If money was not a consideration, would you do private school for high school or APS

[Anonymous]

Arlington is such a well educated county, I think we all just assume smart choices are being made. We all think, "well surely they will fix this issue, or certainly they won't allow that to continue."
And to be sure the SB makes some very easy, obvious decisions... W-L getting a name change for example. Time
And again they have shown themselves to be unwilling to tackle some very big problems, like over crowding, and student performance.
I don't have much faith in APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had a fantastic elementary school experience. My youngest has 2 years left there, but my oldest went all the way from K-5. The teachers were top-notch. The kids are very advanced and way ahead of grade level. I feel that it is better academically than many of the expensive privates in the area.

BUT---MS and HS I think are too over-crowded and the system is overworked.

I went to my child's MS open house and came out with a horrible feeling. Total chaos. The number of trailers for the 7th grade---with OVERFLOWING DUMPSTERS leaning right up against the trailers! WTF?! One of the 7th grader's from last year told me there was a rat that ran right through their trailer classroom. Well---no shit!---if you place dumpsters right alongside the trailers.

There is zero parking and zero infrastructure for that many kids--coming and going. We walked around and couldn't even find anyone to help us for the first 25 minutes we were there.

My husband and I were hesitant about sending our kid there, but we figured we'd try it out. After yesterday, I really wish we had looked into private.

I am trying to keep an open mind, but I'm starting to hear about more problems people have had that are a direct result of too many kids in a decaying building and not enough staff or room.

It is incredibly appalling that with the $$$ and wealth in this County that this is the best the Board has provided.

That is appalling. Yes, it's difficult to deal with overcrowding but putting dumpsters up against the trailers is just stupid. I wonder if calling the health department would do any good.

We've been fortunate to avoid the overcrowded MS's because my kids went to TJ. I was concerned about the overcrowding at W-L so glad DS decided to try Arlington Tech. Had orientation there yesterday and I'm feeling very optimistic about that choice.

Yes. This was at Swanson yesterday. I am going to call the Health Department.

My DD was one of the 7th graders at Swanson last year in the trailers and she had an excellent year. And since her 3 older brothers went to Swanson when it wasn't overcrowded I had something with which to compare her experience. For the most part, the teachers are doing a great job dealing with the overcrowding and I am a fan of the new principal. But my DD is outgoing, super confident and has a lot of friends. I can definitely see an introvert struggle with the situation. We are definitely looking at private HS for her though, since our HS is WL and though it was great for our sons, that was when there were "only" 420 to a grade. 700 plus - that's insane.

[Anonymous]

My DD was one of the 7th graders at Swanson last year in the trailers and she had an excellent year. And since her 3 older brothers went to Swanson when it wasn't overcrowded I had something with which to compare her experience. For the most part, the teachers are doing a great job dealing with the overcrowding and I am a fan of the new principal. But my DD is outgoing, super confident and has a lot of friends. I can definitely see an introvert struggle with the situation. We are definitely looking at private HS for her though, since our HS is WL and though it was great for our sons, that was when there were "only" 420 to a grade. 700 plus - that's insane.

what high schools would you look at, though? there do not seem to be many that are close by, if WL is close to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had a fantastic elementary school experience. My youngest has 2 years left there, but my oldest went all the way from K-5. The teachers were top-notch. The kids are very advanced and way ahead of grade level. I feel that it is better academically than many of the expensive privates in the area.

BUT---MS and HS I think are too over-crowded and the system is overworked.

I went to my child's MS open house and came out with a horrible feeling. Total chaos. The number of trailers for the 7th grade---with OVERFLOWING DUMPSTERS leaning right up against the trailers! WTF?! One of the 7th grader's from last year told me there was a rat that ran right through their trailer classroom. Well---no shit!---if you place dumpsters right alongside the trailers.

There is zero parking and zero infrastructure for that many kids--coming and going. We walked around and couldn't even find anyone to help us for the first 25 minutes we were there.

My husband and I were hesitant about sending our kid there, but we figured we'd try it out. After yesterday, I really wish we had looked into private.

I am trying to keep an open mind, but I'm starting to hear about more problems people have had that are a direct result of too many kids in a decaying building and not enough staff or room.

It is incredibly appalling that with the $$$ and wealth in this County that this is the best the Board has provided.

That is appalling. Yes, it's difficult to deal with overcrowding but putting dumpsters up against the trailers is just stupid. I wonder if calling the health department would do any good.

We've been fortunate to avoid the overcrowded MS's because my kids went to TJ. I was concerned about the overcrowding at W-L so glad DS decided to try Arlington Tech. Had orientation there yesterday and I'm feeling very optimistic about that choice.

Yes. This was at Swanson yesterday. I am going to call the Health Department.

My DD was one of the 7th graders at Swanson last year in the trailers and she had an excellent year. And since her 3 older brothers went to Swanson when it wasn't overcrowded I had something with which to compare her experience. For the most part, the teachers are doing a great job dealing with the overcrowding and I am a fan of the new principal. But my DD is outgoing, super confident and has a lot of friends. I can definitely see an introvert struggle with the situation. We are definitely looking at private HS for her though, since our HS is WL and though it was great for our sons, that was when there were "only" 420 to a grade. 700 plus - that's insane.

I think people are beginning to feel the same way you do about HS size, about Middle school size. 3 out of 5 of my son's best friends are going private for MS. The parents did not like how massively overcrowded WMS and Swanson were. Capacity causes a tipping point where it just is impossible to effectively control and teach that many children. The hallways were suffocating with Swanson between periods and sharing lockers, etc. The trailer-rat thing is disturbing.

Maybe when the new MS opens in 2019 things will be better.

[Anonymous]

It's like watching the slow motion decline of a once good school system. Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

I'm a big proponent of public schools, and feel that I already pay a lot of money to live in Arlington and should take advantage of the school system, but we made the difficult choice to send our child to private school because we have really seen a decline in APS. In our personal experience, which isn't true for everyone, but we found the schools are too crowded, they push math so hard and gloss over the basics, writing isn't emphasized at all. There is very little personalized attention. Teachers are overworked and because they have so many students, they either just hand out multiple choice tests because they are easier to grade, or the grades from papers take weeks and weeks to come back, and the kids don't know if they are on the right track. We've also seen a lot of social issues - drugs, alcohol, bullying, etc. that hasn't really been addressed. Of course, those things will always be present in high schools - both public and private, but we were disappointed in what we were seeing and made the change to a smaller, more accountable system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money is no object and we are choosing APS, as are the vast majority of our neighbors.

All private schools are not created equal, by a long shot. Some people seem to think private = automatically better than public, but you really need to compare specific school to specific school.

If money was no object, you wouldn't be living in Arlington.

Maybe she works in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both of the North Arlington high schools and middle schools, and the majority of North Arlington elementary schools made one of the three tiers of awards given annually by the VA Board of Education: the 2017 Governor's Award for Educational Excellence, the 2017 Board of Education Excellence Award, and the 2017 Board of Education Distinguished Achievement Award.

APS ISN'T JUST NORTH ARLINGTON. Their inability to have similar outcomes across the county is a failure. It's a weak school system.

Yeah because getting kids who are hungry and don't speak English to perform as well as upper middle class kids who speak the lanugauge and have parents who can understand their homework and communicate with teachers are going to perform at the same level. Ok.

And when ALL of those kids are segregated into a handful of schools, you can't possibly expect their outcomes to be any better than they are. Segregated schools are WORSE for every student and every subgroup. APS lost sight of this issue and caved to pressure to keep certain kids "where they belong." So no, they don't deserve a single award. Not one. They deserve the shame that the WaPo and educational think tanks are heaping upon them. [/quo

Segregated schools are worse for EVERY student and EVERY subgroup? Tell that to the private school parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in a good pyramid, but if money wasn't the issue I would put my kids in a good private in a heartbeat. You can't beat the small class sizes. Last year my 5th grader had 29 kids in his class and 32 during math instruction. Terrible.

How many kids were in your elementary school class? Class sizes are lower now than what they have been historically. Why are these numbers unacceptable all of a sudden?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
How many kids were in your elementary school class? Class sizes are lower now than what they have been historically. Why are these numbers unacceptable all of a sudden?

I think this is an interesting point. I do recall my class photos, and they seem small to me. Like two rows with maybe 18 kids in them? I don't have any numbers but I question it's true class size is smaller.

I have also a few additional thoughts:

*When I was in elementary school there were very few ESOL students and almost all of them were Mexican Americans. My DS is at Science Focus. I kid you not: there are Russian, Mongolians, Indians, Persians, Laotians, Vietnamese, and a handful of other Eastern European countries and Latin American countries. Schools are required to provide instruction for all these children. I have begun to become curious what kind of cost drain this pressure adds to the school system?
*I recall a lot less focus on "academic" specials. We had music, and PE, and art. I know we didn't have Spanish (FLES) or some of the science specials (Science City, etc.).
*We took the Iowa test in 2nd grade. It was just to baseline, it had no funding implications for the school. Administering tests, teaching testing materials, and the kind of pressure teachers are under around test results seems to be to an additional pressure on teachers.

What I'm wondering about is whether the system is under more pressure and whether it's a problem of both class size and more complex expectations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Currently live in N. Arlington. If money were no object, I would first want to live in Georgetown, Logan Circle, Lyon Park (not village) or S. Arlington.

I would also send all my kids to private (one is there now and hoping to get the youngest in next year) but I wouldn't have waited if I had the $$ to do it a few years ago.

all the popular school systems (APS, FCPS, MoCo) are f***ed b/c of over-enrollment and piss poor planning across the board.

Please don't project APS's problems onto other school systems. We moved from Arlington to McLean a few years ago and have been very happy with FCPS, the lower rate of enrollment growth, and not having to worry about the high school capacity issues APS is facing. We will be happy if our kids end up at any of Langley, McLean or Marshall, and there should be space for them.

I don't know. My cousin's kids just recently graduated from Langley and Marshall and it didn't sound like a complete picnic over there either. If it did we might have considered relocating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Arlington is such a well educated county, I think we all just assume smart choices are being made. We all think, "well surely they will fix this issue, or certainly they won't allow that to continue."
And to be sure the SB makes some very easy, obvious decisions... W-L getting a name change for example. Time
And again they have shown themselves to be unwilling to tackle some very big problems, like over crowding, and student performance.
I don't have much faith in APS.

You're exactly right about the bolded. If it's easy, no problem. The real problems get kicked down the road for years.

Interesting that no one has mentioned the widespread drug issues at Yorktown & W&L. I can't understand why admin is so lax in enforcing the rules and encouraging police to intervene. It's a real disservice to the parents and children.