Reply to When your public school is supposed to be one of the best but sucks

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My experience is the opposite. My kids’ public school is supposed to be one of the “worst” in FCPS. It’s consistently ranked at the bottom of the GreatSchools list, but I think it’s excellent. Class sizes are small, the Principal is great, and there isn’t crazy pressure to keep up with the Joneses. [/quote]

OP here.  This is exactly what I am talking about, I hear this all the time.  For all the ("A,B,C) or bust" posts, you can keep it, really.  If you want specifics, [b]these kids are supposed to getting ready for college, yet can't even get into the appropriate classes - too crowded.  Not to mention, any assistance with college prep (choosing classes and applying to college) is next to zero - again, too crowded[/b]. This is just two of many rather significant examples.

[/quote]

So it's a high school. I think some posters earlier assumed it was an ES or MS, maybe.

I realize that you're here to vent and not really asking for advice, OP, but here goes anyway: My DC goes to a large FCPS HS (well, what FCPS HS isn't large now....) and honestly the squeaky wheel does get the grease. You may already be doing this, and if so I'm sorry to tell you what you know, but are you helping your student be extra assertive with being on the counseling office's radar? We've found that HS students who make themselves known early on to the counselors (and/or the AP or IB coordinators, if the kids are taking either of those) and who do a lot of follow-up in terms of dropping by to ask questions, making appointments to go over schedules or ask questions about course progressions, etc. do get that advice. It doesn't come to them proactively from the counselors but, unfortunately, has to be sought out, sometimes quite assertively.

Of course, counselors cannot make space appear in classes that are simply completely full. Have you asked the counseling office how they assign students to classes, and have you vented to them about your kids not getting into "appropriate" classes they need to get ready for their specific college plans? What response did you or your student get, if you said this to the counselors? It seems strange that classes aimed at the higher-level students who are clearly headed for college are so full that a student who is in that group would be shut out entirely--I know that at our school, students do (for instance) often get shut out of quickly-filled electives, or might have to juggle a schedule and lose something desirable in order to get into a class like a higher-level (or AP or IB) math or literature class that many college-bound seniors wanted, but -- it would be very unlikely for a kid to be totally shut out of a class if he or she were able to compromise on something else. Do you have a student who is trying to take several high-level courses at once, and is being told no, he or she won't be allowed to do that for whatever reason?

As for assistance with college applications/advice -- Does your school have a separate college and career counselor (some do) or are the regular counselors expected to do all the college and career stuff as well? [/quote]

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