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[quote=Anonymous]I am really amazed at the anti-MVCS vitriol of the one poster claiming to speak for "Del Ray Families" about MVCS. I am an MVCS parent. One student in 4th, one in K. We love the school. The principal is engaged, dynamic, and has cultivated a great staff. The parent community is really wonderful -- and yes, there is a large contingent of Del Ray families in that number. It is big (I think the current enrollment is 812 compared to the 411 or so at Maury), and that can be overwhelming at first. But they do a great job of making the school feel small in the way classes are located in the building. Neither of my kids has ever had a bad teacher. In fact, I have been extremely impressed by each teacher. No doubt we lucked out a bit with our older student, because I know that there were some bad apples in the past, but they are gone now. I am blown away by how great the dual language program is for my K student. It has gotten better and better every year. Those K kids are truly getting literacy in two languages in a way that was not consistent in prior years. The first couple of years we had administrative turnover and we had central office mandated programs (Success For All -- good riddance!) that made things a bit rough. But Mr. Balas (that's the principal) has really done a fantastic job righting the ship. Teacher morale is high, and the school is a happy environment. My older kid is TAG and I think the level of attention and challenge has been exactly what it should be. And my younger gets the appropriate attention and challenge as well.  I could not be happier with our decision to stay an MVCS family. Is the school perfect? Nope. No school is. Are there lots of poor and disadvantaged kids there. Yes. But for the most part their families are just as concerned and just as dedicated to getting their kids a good education as wealthier families. Can the size be a problem - sure - it is hard to do "all school" events because of the number of people, so things like concerts/plays are done by grade level. On test scores: if you actually look at the test data from last year's SOLs - MVCS native English speakers score the same or higher than their peers at other schools on the SOLs. In fact, MVCS math scores last year were higher than those at Barrett! (And yes, they learned in Spanish. And yes, the tests were in English). And the "subgroups" at MVCS - scored higher than the subgroups at other ACPS schools. Clearly the notion that "everyone is failing" is simply not true. Nor is it true that "most Del Ray families" transfer out or go to private schools. We walk to school every day with tons of Del Ray kids -- 7 of them are from our immediate block alone. Yes, there are families around us that chose to send their kids to other ACPS schools, but there are also families zoned for Maury, Barrett, Cora Kelly, J-H, and even George Mason that transferred to MVCS. Everyone has their reasons for their choices. My kids are bilingual, happy and thriving at MVCS. I'm sure those who chose other schools are happy and thriving wherever they went. I guess my point is - the best way to know whether a school is the right fit for you is to talk to people who currently have kids in that school -- not those who had kids there 10 years ago and not those who transferred to other schools or moved out of the neighborhood. I have no problem saying that if the administrative turnover and success for all program had continued, we might have made a different decision for our K student. I'm tremendously glad we didn't have to make that decision. We value the dual language education and the real sense of community at MVCS. We love that our kids can walk to school and on the weekends can walk to any number of classmates' houses to find people to play with. And we love the community support for the school from the surrounding neighborhood and from all of the families, no matter their economic resources.[/quote]

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