Saratoga/Key/Lee?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP considering Lee. When is Lee expected to lose accreditation? And what will it mean for the students who are enrolled there?

Lee shows as fully accredited.

Mount Vernon is the school struggling with accreditation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP considering Lee. When is Lee expected to lose accreditation? And what will it mean for the students who are enrolled there?

I would like to know this, too. I have a student who will be starting there soon. I wouldn’t want to have to change schools during the high school years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never posted to this forum before but I feel pretty strongly about this. I am late to this thread but your child will get a fine education at Key/Lee. I attended both of those schools and received a good education. The IB program challenged me immensely and I learned things through it that I didn't in college. IB is incredibly challenging but I honestly think it prepared me for college more than AP would have. My biggest gripe with IB is that colleges tend to give out less credit for it though but it seems like Lee is offering AP classes which will mitigate that.

Your child can get into and attend UVA/W&M/VA Tech from Lee. There are groups of motivated students at the school who attend these places and even more prestigious schools than UVA. Students from Lee thrive at Lee, attend college and graduate from college every year.

Honestly, the best part about Lee is the true diversity that you experience there. I was friends with people from different races, ethnicities and religions and it has positively impacted the way that I view the world today. I would never have wanted to attend a school like Langley or McLean with the utter lack of economic and racial diversity. I know this sentiment is incredibly unpopular on this board.

Also, it was my Lee education that allowed me to attend an amazing college, graduate in 4 years with less than 6k in debt so I think that attending Lee hasn't hurt me at all.

This is probably true. A motivated student from a good family can probably do just fine at Lee. But, most parents with the means to do so are not going to roll the dice on a school like Lee if they can buy in the West Springfield pyramid. This creates a vicious cycle at schools like Lee and virtuous cycles at schools like West Springfield. No number of anecdotal stories about Lee is going to convince your typical family that Lee is just as good as West Springfield. IMO, it’s not ideal to have poverty and challenging student populations increasingly concentrated in certain schools - it makes it more difficult to help those challenging student populations and more likely that the non-disadvantaged students in those schools will fall through the cracks. Whether anyone cares about this likely depends on your point of view. If you live in a good school pyramid, you only have the potential to lose in any school restructuring scenario, so you likely oppose any change. If you live in a poorly viewed pyramid, you’re all for restructuring - the reputation of schools in the Lee pyramid are already about as low as they can get, so just potential upside for you. If you’re a neutral school administrator responsible for the entire district, I would think you know something needs to be done, but it’s tough to do so against the backdrop of differing political interests. Easier to do nothing until your hand is forced.

Their hands are being forced since Lee teeters on the brink of losing state accreditation. It will be interesting to see how FCPS decision-makers deal with the situation. Doing nothing is not an option.

Maybe. I’m more inclined toward the view that their hand will be forced IF Lee loses state accreditation. Until then, they’ll probably just continue to dump more money and resources into Lee hoping it will stay afloat, even if just barely. That’s the path of least resistance, which makes it more likely IMO. I hope I’m wrong.

[Anonymous]

https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/reportcard/show_report.do;jsessionid=5uJT2pyDXt3S_P8vfd9PAqV8UeYcxFMW54vl8Zq6ZSKurAk19EaB!471829426!-1584764003?report_id=accreditation_2013_and_after_report&report_format=xlsx&year=2017

Lee is fully accredited. The idea that it could lose its accreditation is conjecture and, some might say, wishful thinking on the part of people who like to see FCPS do something about the Lee pyramid.

Ironically, Saratoga ES is only partially accredited - in fact, it’s the only school in the Lee Pyramid not to be fully accredited. That’s really quite amazing to me since the Saratoga area is probably the wealthiest area of the pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/reportcard/show_report.do;jsessionid=5uJT2pyDXt3S_P8vfd9PAqV8UeYcxFMW54vl8Zq6ZSKurAk19EaB!471829426!-1584764003?report_id=accreditation_2013_and_after_report&report_format=xlsx&year=2017

Lee is fully accredited. The idea that it could lose its accreditation is conjecture and, some might say, wishful thinking on the part of people who like to see FCPS do something about the Lee pyramid.

Ironically, Saratoga ES is only partially accredited - in fact, it’s the only school in the Lee Pyramid not to be fully accredited. That’s really quite amazing to me since the Saratoga area is probably the wealthiest area of the pyramid.

I assumed that the Gatehouse insider who posts on some of these threads was saying the internal discussions are anticipatory, based on recent trends and projections.

If you look at Lee's accreditation results, they meet all the current benchmarks, but the most recent Math and Graduation results for 2016-17 were trending down and within four and two points of the cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/reportcard/show_report.do;jsessionid=5uJT2pyDXt3S_P8vfd9PAqV8UeYcxFMW54vl8Zq6ZSKurAk19EaB!471829426!-1584764003?report_id=accreditation_2013_and_after_report&report_format=xlsx&year=2017

Lee is fully accredited. The idea that it could lose its accreditation is conjecture and, some might say, wishful thinking on the part of people who like to see FCPS do something about the Lee pyramid.

Ironically, Saratoga ES is only partially accredited - in fact, it’s the only school in the Lee Pyramid not to be fully accredited. That’s really quite amazing to me since the Saratoga area is probably the wealthiest area of the pyramid.

I assumed that the Gatehouse insider who posts on some of these threads was saying the internal discussions are anticipatory, based on recent trends and projections.

If you look at Lee's accreditation results, they meet all the current benchmarks, but the most recent Math and Graduation results for 2016-17 were trending down and within four and two points of the cutoff.

Yeah, it certainly could happen. I don’t think Lee has really shown any signs of improvement. But, until it happens, its all anticipatory and, to some degree, speculative. It’s possible Lee has reached bottom, that it could get worse, or that it could show modest improvements. Losing accreditation is not a foregone conclusion.

[Anonymous]

They really should can IB at Lee and add AP to the school first before trying something so disruptive.

[Anonymous]

Lee does offer AP courses. It was added to stop pupil placing out to WS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lee does offer AP courses. It was added to stop pupil placing out to WS.

How did that go over?

[Anonymous]

Pupil placement is just one problem for Lee. Even if you cut down or eliminate that, Lee isn’t going to magically turn around. People have been avoiding Lee, Key, and the feeder elemenatry schools in the pyramid for a long time. Saratoga was once viewed as a decent ES in an otherwise bad pyramid, but I don’t think you can really say that anymore. Saratoga is arguably the worst performing ES in the Lee pyramid and one of the worst in FCPS - one of the few elementary schools to not be fully accredited. The primary problem isn’t pupil placement out of Lee, it’s that impoverished and disadvantaged students have become concentrated in the pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never posted to this forum before but I feel pretty strongly about this. I am late to this thread but your child will get a fine education at Key/Lee. I attended both of those schools and received a good education. The IB program challenged me immensely and I learned things through it that I didn't in college. IB is incredibly challenging but I honestly think it prepared me for college more than AP would have. My biggest gripe with IB is that colleges tend to give out less credit for it though but it seems like Lee is offering AP classes which will mitigate that.

Your child can get into and attend UVA/W&M/VA Tech from Lee. There are groups of motivated students at the school who attend these places and even more prestigious schools than UVA. Students from Lee thrive at Lee, attend college and graduate from college every year.

Honestly, the best part about Lee is the true diversity that you experience there. I was friends with people from different races, ethnicities and religions and it has positively impacted the way that I view the world today. I would never have wanted to attend a school like Langley or McLean with the utter lack of economic and racial diversity. I know this sentiment is incredibly unpopular on this board.

Also, it was my Lee education that allowed me to attend an amazing college, graduate in 4 years with less than 6k in debt so I think that attending Lee hasn't hurt me at all.

How long ago did you graduate? I’m guessing at least 5 years? Maybe 10? That makes a huge difference in the validity of your post. There have been big changes in the last few years and not for the better. It’s not the same school it once was.

I graduated college fairly recently. Obviously, I have graduated college but I think that I didn't attend Lee so long ago that my perspective on the school has no merit. People said the same exact things about Lee when I attended it as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never posted to this forum before but I feel pretty strongly about this. I am late to this thread but your child will get a fine education at Key/Lee. I attended both of those schools and received a good education. The IB program challenged me immensely and I learned things through it that I didn't in college. IB is incredibly challenging but I honestly think it prepared me for college more than AP would have. My biggest gripe with IB is that colleges tend to give out less credit for it though but it seems like Lee is offering AP classes which will mitigate that.

Your child can get into and attend UVA/W&M/VA Tech from Lee. There are groups of motivated students at the school who attend these places and even more prestigious schools than UVA. Students from Lee thrive at Lee, attend college and graduate from college every year.

Honestly, the best part about Lee is the true diversity that you experience there. I was friends with people from different races, ethnicities and religions and it has positively impacted the way that I view the world today. I would never have wanted to attend a school like Langley or McLean with the utter lack of economic and racial diversity. I know this sentiment is incredibly unpopular on this board.

Also, it was my Lee education that allowed me to attend an amazing college, graduate in 4 years with less than 6k in debt so I think that attending Lee hasn't hurt me at all.

McLean is about 10% low-income and 45% minority, and one of its feeders is a Title I elementary school in Falls Church. How does that translate into an “utter lack of economic and racial diversity”? Perhaps IB didn’t teach you enough about fact-checking.

McLean is less than 5% ESOL according to fcps and just under 10% free lunch. It is around 2,5% black and just under 12% hispanic (mostly English speaking, non ESOL students)

To compare McLean and its one title 1 feeder elementary school to Lee is kind of laughable.

I wasn’t comparing it to Lee. I was disputing PP’s assertion it is utterly lacking in racial or economic diversity.

To be fair, I did not look up the exact statistics regarding McLean when I made this post but I still would not call it a bastion of diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never posted to this forum before but I feel pretty strongly about this. I am late to this thread but your child will get a fine education at Key/Lee. I attended both of those schools and received a good education. The IB program challenged me immensely and I learned things through it that I didn't in college. IB is incredibly challenging but I honestly think it prepared me for college more than AP would have. My biggest gripe with IB is that colleges tend to give out less credit for it though but it seems like Lee is offering AP classes which will mitigate that.

Your child can get into and attend UVA/W&M/VA Tech from Lee. There are groups of motivated students at the school who attend these places and even more prestigious schools than UVA. Students from Lee thrive at Lee, attend college and graduate from college every year.

Honestly, the best part about Lee is the true diversity that you experience there. I was friends with people from different races, ethnicities and religions and it has positively impacted the way that I view the world today. I would never have wanted to attend a school like Langley or McLean with the utter lack of economic and racial diversity. I know this sentiment is incredibly unpopular on this board.

Also, it was my Lee education that allowed me to attend an amazing college, graduate in 4 years with less than 6k in debt so I think that attending Lee hasn't hurt me at all.

McLean is about 10% low-income and 45% minority, and one of its feeders is a Title I elementary school in Falls Church. How does that translate into an “utter lack of economic and racial diversity”? Perhaps IB didn’t teach you enough about fact-checking.

McLean is less than 5% ESOL according to fcps and just under 10% free lunch. It is around 2,5% black and just under 12% hispanic (mostly English speaking, non ESOL students)

To compare McLean and its one title 1 feeder elementary school to Lee is kind of laughable.

I wasn’t comparing it to Lee. I was disputing PP’s assertion it is utterly lacking in racial or economic diversity.

To be fair, I did not look up the exact statistics regarding McLean when I made this post but I still would not call it a bastion of diversity.

I wouldn't either, but then again I wouldn't call Lee a bastion of academic excellence.