Anonymous wrote:Our base school was Freedom Hill. This year we got switched to Lemon Road. My AAP kid was at Louise Archer and just started this year at Haycock. Not even 2 months in and Haycock wants him out. Yes, I'm pissed, and prepared to fight this with a lawyer if necessary. 4 schools in 4 years without moving is ridiculous.

Your statement is incorrect. Haycock doesn't want him out. Haycock wants to keep the AAP program going strong and your child. FCPS wants him out. The folks at FCPS make these decisions NOT the admin at Haycock. This is what parents have been advocating for for a number of years(a renovation that would house the growing population) so please don't blame the actual school. Tuesdays meeting was the last ditch effort parents/members of the community had to try to get their points across to Janie Strauss and let her know the current renovation plan won't even accommodate the general population! It was finally eluded(but not stated) that they were indeed wrong with their progression reports for both the influx of AAP students and the enormous growth of the gen population. I question whether the people that state they were appalled at the attitude of the community at the meeting, I wonder if those people had been on board since the beginning of this process years ago and had attended the meetings-if they know the actual history. I feel it was a productive meeting with maybe a few out of place comments. The community was not going to let Janie get away with blowing off questions since they needed actual answers-Thats the majority of the reason why she was interrupted. Two new ideas were brought to her and she actually is going to act on them. That is progress.

Prior poster here who just spoke up for the AAP families.

A lawyer isn't going to do you any good here. You might as well just take out your 401(k) money and start a bonfire.

Pretty much. Facilities and FCPS could give a rat's ass. Even when they're wrong (see the Clifton FOIA battle), they'll litigate to the bitter end.

And it won't change anything.

Just to remind folks and any FCPS board or employees who follow DCUM. If FCPS were to actually allow only truly exceptionally smart kids into AAP, overcrowding would NOT be an issue. AAP is NOT full of truly gifted, it is full of truly average and the average kids at the base school are the ones losing.

OP, could I suggest that you look in a completely different area. There is a development of new HUGE houses off of Huntsman (south of the Ffx Cnty Parkway -- but at that intersection). They are actually about 4 years old, but they are massive and they are right in the $900K+ range (but rarely is one on the market). They feed into Sangster -- which is an AAP center and then they go to Lake Braddock. The commute to Pentagon City wouldn't be too bad from this location as there are slugging options to the Pentagon and there is metro from Franconia Springfield to Pentagon City -- which is about a 20-25 min. ride (and the change in the blue line schedule will not affect this b/c the split in the metro route over the river happens AFTER the stop at PC... so DH could take any train that is at Fran. Sprng. to get to PC.).

Anyway... you will not be among the richest of the richest in Ffx Cnty, but you will be in a VERY solid area with tons of military and government workers with typical traditional families (i.e. being a stay at home mom will not be unusual.) If you are looking for a chic life and chic friends -- this wouldn't be the place. You'd be better off in McLean or Tysons.

I just thought you might want to consider this b/c people commuting to the pentagon (or PC), for the most part, tend to live SOUTH of the pentagon and Lake Braddock is probably the nearest school to the south with high test scores and few FARMS (note that I didn't say it was a better school just because it has high test scores -- I personally think we incorrectly label schools as "good" or "bad" when the test scores really just reflect the demographics, not necessarily the quality of the teachers/school as a whole.)