Reply to Are the City of Alexandria public schools really that bad?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been so impressed with ACPS for my daughter.  Wonderful parents teachers and programs.  She could go anywhere for HS and she wants to attend TC.  There is no doubt in my mind that she will have many choices for college.  The kids in our neighborhood all went to top notch schools and quite a few with other choices transferred to TC from private.  Know your kid and you will know if this is the right place for you.[/quote]

You laid it on too thick, ACPS employee. Are you the one sock-puppetting GS, too?[/quote]

And are you the same person who screams "booster" every time some deigns to say something positive? Here's a life lesson: someone making a different decision and having a different experience than you does not invalidate your decision.[/quote]

I noticed you didn't answer the question. The tone of your post is identical to the ones posted recently to GS.

How's about you identify three or four challenges in ACPS and TC in particular? [/quote]

I didn't answer the question, because I'm not the person who said I'm impressed with ACPS. I don't have a kid in the system. I am, however, interested in hearing people's opinions, positive and negative. [b]And here's what I'd like to hear: I had an unfavorable experience, and here's why. I had a favorable experience, and here's why.[/b] But hardly anyone does this. It's just, "We moved to Arlington because ACPS sucks [no reason given]." Clearly, a lot of people move before trying the schools because they're afraid and would rather be safe than sorry, and I'm not saying I blame them. But at least be honest. We left because we were afraid our child wouldn't get a quality education based on test scores, "Yale or Jail" rhymes, etc. Fine. That's fair. But to just say TC is terrible, sucks, etc. is useless to those of us who are trying to understand the school's problems better. [b]That's why it irritates me when "boosters" are immediately shot down and mocked--because a lot of times those are the only people who have actual experience with the curriculum, teachers, etc.[/b][/quote]

I'm 10:39 and I think you've made an excellent point, and one I was also trying to make in my post.

I will try to offer you some specifics.
So far we have direct experience with elementary and a little bit of middle school in ACPS.

Our elementary was a Title I school (meaning high population of low-income students) and also had a high English Language Learners population.
One of the ways ACPS deals with some many kids having different backgrounds is to have small class sizes, and to use the Title I money to pay for additional teacher supports. In my kids' classes, there might be many kids who were not native English speakers, or might have been academically behind due to lack of preschool or other factors, but those kids got extra help through a second teacher coming into the classroom and/or small groups of kids getting pulled out on a daily basis. Because of this extra teacher support the classroom teacher could move along with the curriculum, and not have to "slow down" to give the struggling kids extra help. DS one year was the most advanced reader in his class. Teacher basically created a separate reading group for him, and let him go at his own pace. In other years, he and other students were grouped together for their own "book club." It's not "tracking" but it is creating clusters of students. The clusters change throughout the year as the needs of the kids change.

Other threads (not ACPS specific) have mentioned the challenge of having a disruptive kid in a classroom. In K year, there was one such boy in my DD's class. Seemed like the biggest problem times for the kid was transitions. School quietly set up a system where every time there was a transition (i.e. lining up to go from classroom to gym or to lunch) and aide would be in the classroom, and the aide's sole task was to be responsible for that kid. Not only did it eliminate disruptions and prevent kids and teacher from losing learning time, by the end of the year, those of us who had observed the kid (through field trips or classroom volunteering) saw a noticeable improvement in this kids' behavior. The focused intervention really paid off. As the other thread pointed out, disruptive kids can exist in any school, including expensive privates. I was impressed with the way my kids' school dealt with this issue.

Now we are in middle school. Students can sign up for high school credit foreign language as early as 6th grade. (They go at a slower pace, so student taking French in 6 and 7th grade will have completed the equivalent of one year of high school credit. In eighth grade its at "normal speed".) There are many students that are struggling with math, as the test scores show, but for kids that didn't enter middle school with a deficit, there is plenty of opportunity for rigor. Kids can take Algebra I in eighth grade, and sometimes 7th grade. While my kids are in honors classes, I don't feel like there is a protective bubble, or some version of "Yale vs. Jail" that get cited on this thread so much. Everyone take gym and electives together. Everyone signs up for intramural sports and after school clubs together. All of the schools, from elementary through TC work very hard to establish a sense of community. That doesn't mean everyone sits around holding hands and signing Kum By Ya, but heck, they didn't in my WASPy upper-income middle school either! ;)

We had one behavior incident on our kids' school bus, but the school responded to the situation immediately (as in, the very next school bus run) and there have been no further problems. Again, I don't think any school system can be completely free of behavior issues, so what I'm interested in is how they handle an issue when it arises.

So there you go. My attempt at specific examples of our experiences thus far at ACPS. At this point, I think the only school I would actively caution a family from enrolling in is Jefferson-Houston. While I think there are staff and parents that are working very hard, I believe there are stubborn, systemic issues that will require more radical change before the school is on the right track. [/quote]

10:39, many thanks for this excellent, helpful post.  
[/quote]

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