Reply to Robinson dumping AP classes and focusing on IB

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That is a really terrible decision for a school that has so many military kids.

Doesn't fcps have a military liason?  Someone needs to get them involved.

IB is useless for military kids.

Which school board member is in cahoots witn the company that owns the IB program?[/quote]

Not true. A lot of military kids are already accustomed to IB if they’ve been to international schools overseas. [/quote]

What percentage of military kids do you think are attending international schools abroad? The percentage of deployed abroad hovers around 15%. The percentage deployed abroad whose families accompany them are far lower. It's much more common to be stationed at a base in the US and then have a unit deploy from that base with the family remaining [/quote]

This question is a prime example of what people do not understand about the Robinson area. I've lived in KPW for 20 years, taught at Robinson and Lake Braddock until I retired and know both communities well.

First, the people who are military typically fall into two camps. First, many people moved to this area and bought homes early in their careers, sent their children to elementary school for some time and then rented out their homes until they were closer to retirement/exit from the military. These families then returned to the area and took jobs as contractors (supplementing their retirement or reserve pay) with their new income. Usually these people arrived back when their kids were starting high school or in middle school (which makes sense for officers -- most of whom have post-graduate degrees and were older -- well for the military not DC-- when they had kids). Robinson AND Lake Braddock communities are full of these families. People usually are fine where they are once they find a house.

These people don't care about IB, but like the area and are fine generally. Most who live walking distance send their kids to Robinson. The bulk (until over the past 5-10 years) of placements to lake Braddock were AAP kids. This dropped dramatically over the past 10 years --some due to the Lake Braddock issues (principal/admin drama) and some due to just the ebb and flow of preference of the families.  The other point is that not all Robinson kids place in Lake Braddock for AP. Most do, but many place in Centreville, South County or Woodson. For these kids, they often just go to Robinson instead of spending middle school in one place, high school in a different one that isn't full of their center friends or neighborhood friends. The county cracked down on pupil placement for AP at Lake Braddock about 15 years ago and started holding the line that if you live closer to some school, you go there unless it's full (So, some Woodson and Centreville kids ended up at Fairfax for example for a bit but Woodson is open now judging from the graduation signs in my neighborhood).

The second group is indeed international military families. Robinson is actually sought out by these folks and there are a lot of them (because these are officers working in the Pentagon). These families had kids overseas in IB schools and they actually want to continue this for consistency sake. Many military family forums actually recommend the Robinson schools for this reason (if you look at rentals during high season (late spring) you will see IB being mentioned because that is often a search term).

I will say that Robinson and Lake Braddock (to a slightly lesser extent) fairly uniformly middle class/upper middle class. It's not rich, rich. But these kids are resourced. The families seem more content with their choices than other schools in the county.

[/quote]

For a school with a catchment area the size of Robinson, the enrollment seems quite low.  Granted some of the areas have big lot sizes, but others do not.

I'm sure there are some military families who want to continue in IB based on prior assignments, but the number of military families at Hayfield, Lake Braddock, and West Springfield seems larger. [/quote]

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