wish fcps had an alternative hs--not for at-risk kids, just for curious kids who like to learn. op's description of her dd matches mine. a student, high test scores, likes math & science. i think tj would crush her. i don't see more than 3 hours/night of homework & competition for grades leading to greater intellectual development or reflective thinking. i told dd i would support her in the application process, but i don't think it's a good fit. too bad.

I'm also a native and don't remember hours of homework per night. Definitely an hour or two, but that was all. This was in the 90's. I did a fall, winter, and spring sport and did well in all of my classes. I wasn't one of the 10 or so valedictorians with all A's in AP courses, but I was pretty close. Also, even the top kids only took AP courses in junior and senior year and maybe two of them max a year. What happened?

It really is true that the amount of time spent on homework varies greatly with each child. There are kids at TJ who need to spend a lot of time to do assignments and even need out-of-school tutoring to get their work done.
I know other kids at TJ who can spend hours on sports, music, and other extracurriculars and get their homework done in a few hours and get great grades.
It is just so dependent on the characteristics of the individual. You have to know your own child and advise your child accordingly.

Anonymous wrote:Where are people from? I was raised in upstate NY, took the regents classes, and had 3 hours of HW a night.

I am a native. I was in the FCPS GT program through HS, where I took all GT core courses (yes, they had GT HS classes back then) plus 4 APs (which was considered a lot back then)... and I rarely had more than an hour or two of homework a night.

Something happened between then and now.

2-3 hours per night of homework is significant, but doable. But what I hear is that kids are spending 5-6 hours or more on homework---basically coming home from school and doing homework until bedtime, which often gets pushed back until midnight or later. Kids giving up doing a sport or other extracurriculars because there is no time for them. The classic adage at TJ is "grades, sleep, friends. Choose two." That is a lot to put these kids through.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/legacy-content/867SLA2A9049/$FILE/R3205.pdf

It is recognized that students vary significantly in the amount of time they need to
complete given assignments. Teachers should estimate the amount of time the
average student would require to complete an assignment. In general, homework
across disciplines should not exceed 0.5 hour in kindergarten through grade three,
1 hour in grades four through six, 1.5 hours at the middle school level, and 2 hours
at the high school level. Long-term projects may require additional time. Teachers
should adjust daily homework assignments accordingly.

Where are people from? I was raised in upstate NY, took the regents classes, and had 3 hours of HW a night.

Anonymous wrote:So the only way to avoid overworking our children is to move away from NoVa? That is really a sad state of affairs.

Exactly.
Most of northern VA seems to think that 3+ hours a night of homework equals academic excellence. I think 3+ hours of homework a night indicates that not enough teaching is going on during the school day.

So the only way to avoid overworking our children is to move away from NoVa? That is really a sad state of affairs.

WOW. OP, thank you for posting your question and specifics ... sounds like I have the same kid, a few years younger - and Longfellow had sounded like nirvana and so we are currently planning to move. A very nice counterbalance to what I was imagining. Good luck getting answers - please share if you do!

Do not assume that privates will have less workload in high school. Or that public AP or Honors or IB will either. We overwork our children.

If you feel that Longfellows' workload is too heavy already, you may want to think twice about TJ. TJ's workload for a 9th grader is definitely much heavier than Longfellow AAP's.

I've had children at TJ and at regular high school with mostly AP classes. The workload at TJ is definitely challenging but I would say it will be a very similar workload to that of a child taking all AP and honors classes at their assigned HS.The child who is loading up on AP English and history classes has a lot of reading and writing to do which is very similar in amount of time required for high level math and science at TJ.

It is definitely possible in a regular Fairfax County high school to put together enough high level courses to create a rigorous curriculum that is similar in challenge and workload to the TJ curriculum. The difference would be that in the base school the child can make a choice about the level of challenge to pursue. But really, most of the kids my children know at the base school are taking as many AP's and honors as they can, so there's a lot of time devoted to homework.

OP again. A few more facts about our situation: DD is a straight-A student at Longfellow, loves math and science, and generally does well on standardized tests, so at first glance, it seems that TJ might be a good fit for her. However, I feel that the Longfellow environment is a pressure-cooker, and that ithe workload is sucking the life out of her, making school stressful and no fun. Would TJ be any better in that regard? How about McLean HS? From what I've heard, the workload is heavy there as well, so I'm not sure that we have any good alternatives. Should we be looking at privates?

Now that the school year is well underway, I am curious about how much homework the average kid at TJ has on a regular basis. Do they have any guidelines about how many minutes per night per subject they should be assigned? How many hours do you think they spend most weeknights/weekends? Is there time to do a sport and still maintain good grades? Does the homework load start out lower in 9th grade and ramp up each year? Just trying to figure out if it would overwhelm my child (assuming they even get in).