Reply to HB Woodlawn - I know nothing. Help!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid is a little bit of a misfit and is doing well at HB.  We have an IEP.  They have found friends.

Now that they are in high school, I don't find that there is much teacher feedback and my kid is learning to mostly be on top of their own grades and assignments with the help of a special "instructional studies" class that helps them focus on getting homework in etc.  I used to be a lot more involved in that in middle school, even with IS.

There are a lot of older threads about HB here so you could run a search and find some useful info.  Basically, I think there are fewer jock-ish types at HB because you need to go back to your home school to participate in most sports except frisbee (b/c HB doesn't have real fields).  Also, HB has a slightly higher teacher/student ratio because it does not hire most non-teaching staff positions other schools have, like counselors, etc.  Instead, teachers cover those same jobs, and even the principals teach, so the class size is just a bit smaller.  HB doesn't have all the course offerings of bigger schools, so kids are more limited in what they can take, offerings won't be as far-ranging as at Yorktown.  And in general, each yearly class is smaller - I think there are about 85 kids in 6th grade and maybe 130 kids in 9th.  This is due in part to it being a combined 6th-12th grade school and a smaller single building with no real fields in the middle of Rosslyn.

Not sure why someone else is talking about "so many resources" at HB.  I know the building cost was a lot, but more money per capita isn't spent on kids at HB than elsewhere -- HB cut costs in other ways as I explained above to allow the higher teacher:student ratio.  It's not costing APS.

Good luck!  [/quote]

High school counselors in Arlington have so many kids and so many high need kids, their absence for the average to excelling student would be not noticed. Counselors spent most of their time on the children with significant challenges and lacking family support — which is mostly absent from HB since navigating the lottery is a pretty good filter.

So having teachers as counselors is hardly some huge sacrifice [/quote]

Where did I characterize it as a sacrifice?  I thought I explained it as a pretty smart trade off that the school made to lower teacher to student ratios.  I also don't really agree with your statement that kids at HB generally won't be high needs because such kids are filtered out by navigating the lottery.  My word of mouth experience has been that MORE high needs kids wind up applying to HB because it's a smaller school where there may be more room and grace given for misfits and non-jocks etc.  My own kid has pretty severe challenges and though they have our support at home they have certainly had to deal with teachers and the administration to get the supports and accommodations they needed to be more successful.

And again, this is not some "extra" that APS is funding.  It pays for itself.  [/quote]

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