Reply to Saratoga/Key/Lee?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have never posted to this forum before but I feel pretty strongly about this. I am late to this thread but your child will get a fine education at Key/Lee. I attended both of those schools and received a good education. The IB program challenged me immensely and I learned things through it that I didn't in college. IB is incredibly challenging but I honestly think it prepared me for college more than AP would have. My biggest gripe with IB is that colleges tend to give out less credit for it though but it seems like Lee is offering AP classes which will mitigate that.

Your child can get into and attend UVA/W&M/VA Tech from Lee. There are groups of motivated students at the school who attend these places and even more prestigious schools than UVA. Students from Lee thrive at Lee, attend college and graduate from college every year.

Honestly, the best part about Lee is the true diversity that you experience there. I was friends with people from different races, ethnicities and religions and it has positively impacted the way that I view the world today. I would never have wanted to attend a school like Langley or McLean with the utter lack of economic and racial diversity. I know this sentiment is incredibly unpopular on this board.

Also, it was my Lee education that allowed me to attend an amazing college, graduate in 4 years with less than 6k in debt so I think that attending Lee hasn't hurt me at all. [/quote]

This is probably true.   A motivated student from a good family can probably do just fine at Lee.  But, most parents with the means to do so are not going to roll the dice on a school like Lee if they can buy in the West Springfield pyramid.  This creates a vicious cycle at schools like Lee and virtuous cycles at schools like West Springfield.  No number of anecdotal stories about Lee is going to convince your typical family that Lee is just as good as West Springfield.  IMO, it’s not ideal to have poverty and challenging student populations increasingly concentrated in certain schools - it makes it more difficult to help those challenging student populations and more likely that the non-disadvantaged students in those schools will fall through the cracks.  Whether anyone cares about this likely depends on your point of view.  If you live in a good school pyramid, you only have the potential to lose in any school restructuring scenario, so you likely oppose any change.  If you live in a poorly viewed pyramid, you’re all for restructuring - the reputation of schools in the Lee pyramid are already about as low as they can get, so just potential upside for you.   If you’re a neutral school administrator responsible for the entire district, I would think you know something needs to be done, but it’s tough to do so against the backdrop of differing political interests.   Easier to do nothing until your hand is forced.  [/quote]

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