Providence / Mosby Woods (Mosaic)
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Anonymous
| We have had a great experience at Providence and have an emotional attachment to the community. Our kid has had really good teachers so far, and it seems like an easy choice. Is there anything we should be considering outside what feels obvious? How are the advanced classes at Providence, for those who have already been through? How about MW / Mosaic? If you made that choice, was it the right one for your child? Did it go as you had hoped? TIA! |
Anonymous
My child went to Mosby. It was not a great learning experience. My child felt more challenged in 2nd grade at Providence than he ever did at Mosby AAP. Most of the teachers at Mosby taught to the lowest common denominator in AAP, which means that if your child is above grade level, they'll be ignored and bored. Also, Mosby has none of that warm, inviting feeling that Providence does. Most of the AAP eligible kids stay at Providence. If your child is interested in math and science, Providence LLIV kids can do Science Olympiad and the MOEMS math contest. |
Anonymous
| I have a rising third grader at Mosby (zoned for it) who will be in AAP. We like the school and have found it both warm and academically appropriate. But honestly it's very very crowded. If you have a good option at your base school, I suspect the in-bounds families and the school staff would appreciate your staying there. Not that anybody would say that, and I don't think there's any animosity! But it's a crowded school because it's a center, and it wouldn't be over capacity if it wasn't a center. |
Anonymous
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Re: The warmth at Mosby vs. providence
Providence strings concert - afterward, you can hug your kid, get pictures of your kid with friends, chat with the strings teacher, etc. Mosby: Principal pretty much says, "good job. Now get out. Meet your kid outside." Providence parent teacher conferences: You sign in outside the office and then can wait near your child's classroom, where you can enjoy the work hanging in the hallways. Mosby: You need to sit in the office until the teacher calls and says (s)he is ready for you. There is no time to browse through anything. Other events: At Providence, you're allowed to take your time and enjoy the event. At Mosby, you're herded like cattle through the event and out the building as fast as possible. One example is the 3rd grade museum night, where you don't have time to really look at any of the pieces while you're herded quickly through the building. |
Anonymous
| Did anyone here listen to the presentation last night for incoming students? |
Anonymous
Mosby Woods parent here -- I can't speak to the Strings concert, but I've never been forced to wait in the front office for a parent teacher conference. I've always gone and sat outside the classroom, in the hallway, where I've looked at the work displayed outside the classroom. It's true, the school is large and crowded. it's annoying, sometimes, especially at large events like International Night or whatever they are calling it these days. But it's not THAT bad. |
Anonymous
| A different Mosby Woods parent here, my kid is a 5th grader, every time I had to wait in the front office for a parent teacher conference. |
Anonymous
| I have heard about several awful bullying situations at Mosby, and none of them were handled well by the teachers or administrators. |
Anonymous
This was our experience. |
Anonymous
| Also, many AAP centers have things like Science Olympiad, Odyssey of the Mind, math teams, and other cool activities. The Mosby administrators make it nearly impossible for parents to run any of these, so the kids at Mosby miss out on the same extracurriculars that many other AAP centers are offering. |
Anonymous
How current is this information? My neighbor did Odessey of the Mind there and it was listed in the AAP presentation as an option. |
Anonymous
Very. They did not have any of this for at least the last 3 years. They only have anything if parents run it, and they make it very hard for parents to do so. |
Anonymous
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Parent of 1 kid who went to Mosby and another who stayed at Providence, here:
For the very few activities that Mosby has it's nearly impossible to get in. There are like 200 kids interested in something that has only 20 slots. It's possible that they had an Odyssey of the Mind group that is impossible to get into. They have had math clubs that are also impossible to get into. Mosby does a few things in-class, like Word Masters for 3rd-6th and AMC 8 for 6th. Providence kid did Science Olympiad for 4 years, as well as MOEMS for 4 years. Science Olympiad was free and had after school practices. MOEMS was done during math class. There's much less competition to get a spot in any of the school activities. |
Anonymous
| Any updates for this spring? Providence parents, what was the key element in your choice to stay there or to move to Mosaic? |
Anonymous
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Both Providence and Mosaic are very large, and will remain so.
FCPS had plans to fund another elementary school in the Fairfax/Oakton area and the School Board member from the Providence District, Karl Frisch, saw that those funds were reallocated (1) to ensure that Blake Lane Park was off limits as a site for a new school and (2) to renovate a building in Vienna (Dunn Loring) that has been used for administrative purposes but isn't especially close to growth areas. So if you find either school impersonal or crowded in the future years, you'll have Frisch to thank, just as parents at some of the schools further east will end up inconvenienced when Dunn Loring reopens and there are major boundary changes affecting multiple schools (when a few smaller changes would have addressed the overcrowding issue that had existed at one school in particular pre-Covid). It's a shame we don't elect more scrupulous School Board members, but it's a lot of time for not much pay, so the people who end up on the School Board tend not to be the best people and to have personal agendas, which in Frisch's case apparently meant currying favor with some local environmentalists rather than serving the needs of FCPS families. |