache for all the strivers at the "top" schools. I feel so sorry for those kids. They killed themsleves for 4 years and can't even get into the state flagship school. Of course there is a thread all about that. All that pressure and nothing to show for it. Sad.
We can't relate. Our oldest breeezed into UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All else being equal schools have almost no influence on how smart your kid is.

That combined with the big fish small pond phenomena is lower GS schools in a slam dunk

Good luck paying for college overpaying for a house too lolz

The fish tend to shrink in the smaller ponds.

Evidence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

Sorry, but I'll take the good teacher and strong peer group in the occasional trailer over a GS 4 school with a focus on behavior management and barely meeting the graduation benchmarks every time.

Np-That's hardly the situation anywhere in FCPS. I've raised a bright, confident kid. They will bloom where planted. It's a shame you have such a volatile student. Maybe you should reexamine what's happening at home.

Nice effort to deflect, but still a fail. Maybe you should be honest next time about the low number of high-achievers at the GS 4 schools.

Why should I when my child and their friends are the high achievers? It's a shame you don't have more faith in your kid.

More of a shame you couldn't have done better for your kid.

Goodness! I'm not sure how they could be doing better? Summers in Europe. We're so well connected, they couldn't possibly take advantage of all the internships handed to them. It's been so lovely not stressing about being in the top 2 percent of their class. What a headache for all the strivers at the "top" schools. I feel so sorry for those kids. They killed themsleves for 4 years and can't even get into the state flagship school. Of course there is a thread all about that. All that pressure and nothing to show for it. Sad.
We can't relate. Our oldest breeezed into UVA.

Jesus Christ. Can you just start your own pissing contest thread and leave this one for people interested in the subject?