Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- we are not military. Moving with two older elementary school age kids and plan to stay in the area through highschool. Not really concerned about which elementary school so focused on middle and up.

Not sure if there are any sort of cultural differences between these areas to be aware of besides the military family presence. Anyone have an estimate of roughly what percent of kids are military families in these schools? Just curious.

One cultural difference is that the Woodson pyramid attracts families that want to send their kids to the highly selective TJ HS for Science and Technology within FCPS. When their kids don't get accepted into the TJ program from Frost MS they end up going to Woodson. That's a whole other story, but the summary is that it has a large population of very academically competitive parents. This is why you have heard it is intense there.

One way it can affect your child is through preventing them from standing out for competitive college admissions unless they are able to match the strength of courses the other kids are taking. WSHS and LBSS are solid schools but the average SAT scores are consistently lesser there throughout the years by about 50-100 points versus Woodson. Again, this has practically nothing to do with FCPS schools and teacher quality and frankly entirely due to parental investment in pushing and prepping.

Not OP but isn't there an advantage to go with the AP model over IB? Unless your kid is more arts/humanities focused?

Also, how can you say the difference is solely in parental investment in pushing/prepping? Parents choose schools for a reason, and so do teachers. This just sounds like Woodson-hating (which honestly, as someone who cares about academic rigor, makes me think Woodson might be the best of these options).

OP here. I don't particularly care about academic rigor in the comparison of these specific schools as I actually don't necessarily want the "best of the best" academically speaking. Reasonably good is good enough to me. I have looked at the data for academics for the three schools and they are fine to me.

School culture matters a lot to me. I am interested in any responses to the PP who brought up bullying, fights, etc. - not just for the highschools, but also for their corresponding middle schools (perhaps particularly for the middle schools - Frost, Iriving, Lake Braddock Middle).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- we are not military. Moving with two older elementary school age kids and plan to stay in the area through highschool. Not really concerned about which elementary school so focused on middle and up.

Not sure if there are any sort of cultural differences between these areas to be aware of besides the military family presence. Anyone have an estimate of roughly what percent of kids are military families in these schools? Just curious.

One cultural difference is that the Woodson pyramid attracts families that want to send their kids to the highly selective TJ HS for Science and Technology within FCPS. When their kids don't get accepted into the TJ program from Frost MS they end up going to Woodson. That's a whole other story, but the summary is that it has a large population of very academically competitive parents. This is why you have heard it is intense there.

One way it can affect your child is through preventing them from standing out for competitive college admissions unless they are able to match the strength of courses the other kids are taking. WSHS and LBSS are solid schools but the average SAT scores are consistently lesser there throughout the years by about 50-100 points versus Woodson. Again, this has practically nothing to do with FCPS schools and teacher quality and frankly entirely due to parental investment in pushing and prepping.

Not OP but isn't there an advantage to go with the AP model over IB? Unless your kid is more arts/humanities focused?

Also, how can you say the difference is solely in parental investment in pushing/prepping? Parents choose schools for a reason, and so do teachers. This just sounds like Woodson-hating (which honestly, as someone who cares about academic rigor, makes me think Woodson might be the best of these options).

Can someone please speak to the issue of fights, vandalism, bullying etc? Especially since OP is concerned about school climate. There was an accusation lobbed that Woodson is bad for this and no one took the bait. Is it true?

Anonymous wrote:OP here- we are not military. Moving with two older elementary school age kids and plan to stay in the area through highschool. Not really concerned about which elementary school so focused on middle and up.

Not sure if there are any sort of cultural differences between these areas to be aware of besides the military family presence. Anyone have an estimate of roughly what percent of kids are military families in these schools? Just curious.

One cultural difference is that the Woodson pyramid attracts families that want to send their kids to the highly selective TJ HS for Science and Technology within FCPS. When their kids don't get accepted into the TJ program from Frost MS they end up going to Woodson. That's a whole other story, but the summary is that it has a large population of very academically competitive parents. This is why you have heard it is intense there.

One way it can affect your child is through preventing them from standing out for competitive college admissions unless they are able to match the strength of courses the other kids are taking. WSHS and LBSS are solid schools but the average SAT scores are consistently lesser there throughout the years by about 50-100 points versus Woodson. Again, this has practically nothing to do with FCPS schools and teacher quality and frankly entirely due to parental investment in pushing and prepping.

Anonymous wrote:OP here- we are not military. Moving with two older elementary school age kids and plan to stay in the area through highschool. Not really concerned about which elementary school so focused on middle and up.

Not sure if there are any sort of cultural differences between these areas to be aware of besides the military family presence. Anyone have an estimate of roughly what percent of kids are military families in these schools? Just curious.

We're at Robinson and are not military-connected and I wouldn't say it's a particularly noticeably strong population if you're not involved in it. But I do know there's a sizeable population and they provide a lot of services for military-connected families--though I think the other schools, esp West Springfield might have larger percentage military. For the most part the people I encounter around here who are military are retired military now working in the government or with a private company. The culture seems to be overwhelmingly college-educated families--many with grad degrees--often working in government, ngo's or university (Robinson is walking distance to GMU)--along with private companies. As for culture, it's probably not that different between them--for Robinson, the neighborhoods have a lot of people walking around and there are a lot of typical suburban amenities (hiking trails, lake, parks, pools) and the Robinson kids often walk up to the University Mall after school where there's a cheap-ish theater, coffee shop, smoothie shop, taco place etc. It feels a lot like my suburban childhood in the 1980s tbh--but with stronger academics than I had. Robinson has a strong and popular theater program, band, and arts in general. I imagine the others do too--I'm just not as familiar.

Anonymous wrote:OP here- we are not military. Moving with two older elementary school age kids and plan to stay in the area through highschool. Not really concerned about which elementary school so focused on middle and up.

Not sure if there are any sort of cultural differences between these areas to be aware of besides the military family presence. Anyone have an estimate of roughly what percent of kids are military families in these schools? Just curious.

If you don't have that military factor, then just go with the house you can afford, with the best commute and that you are able to win in the bidding war.

Any of those schools will be fine, including Woodson.

To answer your question... a lot, especially when you add in recently retired and recently separated families.

OP here- we are not military. Moving with two older elementary school age kids and plan to stay in the area through highschool. Not really concerned about which elementary school so focused on middle and up.

Not sure if there are any sort of cultural differences between these areas to be aware of besides the military family presence. Anyone have an estimate of roughly what percent of kids are military families in these schools? Just curious.

Sorry that the Woodson poster derailed your thread, OP.

All of those schools are fairly similar. It really just boils down to where you are able to find housing. If you lived here in the past, you might want to try to focus on areas where your kids might run into old friends. If you are a military family, you might want to concentrate on Lake Braddock, West Springfield, Robinson, South County or Hayfield to have your community nearby and easier access to things like the commissary and BX. Those high schools deal with a lot of military kids, so they tend to have more robust support for the kids and more familiarity and experience with some of the transcript issues that pop up when a kid has attended different high schools in several states and countries. Those schools will also offer a large peer group of other military kids with experience in that lifestyle, and things like military ambassadors clubs where those kids can connect and find support from a large peer group.

Each school pyramid is akin to an entire district in most other places in the country, so most families (with the exception of a few here online that like to argue about stuff that doesn't really reflect reality on the ground) are really only focused on their own schools and neighborhoods.

You might get a few families with experience in 2 of the high school pyramids or multiple elementary schools due to where they are able to find housing after pcsing in and out of the area, but they are the exception.

We're at Irving and starting WSHS next year and are very happy with the schools. We know a lot of people with kids at WSHS and everyone likes it. Also know a lot of families at Lake Braddock and same feedback.

Also, to a PP, when we were house hunting we looked mainly at WSHS, LBSS, and Woodson homes - they have similar commuting time into DC where we work. Robinson was just a little too much farther out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a WSHS parent and am undoubtedly displaying my ignorance but I don’t even know where Woodson is. I assume almost every FCPS is a pressure cooker for kids let it be, but also assume much of that is self-induced by kids and parents. One of mine inflicts that pressure upon herself and the other could give zero effs (wish they could meet in the happy middle).

The high schools are less than 2 miles apart. You should get out more

On what route are Woodson and West Springfield less than 2 miles apart?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a WSHS parent and am undoubtedly displaying my ignorance but I don’t even know where Woodson is. I assume almost every FCPS is a pressure cooker for kids let it be, but also assume much of that is self-induced by kids and parents. One of mine inflicts that pressure upon herself and the other could give zero effs (wish they could meet in the happy middle).

The high schools are less than 2 miles apart. You should get out more

Less than 2 miles? No. Maybe Lake Braddock HS.

2.3 miles between LBSS and WSHS. Previous poster is talking out of their ass

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a WSHS parent and am undoubtedly displaying my ignorance but I don’t even know where Woodson is. I assume almost every FCPS is a pressure cooker for kids let it be, but also assume much of that is self-induced by kids and parents. One of mine inflicts that pressure upon herself and the other could give zero effs (wish they could meet in the happy middle).

The high schools are less than 2 miles apart. You should get out more

Less than 2 miles? No. Maybe Lake Braddock HS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a WSHS parent and am undoubtedly displaying my ignorance but I don’t even know where Woodson is. I assume almost every FCPS is a pressure cooker for kids let it be, but also assume much of that is self-induced by kids and parents. One of mine inflicts that pressure upon herself and the other could give zero effs (wish they could meet in the happy middle).

The high schools are less than 2 miles apart. You should get out more

5.4 miles away from each other, per Google.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a WSHS parent and am undoubtedly displaying my ignorance but I don’t even know where Woodson is. I assume almost every FCPS is a pressure cooker for kids let it be, but also assume much of that is self-induced by kids and parents. One of mine inflicts that pressure upon herself and the other could give zero effs (wish they could meet in the happy middle).

The high schools are less than 2 miles apart. You should get out more

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, I think the differentiation between the schools mentioned is silly.

We’re zoned for Robinson (and happy with it). My kids have friends going to WSHS, LBSS, and Woodson. They’re all more similar than different.

True but being in different regions means they are run by completely different people in central office.

OP- every region in FCPS would be considered a single school district in most of America. It’s just that big.

.

I’m sure you’re right, but since I’ve never given a moment’s thought to which central office people my kids’ schools report up to, I’m not even sure what this difference would mean?