Our two kids have gone through Gunston. It has been fine (what MS is really amazing?). Teachers and counselors try hard and overall do a good job. For electives, music, art, drama, and video journalism have all been strong. My issue has been with the administration. All style, little substance. Very poor communication with parents (though it has improved somewhat in the past 18 months).

FWIW (realize this wasn't the OP's question) kids are really happy at Wakefield, and the administration there is outstanding.

Regarding the math tracks, APS changed the placement requirements for the entire county about two years ago -it ended up with about 1/3 as many students being put on the super-accelerated track (Algebra in 7th, Geometry in 8th) than in prior years. Our older child's cohort was under the old model and a LOT of kids struggled with Algebra in 7th. Younger child is under new model and it seems to work better. The system isn't perfect and if your child is grouped wrong there is recourse, but the super-accelerated track puts kids in Calculus as juniors which is intense (TJHSST doesn't even require this track - even under old admissions standards students only had to complete Algebra in 8th grade).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, I have no personal experience with Gunston, but I will say that you’re going to hear a lot about how lots of lower-income areas are zoned for Gunston so it’s not as good of a school. But I am zoned for Gunston and have friends whose kids go there and I have never heard a negative thing about it from somebody in person. I have spoken to parents, teachers at Oakridge (an elementary school that feeds into Gunston), and students, and I have only heard positive and neutral things.

A friend of mine says that she loves that students aren’t allowed to use phones at school. I thought that was very cool.

My daughter got into HB Woodlawn but I fully intended on sending her there without hesitation, and I plan on sending my son there when he hits sixth.

Good luck hitting the HB jackpot twice! Siblings don’t get in the lottery there automatically.

I read the PP's comment as saying she would have sent her daughter to Gunston (but for HB) and she will be sending her son to Gunston when he goes to MS.

We hit the H-B lottery twice....after entering several times. Both my kids started at Gunston and then one got off the H-B wait list (when you used to stay on the same list for years) and one got in at the high school lottery. Gunston was fine, obviously I was OK sending my kids there. I like H-B for high school, but we would have sent them to Wakefield if they hadn't gotten in.

One thing I had an issue with at Gunston both times...don't know if this is true for all APS middle schools...they really discouraged advanced math placement and I had to seriously argue with them to get my kids in a math level where they wouldn't be repeating things they had already done or be bored out of their minds. It's the one (well, two) time I've ever been "that mom."

My older kid did band and the music/band director was great--don't know if he is still there. But they had good music/choir programs 6-8 years ago.