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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]    Dorothy Hamm, the new middle school in North Arlington, has been way under-enrolled, and was built to a much higher capacity. It’s new building and grounds are beautiful, the best among middle schools in Arlington. Test scores are among the highest in Northern Virginia, and the principal and teachers are well liked. All that is still not enough to convince families to return to APS. Families here are wealthy and fickle and the pandemic created a large shift away from APS towards private schools. Area privates like Maret, SFS, STA, NCS, GDS, WIS, etc are all quite good. Hopefully new families will came back to APS.

It wasn’t mentioned, but Long Branch is also a popular neighborhood ES located on the N/S Arlington border. The new Fleet ES also on the N/S Arlington border is well liked and serves nearby Fort Myer and military families in general.

[b]We are Long Branch/TJ/W-L and have generally been happy but my youngest is now graduating from W-L. The virtue of APS vs Fairfax when we started was consistently small class sizes which made in ES for better meeting kids needs, including at the time pull-out for gifted students. All of those benefits seem to be gone. I still love living in Arlington but if moving here now with young kids I'd look for schools that go to Hamm/W-L. I think that's the best MS/HS option right now. And assume your may need to supplement for ES wherever you go[/b]. [/quote]

But your own kids went to TJ? What was wrong with TJ?[/quote]

TJ's fine but crowded and my kids hated how dark and prison-like the building is with barely any windows (this may have improved slightly with the renovation done as part of the Fleet building). I hear good things about Hamm, which also has a lot of room to grow because it's under capacity and I'd keep that in mind if house shopping with young kids. I did, however, like the IB program at TJ. It pushed DS to start doing community service in 6th grade (a program requirement) and he ended up volunteering for the same org throughout high school.

Despite the crowding, we've been very happy with W-L. It's a nice community where both kids found their different niches and appreciated the ability to take both AP and IB classes.
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