Reply to SO: How do you fit into a poor or primarily minority public school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kids both went to a FCPS elementary school in which white kids are outnumbered (I think their are something like 50 nationalities represented in the school's student population).

The school is small with small classes (fewer than 20 per class).  Almost all of the teachers were fabulous, and the kids who are immigrants can speak English or learn very quickly. They do not inhibit learning.  The classes divide the kids into groups for language arts and math early on and everyone gets the amount and type of attention they need.  The school also has an AAP class in grades 3-6. My children never lacked for anything and they learned from an early age that friends come in all skin colors and accents.

We live very close to Haycock Elementary and a lot of white families transfer their kids there or send them to private school until they are able to enter Haycock's AAP program.

I chalk this up to pure racism and classism and it's pretty disgusting.  I've heard stories of parents storming into the school's office to complain when they received information in the mail about registering for kindergarten.  "I am NOT sending my child to THIS school!!!"  I have neighbors who tried to convince me that there are 7 years olds in gangs roaming the hallways.

They pass on these lovely prejudices to their children too. Some of the kids from my kids' school (including mine) go on to Longfellow and McLean, where the other kids dub my kids' school the "ghetto school."  Lovely. [/quote]

I assume you're at Timber Lane, which splits between Longfellow/McLean and Jackson/Falls Church and has very different demographics than the rest of the Longfellow/McLean feeders.

It's unfortunate that terms like that get bandied about, but Longfellow/McLean students are encouraged to help out more at Timber Lane than at any other Longfellow/McLean feeder school, and at least the Longfellow/McLean boundaries seem to reflect a conscious effort to diversify the enrollment at Longfellow/McLean.  If you just looked at the boundary maps, you'd think the Timber Lane neighborhoods assigned to Longfellow/McLean would be at Kilmer/Marshall or Jackson/Falls Church instead.  But sending half of the school to Longfellow/McLean, including some of low-income apartments off Lee Highway, is consistent with the concept that lower-income students fare better if they have the opportunity to attend schools with kids who also come from more affluent families.

I've actually thought FCPS could do the same thing with Cooper/Langley, and send some of the lower and moderate-income areas of Reston now assigned to Hughes/South Lakes to Cooper/Langley, while moving some of the neighborhoods in Great Falls to Herndon MS/Herndon HS, and some of the neighborhoods in the Herndon area to Hughes/South Lakes.  [/quote]

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