Reply to Lewis HS: Is it really that bad?

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Reply to "Lewis HS: Is it really that bad?"

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[quote=Anonymous]We had friends who bought a house that sent their kids to Hutchinson ES. The parents visited the school, talked with the Principal, and were genuinely excited to send their child to Hutchinson. The staff was welcoming and great. The Teachers were devoted to kids and teaching. It felt amazing. Their kid went there for K. They moved in the summer because their kid received no real attention from the Teacher because their kid knew the alphabet, could write the alphabet, knew their numbers, shapes, colors, and all of the skills that kids who attend pre-school know. The kid could read a little.

The Teachers were devoted and wonderful and wanted to help kids learn. The other kids were fun and fine, there were no major behavioral issues. But they did not have the same pre-school experience and they were learning letters, sounds, numbers, shapes, colors and the like from scratch. Books were sent home every week for the parents to read to their kids, books that were meant to help the parents learn to read as well as the kids.

Say what you will, but kids arrive at school at different starting points and that is going to impact what the kids can be taught. Kids who are arriving to school not knowing things like the alphabet and their numbers are kids who likely come from homes where the parents cannot help with homework or help with school. The kids will learn at a slower pace because they don't have supports at home to help them learn.

The environment can be great and the teachers can be amazing but there is a difference in what you can learn when you have a peer group that starts school from scratch vs a peer group that starts school having been read to and taught basic concepts at home.

Lewis, Mt. Vernon, Herndon, South Lakes are good schools. You can succeed and thrive there. But they are schools with two schools, the kids in the AP/IB programs and the kids who are not. And that is a very different environment then a school like WSHS or Langley or Oakton. I don't blame parents for wanting their kids in schools were there is less of a divide between the kids and were there are more opportunities for a kid to succeed. And that tends to be at schools with a higher SES and fewer ELL. [/quote]

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