Reply to pattern of siblings "winning lottery"at HB Woodlawn

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Reply to "pattern of siblings "winning lottery"at HB Woodlawn"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am new to APS and my kids are young. Can someone tell me what is so good about HB Woodlawn compared to other APS schools?[/quote]

Lower student: teacher ratios.  Also a [b]fancy new building[/b].  [/quote]

With no open grass fields or open space to run around. In the middle of a very busy city (Rosslyn) amongst hi-rises.

No thanks. The reason HB got put there is because noone wanted to send their ES kids to a school in the middle of a city (the original plan was consideration of an ES vs MS/HS).[/quote]

I have read that the way HB manages slightly lower student/teacher ratios is by having everyone on staff teach (even the principal and vice principal) and by eliminating non-teaching staff positions that other schools have, like school counselor, etc.  My understanding is that it's no cakewalk for the teachers as they need to wear many hats and act as counselors and that for some students, it's not a good fit.

We were lucky enough to get in through the lottery within the last few years.  We have no pull with anyone (in fact is it possible to have negative pull?  Because that's us).  We saw some very active APS families at our elementary (APS volunteers, on committees, etc.) not have our luck in the lottery.  I do not think it was fixed but ymmv.  Our kid is an only child so we don't have a sibling story.

Can I also say that HB is a good fit for my weird kid, but if your kid is more normal they might not like it.  No sports besides ultimate, no buses to other middle school sports,  fewer course offerings because it's a smaller school, no IB, leave your elementary school friends behind you because only 3 other people from your old school will be here and you probably weren't friends with them, etc.  This has been a great fit for us, but wouldn't work for many of the popular kids or jocks (which is one of the reasons my kid is having a good experience I think).[/quote]

They don't spend any more money on the HB budget than they do on any other school--they don't get any additional staff--they just allocate them differently. It isn't allocated lower student ratios.

And I don't know why people say the building is "fancy." Its all concrete inside. Yes, they have some terraces the kids can access, but that's because they hardly have any field space at ground level. There is literally no parking. The classrooms are regular old classrooms. The library is a school library. The gym is a gym. I personally think Kenmore is "fancy" for a middle school, with two theaters including a black box space. I think Discovery is outrageous. But there's nothing particularly fancy at H-B other than the exterior architecture. [/quote]

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