Anonymous wrote:
What does the geographic diversity look like? I’ve seen posts mentioning APS, does the school primarily pull from Arlington? Any from other areas/counties, or even from MD/DC?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our youngest is now a Freshman at DJO and having a great year. Taking all honors classes and is making good friends, has a community.

We enjoyed Back to School Night - the teachers seem very happy and engaged. I met a lot of new people at the pre-Homecoming events. Great folks.

What other questions can I answer?

What does the geographic diversity look like? I’ve seen posts mentioning APS, does the school primarily pull from Arlington? Any from other areas/counties, or even from MD/DC?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our youngest is now a Freshman at DJO and having a great year. Taking all honors classes and is making good friends, has a community.

We enjoyed Back to School Night - the teachers seem very happy and engaged. I met a lot of new people at the pre-Homecoming events. Great folks.

What other questions can I answer?

What does the geographic diversity look like? I’ve seen posts mentioning APS, does the school primarily pull from Arlington? Any from other areas/counties, or even from MD/DC?

My kids have friends from Georgetown (a simple commute b/c it is near McLean), Great Falls, Vienna, the Del Ray part of Alexandria, Annandale, Merrifield & Fairfax "City", but they don't really have friends in MD.

DJO goes by FCPS for the snow day schedule, even though they are in APS boundaries.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is a new freshman at DJO. We spent a lot of time researching schools and chose DJO for its academics and extracurricular activities, including but not limited to sports. We've been very happy so far.

We know quite a few DJO families and so we had the benefit of hearing from them before making our decision.

It's a Catholic school, and Catholic teaching is "conservative" by today's "woke" standards. But DJO seems to be a fairly typical Catholic school in that regard.

Just recirculating this thread...after being completely underwhelmed by both the APS High School Night and last night's virtual Wakefield session, I am wondering if it would be worth spending the money to attend O'Connell. I would love to hear from anyone chose DJO over the local APS schools or vice-versa. (And FWIW we love South Arlington are not trying to avoid Wakefield based on poverty or diversity--however, at the high school level APS class sizes are rather large and don't seem to have a great guidance counselor to student ratio.)

When my senior was in 8th grade (at K-8 Catholic School that tends to feed into DJO) we went the APS information night.

First off, it was so crowded (pre-Covid) we watched live stream from the lobby, and could have watched at home.

There were a lot of "your child could take this" or "your child could be eligible for...." but we chose DJO b/c it was smaller and a more personal approach was important to our family.

I have a ton of respect for APS and many people thrive there. Our decision was based on a "small pond" feeling. Don't regret it at all.

There was a problem last year, and I asked a more experienced mom out to lunch for advice. The guidance counselor called me back before the entrees arrived, and I spent our "lunch date time" finding closure on the issue. My lunch date said, "And that's what O'Connell does...".

It is just a very nice school, and I benefit from that as much as my children do.

I'd like to echo this post. We chose DJO over APS (Yorktown) for our now senior. DJO is not St Albans, Sidwell, Cathedral, Landon, etc., nor does it pretend to be. Our senior takes a very rigorous schedule of AP and honors classes and is excelling. We are thrilled with the teachers and the level of instruction, as well as the reasonable approach to instruction (they do a great job of actually teaching the material in class and do not overload with homework, as we hear at many schools, especially "prestigious" privates.

Now here is what I really love about DJO - the community. We are not devout Catholics by any stretch. In fact, in many ways we push back against a lot of what the church has come to stand for as an institution. While DJO is certainly on the conservative side, from a religion standpoint, our child is not afraid to express contrary opinions and never feels out of place. Our child is surrounded by teachers and administrators who truly care about these students and the kids know that. We had an older child who attended Yorktown and, the one thing I try to get my head wrapped around is the fact that fights in the hallways and elsewhere on campus were commonplace. That is not the case at DJO. One, they wouldn't put up with that. But two, it is not an environment that encourages that behavior. It is a diverse student body with a wide range of backgrounds, opinions, etc., but mutual respect thrives throughout the student body.

Last thing - their expanded services program is one of the best qualities of the school. It includes students with down syndrome, autism, and other =learning/behavioral issues. These students are well incorporated into the student body. My child has become a more compassionate, patient, and empathetic person because of this experience. I'll take that over prestige any day.

I would not hesitate to send an of my children to DJO.

Thank you, PPs. We are waiting to hear if our 8th grader was accepted and have a feeling it will be a better fit than Yorktown which is our zoned school.

I am NOT looking for generic people bashing DJO who have no experience, but does anyone whose child attends the school have any negative feedback to offer or something for us to consider? Anyone who left DJO, or joined in 10th after experience at an APS public? Everyone we know seems very positive about the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our youngest is now a Freshman at DJO and having a great year. Taking all honors classes and is making good friends, has a community.

We enjoyed Back to School Night - the teachers seem very happy and engaged. I met a lot of new people at the pre-Homecoming events. Great folks.

What other questions can I answer?

What does the geographic diversity look like? I’ve seen posts mentioning APS, does the school primarily pull from Arlington? Any from other areas/counties, or even from MD/DC?

Anonymous wrote:Our youngest is now a Freshman at DJO and having a great year. Taking all honors classes and is making good friends, has a community.

We enjoyed Back to School Night - the teachers seem very happy and engaged. I met a lot of new people at the pre-Homecoming events. Great folks.

What other questions can I answer?

Anonymous wrote:Can a kid coming from APS fit in? Likely wouldn’t know anyone going in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is a new freshman at DJO. We spent a lot of time researching schools and chose DJO for its academics and extracurricular activities, including but not limited to sports. We've been very happy so far.

We know quite a few DJO families and so we had the benefit of hearing from them before making our decision.

It's a Catholic school, and Catholic teaching is "conservative" by today's "woke" standards. But DJO seems to be a fairly typical Catholic school in that regard.

Just recirculating this thread...after being completely underwhelmed by both the APS High School Night and last night's virtual Wakefield session, I am wondering if it would be worth spending the money to attend O'Connell. I would love to hear from anyone chose DJO over the local APS schools or vice-versa. (And FWIW we love South Arlington are not trying to avoid Wakefield based on poverty or diversity--however, at the high school level APS class sizes are rather large and don't seem to have a great guidance counselor to student ratio.)

When my senior was in 8th grade (at K-8 Catholic School that tends to feed into DJO) we went the APS information night.

First off, it was so crowded (pre-Covid) we watched live stream from the lobby, and could have watched at home.

There were a lot of "your child could take this" or "your child could be eligible for...." but we chose DJO b/c it was smaller and a more personal approach was important to our family.

I have a ton of respect for APS and many people thrive there. Our decision was based on a "small pond" feeling. Don't regret it at all.

There was a problem last year, and I asked a more experienced mom out to lunch for advice. The guidance counselor called me back before the entrees arrived, and I spent our "lunch date time" finding closure on the issue. My lunch date said, "And that's what O'Connell does...".

It is just a very nice school, and I benefit from that as much as my children do.

I'd like to echo this post. We chose DJO over APS (Yorktown) for our now senior. DJO is not St Albans, Sidwell, Cathedral, Landon, etc., nor does it pretend to be. Our senior takes a very rigorous schedule of AP and honors classes and is excelling. We are thrilled with the teachers and the level of instruction, as well as the reasonable approach to instruction (they do a great job of actually teaching the material in class and do not overload with homework, as we hear at many schools, especially "prestigious" privates.

Now here is what I really love about DJO - the community. We are not devout Catholics by any stretch. In fact, in many ways we push back against a lot of what the church has come to stand for as an institution. While DJO is certainly on the conservative side, from a religion standpoint, our child is not afraid to express contrary opinions and never feels out of place. Our child is surrounded by teachers and administrators who truly care about these students and the kids know that. We had an older child who attended Yorktown and, the one thing I try to get my head wrapped around is the fact that fights in the hallways and elsewhere on campus were commonplace. That is not the case at DJO. One, they wouldn't put up with that. But two, it is not an environment that encourages that behavior. It is a diverse student body with a wide range of backgrounds, opinions, etc., but mutual respect thrives throughout the student body.

Last thing - their expanded services program is one of the best qualities of the school. It includes students with down syndrome, autism, and other =learning/behavioral issues. These students are well incorporated into the student body. My child has become a more compassionate, patient, and empathetic person because of this experience. I'll take that over prestige any day.

I would not hesitate to send an of my children to DJO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is a new freshman at DJO. We spent a lot of time researching schools and chose DJO for its academics and extracurricular activities, including but not limited to sports. We've been very happy so far.

We know quite a few DJO families and so we had the benefit of hearing from them before making our decision.

It's a Catholic school, and Catholic teaching is "conservative" by today's "woke" standards. But DJO seems to be a fairly typical Catholic school in that regard.

Just recirculating this thread...after being completely underwhelmed by both the APS High School Night and last night's virtual Wakefield session, I am wondering if it would be worth spending the money to attend O'Connell. I would love to hear from anyone chose DJO over the local APS schools or vice-versa. (And FWIW we love South Arlington are not trying to avoid Wakefield based on poverty or diversity--however, at the high school level APS class sizes are rather large and don't seem to have a great guidance counselor to student ratio.)

When my senior was in 8th grade (at K-8 Catholic School that tends to feed into DJO) we went the APS information night.

First off, it was so crowded (pre-Covid) we watched live stream from the lobby, and could have watched at home.

There were a lot of "your child could take this" or "your child could be eligible for...." but we chose DJO b/c it was smaller and a more personal approach was important to our family.

I have a ton of respect for APS and many people thrive there. Our decision was based on a "small pond" feeling. Don't regret it at all.

There was a problem last year, and I asked a more experienced mom out to lunch for advice. The guidance counselor called me back before the entrees arrived, and I spent our "lunch date time" finding closure on the issue. My lunch date said, "And that's what O'Connell does...".

It is just a very nice school, and I benefit from that as much as my children do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is a new freshman at DJO. We spent a lot of time researching schools and chose DJO for its academics and extracurricular activities, including but not limited to sports. We've been very happy so far.

We know quite a few DJO families and so we had the benefit of hearing from them before making our decision.

It's a Catholic school, and Catholic teaching is "conservative" by today's "woke" standards. But DJO seems to be a fairly typical Catholic school in that regard.

Just recirculating this thread...after being completely underwhelmed by both the APS High School Night and last night's virtual Wakefield session, I am wondering if it would be worth spending the money to attend O'Connell. I would love to hear from anyone chose DJO over the local APS schools or vice-versa. (And FWIW we love South Arlington are not trying to avoid Wakefield based on poverty or diversity--however, at the high school level APS class sizes are rather large and don't seem to have a great guidance counselor to student ratio.)