What is going on at SSSAS?

[Anonymous]

I know about 20 families in Alexandria who are switching from public to SSSAS- all in elementary school. I’ve heard of many other families beyond that number and a particularly large number of boys. Are they adding an extra classroom in each grade? Were they under enrolled before? I can’t Imagine that they can fit so many new students. Any insight?

[Anonymous]

They definitely have the space. It’s a large campus so maybe they are adding classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Ask the school! And if you aren’t there, why on earth do you care?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I heard they made a late decision to add extra classrooms to certain high demand grades.

[Anonymous]

They have space, and parents desperate to pay. So there you go.

[Anonymous]

They always have openings in the lower grades. We know a few people who have switched in the past at the last minute and it had never been an issue. Maybe not this year but historically they also have lots of attrition

[Anonymous]

They have high attrition rates and they need the money to pay for the Upper School renovation.

[Anonymous]

The distancing requirements have been loosened so they can fit more kids in the room next year.

[Anonymous]

It seems like a nice school with a lot of good things about it, but we decided it wasn't for us, after learning that my son would be required to re-do the same math that he already did in ACPS TAG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have high attrition rates and they need the money to pay for the Upper School renovation.

Are they renovating now? SSSAS had noticeably dated facilities when we toured a few years ago when compared to other private HS in the same price range. If they are upgrading the facilities, we may put it on the list for our younger child that is approaching high school years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have high attrition rates and they need the money to pay for the Upper School renovation.

They have very low attrition rates compared to peer schools and the upper school renovations are not funded out of tuition. Please know what you are talking about or don't post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have high attrition rates and they need the money to pay for the Upper School renovation.

They have very low attrition rates compared to peer schools and the upper school renovations are not funded out of tuition. Please know what you are talking about or don't post.

+1

The renovations are funded totally separately and attrition has never been high and has been especially low the last few years.

[Anonymous]

The answer: they are adding a class for K and 1st. So before they had a cap of four classes, 14 per class for those grades. Next year they’ll have five classes in K and five in 1st, with a cap of 14 or 15.

This year was crazy hard on the admissions team - they had a ton of interest, but couldn’t always gauge who was definitely interested versus just trying to make sure they had a back up plan in case publics were closed. So they accepted more families than usual, and more of their accepted families in turn signed the contract. They are 100% committed to never having a class size larger than 15, so they had to open up new classes for those grades (and as a result I’ll bet the classes will have fewer than 14, but we’ll see). They are hiring some new teachers but also luckily they have at least one who left short term for her husbands relocation and is now coming back (yay!).

Whether it’s permanent or not is unclear, and it probably depends on whether there are families who leave for public again in a few years.

They also had a lot more interest from N Arlington families than usual, not surprisingly. And yes they have the space - the lower school campus is huge and they are relocating some administrative offices to the newly renovated buildings and grounds house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have high attrition rates and they need the money to pay for the Upper School renovation.

Are they renovating now? SSSAS had noticeably dated facilities when we toured a few years ago when compared to other private HS in the same price range. If they are upgrading the facilities, we may put it on the list for our younger child that is approaching high school years.

The renovation doesn’t have a start date but should be in the next few years, and take a year to complete. They bought land from a church next to the upper school campus so they have space to expand the campus size pretty significantly as well. I’m sure admissions could show you the preliminary plans and timeline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have high attrition rates and they need the money to pay for the Upper School renovation.

They have very low attrition rates compared to peer schools and the upper school renovations are not funded out of tuition. Please know what you are talking about or don't post.

I’m an alum (left well before senior year, as did many of my classmates). It had and continues to have much higher attrition rates than other dmv k-12s. The building will be funded by donations. As in the past campaigns they’ll no doubt reach out to those of us who left and didn’t care for the school.