Anonymous
02/12/2026 13:01
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
I have kids at W-L and the kids are fine with the size. They have big groups of friends and lots of activities they're involved in, including all of them playing sports. They're academically challenged and have good grades. My seniors are getting into great colleges, and excited for their next steps.
Anonymous
02/12/2026 11:34
Subject: Re:Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2025/07/HS_Boundaries_LgFormat_SY25_26.pdf
OP here - Oooh thanks this is super helpful! I did not know that the boundary map was gerrymandered in that way to include that little chunk of Clarendon in Yorktown. Since I need to metro to commute I don’t think Wakefield is the best option (looks too far to walk to metro in most spots). I think I am still strongly leaning to WL since I really think my kid could benefit from the walkability (seems easier to foster independence and friendships) and it looks like there are no places zoned for Yorktown that are metro accessible AND walkable to the school.
The YHS kids in that area ride the ART bus for free. Many kids around Arlington do before they get their license.
But you're correct, unless you move near East Falls Church Metro (YHS zone), there's not many spots walkable to metro in YHS zone.
Anonymous
02/12/2026 11:31
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:My teen takes the A58 bus home from WL. Runs through the orange line corridor to Georgetown and into DC. Runs very regularly
And the bus is free with a student pass
Anonymous
02/12/2026 11:30
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
My teen takes the A58 bus home from WL. Runs through the orange line corridor to Georgetown and into DC. Runs very regularly
Anonymous
02/12/2026 07:41
Subject: Re:Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2025/07/HS_Boundaries_LgFormat_SY25_26.pdf
OP here - Oooh thanks this is super helpful! I did not know that the boundary map was gerrymandered in that way to include that little chunk of Clarendon in Yorktown. Since I need to metro to commute I don’t think Wakefield is the best option (looks too far to walk to metro in most spots). I think I am still strongly leaning to WL since I really think my kid could benefit from the walkability (seems easier to foster independence and friendships) and it looks like there are no places zoned for Yorktown that are metro accessible AND walkable to the school.
Anonymous
02/11/2026 23:00
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:*Reads this thread and cries in Alexandrian.*
No one knows what this means.
I understood it. Alexandria has the largest high school in the state, way larger than Arlington ones.
Anonymous
02/11/2026 18:21
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:*Reads this thread and cries in Alexandrian.*
No one knows what this means.
Anonymous
02/11/2026 18:09
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:FYI, YHS has a weird boundary. My kids have friends that live nearish to Courthouse/Rosslyn if you’re wanting more urban neighborhood but prefer YHS for whatever reason.
To be clear, I think APS high schools are all solid
Right, but W-L has between 70-150 transfers a year. Some IB and some neighborhood transfers. Many kids we know at W-L live in Rosslyn (I have given lots of them rides home after sports or activities over the past couple of years).
Anonymous
02/11/2026 16:04
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
*Reads this thread and cries in Alexandrian.*
Anonymous
02/11/2026 14:41
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:FYI, YHS has a weird boundary. My kids have friends that live nearish to Courthouse/Rosslyn if you’re wanting more urban neighborhood but prefer YHS for whatever reason.
To be clear, I think APS high schools are all solid
Generally speaking, Arlington roughly east of the Clarendon Metro station is Yorktown. It was the "diversity boundary island" before a large scale boundary change connected it to the main Yorktown zone in 2018. It includes wealthy and low income areas.
Anonymous
02/11/2026 14:01
Subject: Re:Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous
02/11/2026 14:00
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
FYI, YHS has a weird boundary. My kids have friends that live nearish to Courthouse/Rosslyn if you’re wanting more urban neighborhood but prefer YHS for whatever reason.
To be clear, I think APS high schools are all solid
To be clear, I think APS high schools are all solid
Anonymous
02/10/2026 09:59
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We are likely moving to Arlington for my kid’s HS years. I see that all the three comprehensive HS are massive. Is there any difference in how they handle the size between them? I’m not that concerned about the differences in demographics etc. Just want my kid to be able to integrate into the school with the other kids. He is not a STEM kid so Arlington Tech isn’t really an option. I don’t think he will be full IB either.
Why would you do this? Move to FCC. We moved here pre kids for the short commute and metro access, but as nearly empty nesters FCC would be ideal.
Because I don’t like the suburbs and because I don’t think sticking him into a smaller school where all the kids have been together since K is a great idea either.
Arlington is a suburb. What are you talking about? If you send your kid to Yorktown its no different. 22207 and 22213 are as suburban as you can get.
Lots of DD's friends at Washington-Liberty live in high rises in Rosslyn and Ballston. Kids walk from school to Ballston to eat and hang out, and it definitely feels urban more than suburban. Depends where you are.
So they skip out on the bus home, how are they getting home? Mom and dad or a student with a car picks them up. No teenager is taking the ART at 5pm.
Ballston is a so-so mall, with a few ground level shops and a target, and a LOT of office buildings. Its not really urban in the vibrant community way.
I wouldn't consider Ballston a mall any longer. Maybe a failed mail. But it has a successful ice rink, food hall, and other places kids eat. No one's kidding themselves that Ballston is vibrant 14th Street or Union Market, etc. Ballston, Clarendon, Roslyn are vibrant communities with shops (Clarendon mainly), eateries, cultural institutions (MOCAA-Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington), robust public transit, diverse and dense housing types, etc.
W-L upperclassmen do take advantage of open lunch and walk to/from Ballston to eat. Students do in fact take the public bus or subway after dark.
Students also walk home after dark and after school sports events. I don't know why PPP is so fixated on Ballston, which is just one of a number of communities in the vicinity of the high school. The high school for "culturally vibrant" Georgetown is Macarthur, far from Metro and in an area that's not the most pedestrian friendly. Not knocking the MacArthur, but it helps make my point that W-L is well situated for walking, biking, transit, etc. And culturally vibrant DC (Smithsonian, Kennedy Center, National Theater, downtown shopping, pro sports venues, etc.) is a short subway ride away. Field trips from the school into the city have often used Metro over the many decades.
You are insane to think APS students are jetting off to the National Theater. When we talk about urban we don’t mean 5 metro stops away from anything.
BTW Meridian is about the same distance to West Falls station as WL is from Ballston station, and WF station is two stops further from DC. Its a wash.
The advantage is that Meridian is about 1/3 the size of WL. The insularity may be an issue, but in WL anonymity runs rampant.
+1 Yorktown kids are in Georgetown all the time but not for @culture@ lol.
The point was that culture and sports venues are a few metro stops away from W-L on the orange line and MOCAA is in Va Square.
Well, most kids uber anyway
Anonymous
02/10/2026 09:59
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The latest enrollment numbers show YHS & WHS are almost exactly the same size (2200 students), while W-L has a few hundred more kids since the annex was renovated.
We’ve been happy at Wakefield. I don’t know that there is appreciable difference in how the APS high schools “handle” their size.
January numbers:
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2026/02/U-MEM_281_Summary.pdf
Wakefield- 2100
Yorktown- 2185
WL - 2629
Yorktown and Wakefield are more similar w/r to class size. WL has an extra 125 kids per grade.
Wow, my high school had 125 kids per grade TOTAL.
That's quite normal in small towns and rural areas but I'd be surprised to find a school that small here in th DC area.
Anonymous
02/10/2026 09:58
Subject: Which APS high school manages its huge size best?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We are likely moving to Arlington for my kid’s HS years. I see that all the three comprehensive HS are massive. Is there any difference in how they handle the size between them? I’m not that concerned about the differences in demographics etc. Just want my kid to be able to integrate into the school with the other kids. He is not a STEM kid so Arlington Tech isn’t really an option. I don’t think he will be full IB either.
Why would you do this? Move to FCC. We moved here pre kids for the short commute and metro access, but as nearly empty nesters FCC would be ideal.
Because I don’t like the suburbs and because I don’t think sticking him into a smaller school where all the kids have been together since K is a great idea either.
Arlington is a suburb. What are you talking about? If you send your kid to Yorktown its no different. 22207 and 22213 are as suburban as you can get.
Lots of DD's friends at Washington-Liberty live in high rises in Rosslyn and Ballston. Kids walk from school to Ballston to eat and hang out, and it definitely feels urban more than suburban. Depends where you are.
So they skip out on the bus home, how are they getting home? Mom and dad or a student with a car picks them up. No teenager is taking the ART at 5pm.
Ballston is a so-so mall, with a few ground level shops and a target, and a LOT of office buildings. Its not really urban in the vibrant community way.
I wouldn't consider Ballston a mall any longer. Maybe a failed mail. But it has a successful ice rink, food hall, and other places kids eat. No one's kidding themselves that Ballston is vibrant 14th Street or Union Market, etc. Ballston, Clarendon, Roslyn are vibrant communities with shops (Clarendon mainly), eateries, cultural institutions (MOCAA-Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington), robust public transit, diverse and dense housing types, etc.
W-L upperclassmen do take advantage of open lunch and walk to/from Ballston to eat. Students do in fact take the public bus or subway after dark.
Students also walk home after dark and after school sports events. I don't know why PPP is so fixated on Ballston, which is just one of a number of communities in the vicinity of the high school. The high school for "culturally vibrant" Georgetown is Macarthur, far from Metro and in an area that's not the most pedestrian friendly. Not knocking the MacArthur, but it helps make my point that W-L is well situated for walking, biking, transit, etc. And culturally vibrant DC (Smithsonian, Kennedy Center, National Theater, downtown shopping, pro sports venues, etc.) is a short subway ride away. Field trips from the school into the city have often used Metro over the many decades.
You are insane to think APS students are jetting off to the National Theater. When we talk about urban we don’t mean 5 metro stops away from anything.
BTW Meridian is about the same distance to West Falls station as WL is from Ballston station, and WF station is two stops further from DC. Its a wash.
The advantage is that Meridian is about 1/3 the size of WL. The insularity may be an issue, but in WL anonymity runs rampant.
+1 Yorktown kids are in Georgetown all the time but not for @culture@ lol.
The point was that culture and sports venues are a few metro stops away from W-L on the orange line and MOCAA is in Va Square.