Reply to I regret buying in ACPS...should we try to move before ES or wait until DC is older?

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Reply to "I regret buying in ACPS...should we try to move before ES or wait until DC is older?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Again, someone who does not have their kids in ACPS. I am the person who wrote earlier about staying. OP, again, talk to people with kids in the school. Look up test scores on the VA and isolate out variables that do not apply to your kids such as being economically disadvantaged. How are kids of your child's demographic doing? I bet you will be surprised. 
 
http://bi.virginia.gov/BuildATab/rdPage.aspx[/quote]

[b]If that's not a way to foster racism and give children a skewed view in life, I don't know what is. If your whte, high SES child does well in an ES, surrounded by poor performing non-white lower SES children, then that child will draw conclusions from that.[/b] [/quote]

I'm not the OP, but this is what worries me most about the ACPS elementary within our zone (Mt Vernon). Dh and I are high SES minorities, with a 3 year old daughter. When I tell people that I'm worried about sending DD to a school where the minority students are not performing well, they say 'well that's a low SES issue and your daughter won't have that issue.' If I mention low expectations and stereotypes formed by the impression that minority students are poor performers (and statistically they are not doing well at this and several other ACPS schools), friends say 'oh, once the teachers meet you they will see that you are different ...'  I plan to tour the schools and go to open houses, but there's a very good chance that we will choose private schools. [/quote]

Mt. Vernon parent here: First, I cannot imagine that Mt Vernon parents are telling you that there are lower expectations re "minority" students (I put that in quotes because ethnic/racial minority students are the majority at our school). By way of example the recent spelling bees (one in Spanish, one in English) three of the top four were not white and that was not seen as unusual. There are high achieving, middle of the pack, and low achieving kids of every race/ethnicity at the school. Despite what people continually seem to say as a general proposition on this board, there is not a belief that minority = low performing at our school. Second, the blanket statement that "minority students are not performing well" is not necessarily accurate. If you are talking about SOL scores, I encourage you to look at the score breakdowns and compare them across schools. At least in the past (I haven't looked in a couple of years), on average minority students at Mt Vernon tended to score the same or higher than similar students at other schools. There are other issues that might give you pause: the school is really big (at more than 850 students); there is a sometimes significant transitory population (e.g., kids with no English transferring in the middle of the year) that can cause some disruption; the facility is old. We love the school, the teachers, the admin, the community, and the fact that our kids are bilingual - but we recognize that it might not be for everyone, and happily support friends who have chosen other ACPS schools or privates. But please don't think that the school community buys in to the stereotype of which you are afraid.   [/quote]

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