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[quote=Anonymous]There seems to be not a lot of positives from posters in here, but I'll give you some hope, OP.

I went to private school overseas and got my college and graduate degrees in the US. DH went to public school in the west coast, went to the military then non-traditional college. 
We saved for and planned to put our kids in private school but after doing a lot of research and talking to other parents about the private vs. public debate, DH and I decided that public school was going to be fine, plus, spending $30k/year x 2 was going to put us in a totally different lifestyle. Our older kid started off in Montessori but it wasn't a good fit for her.

We have 2 kids in FCPS, one in elementary AAP, one in Gen Ed middle school. 
Overall, we have been very happy with our 9 years of experience with FCPS. I don't pay much attention to school SOL scores or great school ratings but I did look it up recently. One school is a 10 and the other one is a 7.  Both kids have done fine with SOLs and it's not worth it for me to look at how everyone else is doing.

As far as teachers, I'd say that 70% have been good, 10% have not been great, 20% have been just fantastic. We had one school counselor for 7 years that was just a God send. 
As far as the school curriculum, it has been just at the right depth and pace for my Gen Ed kid. It was too slow for my other kid until he got into AAP and it's now a great fit. 
As far as resources, I've been pretty impressed. Ipads for each kid in the classroom!  It is odd not to have textbooks but life has been fine without them. Both kids have been bus riders and it's great to have those resources, especially because one kid gets bused to a center school. 
As are as class sizes, yeah sure it can be smaller but I don't think it's so much about the size of the class - the effective management of a class depends more on the teacher. 
As far as extra curriculars,  there are so many free activities at our middle school.

I started to look at the high school catalog and I'm just so lost with all the options out there to tailor your child's education. Just so much opportunity.

I am not sure if DH and I are just easy to impress but we talk about how we love the schools here- I'd say it's what makes me like living here. I hate the traffic, I don't love the weather, we make decent money but the rat race atmosphere isn't my preference. As much as we love the school system here, we also consider them only about 60-70% of our children's education. We'll supply the rest through other ways. We supplement with whatever other exposure we can get for our kids (that's also why we are so glad we didn't do the private school route). It's a long haul. School is what you make of it and that's why I don't pay much attention to generalized statements about FCPS being this way or that way. Our kids are doing well and that's all we care about.

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