Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:20% FARMS really isn't that high.

Exactly. Yet for some parents, 5% is too high.

A big reason the FARMS% may by an issue to some parents, is that basically any household making over $100K does not get reduced before school / after school care through the PTA. We currently pay $~500 month for extended day in Arlington, while families that make less are heavily heavily subsidized (or basically free) by the parents making over $100K (or some close number to that). When we have 3 kids in Elementary school next year, that $1,500 per month adds up, when we don't make much over $100K. I'm fine with the cultural diversity, just not crazy about subsiding extended day for others, when I kind of need a subsidy.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in the Nottingham/Williamsburg/Yorktown pyramid. The amount of time and energy you people spend in thinking about your kids' schools and comparing and contrasting the various Arlington schools is mind-boggling. If you step back and really look at what you are arguing about you should be embarrassed.

Relax and love your Arlington neighbors. The only thing that is going to mess up your kids is being raised by such tightly wound competimommys.

Thank you! I'm 11:43 and I guess this was the point I was trying to make. They're all great schools with pretty minor differences between them. As many people would say, there's a reason most kids in Arlington don't go to private school - they don't need to because the public education is first rate.

My kids are in the Nottingham/Williamsburg/Yorktown pyramid. The amount of time and energy you people spend in thinking about your kids' schools and comparing and contrasting the various Arlington schools is mind-boggling. If you step back and really look at what you are arguing about you should be embarrassed.

Relax and love your Arlington neighbors. The only thing that is going to mess up your kids is being raised by such tightly wound competimommys.

Anonymous wrote:Face it, a lot of people bought into WL district for the location, not the schools, and now are trying to cover their tracks by claiming it is as good as Yorktown. And it just isn't, even if some rich parents from Lyon Village think any place their kids attend is, by definition, awesome. It's not just GreatSchools that ranks WL lower.

Other than the test scores reported by the state, what rankings matter? Seriously.

- Former Yorktown parent

Face it, a lot of people bought into WL district for the location, not the schools, and now are trying to cover their tracks by claiming it is as good as Yorktown. And it just isn't, even if some rich parents from Lyon Village think any place their kids attend is, by definition, awesome. It's not just GreatSchools that ranks WL lower.

Anonymous wrote:Huh? Nottingham, Williamsburg, Yorktown. Best in APS.

This is a pretty biased statement. As the county website points out, W-L and Yorktown are very similar in terms of test scores and other indicators of achievement - even more so when you balance those factors for race.

Nottingham, while a fine school, does not have the top scores in the county. Right now I believe that goes to McKinley, again despite a higher FARMS rate and slightly more ethnic diversity than Nottingham.

I haven't looked at Swanson/Williamsburg scores recently, but am guess it's the same thing.

Fact of the matter is that above Rte 50 you really don't have any poor choices. Things vary around the margins.

Yorktown and W-L are both highly regarded, very large public high schools.

I'm the PP who lives near Yorktown and couldn't find a house near W-L. We looked at 60+ houses in Arlington (North and South) and Falls Church. The only houses in my range in W-L at the time we were looking were either 1- tiny townhouses with big monthly HOA fees that were walkable to metro but had no yard, or 2- the occasional single family house that was on a very busy part of Washington Blvd (which made me nervous) or 3- fixer-uppers needing $100K+ of work, which we didn't have. It was pretty discouraging.

We lucked into a 1940's cape that needed a bit of work, not far from Yorktown. I love the 'hood but my street definitely has cheaper houses than other streets in the neighborhood, due to a few owners who have held their houses for a long time and are currently renting them and letting them get a bit run-down. (I think the fact that my next-door neighbor had about 6 not-that-nice cars parked at his house could have scared off some buyers, too.) So our house was cheap for the zip code and as a single mom, my income is definitely lower than the average household income for the zip and probably the school. So yes, we will probably be lower-income in our rich school. This is a concern for me, but it doesn't keep me up at night.

(I think my note about how kids tend to hang with kids who are like them was kind of misconstrued. I meant that smart, motivated kids will generally find other smart, motivated kids in their honors/AP/IB track classes and will hang with them. those kids are at Wakefield and TC Williams, just as they are at Yorktown.)

Anonymous wrote:

I am wondering why Swanson is a "much more nurturing environment" than Williamsburg. Do they have nap time for sixth graders? Or is this just more of the same BS from the LV crowd?

Who cares? Swanson and Williamsburg couldn't be more similar. It's like comparing Tuckahoe and Nottingham.

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Anonymous wrote:From what I've read, W-L would be average or slightly below average in Fairfax and Wakefield would be at the very bottom. Yorktown was really the only Arlington school we were prepared to consider, and the only one comparable to the better Fairfax schools.

Says the Fairfax poster

Huh? Nottingham, Williamsburg, Yorktown. Best in APS.

Um, no. Would never choose Williamsburg over Swanson. Maybe 15 years ago...

That would put you squarely in the minority, then, pp. Williamsburg is widely regarded as the most desirable MS in Arlington.

Or you, PP, could just be stuck in the past. While academics are about the same, it's a well-known fact that Swanson has a much more nurturing environment than Williamsburg. Oh, and fewer instances of behavior that one would not expect to have to deal with at least until hs. Most N.Arl. parents I know are either happy they are at Swanson or regret not being there.

I am wondering why Swanson is a "much more nurturing environment" than Williamsburg. Do they have nap time for sixth graders? Or is this just more of the same BS from the LV crowd?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol yorktown is a 7 or 8 , mason is a 9, its more like fairfax high

The fuck are you prattling on about? Are you one of those Great Schools followers? Joke's on you.

Jokes on you with your lower test scores hajah

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:boy, this degenerated fast.

We ended up buying about 1/2 mile away from Yorktown. I would have preferred Washington-lee - I worried about my kid (white, not rich) being surrounded by only white and rich kids at Yorktown. the world isn't like that. But we couldn't find a house we liked feeding into W-L; proximity to Metro meant that prices were higher around there and our price range was low for Arlington.

I think your kid(s) will get a good education at either school, and probably at Wakefield too. We also looked at schools in Falls Church City and Fairfax. I think Yorktown and W-L rank with the top third or so of Fairfax schools and with George Mason HS; Wakefield scores are closer to the lower Fairfax schools, but that's demographics and not a reflection on the teaching. For me, I had to rule out a lot of the Fairfax schools because the commute to DC from those homes would have sucked.

If you could afford to buy 1/2 mile from Yorktown, your kids are very likely in the same socio-economic demographic as most of the other kids at Yorktown, so I find your argument to be disingenuous, paranoid, and misinformed. The real "rich" kids in the Yorktown pyramid go private.

Signed, parent in the Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown pyramid who also thinks we're not "rich" on a relative basis but know that, in fact, most people think the same thing we do. Most of our kids' many friends seem to be similar financial background, and only a couple come from truly loaded families. I think you're far more likely to encounter socio-economic disparity at W-L, along with the problems that can sometimes entail. I think homogeneity from a socio-economic standpoint is probably more desirable than a school where there are "haves" and "have nots"

NP in this particular discussion. There are some nice, small homes within a half mile of Yorktown that go for less than a larger house somewhere else in N Arlington. What about Garden City. I don't find it hard to believe that the PP couldn't find a house they liked in the W-L district and I don't' think they are paranoid and misinformed. Other families have also said they like the socio-economic diversity at W-L, even if the feeder elementary schools tend to be fairly homogenous. And let's not over generalize. There are "real" rich kids at Yorktown, and plenty of "haves" and "have nots" there also. I believe most families in Arlington are perfectly happy with the way things are with both North Arlington high schools, and both are very desirable.

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Anonymous wrote:From what I've read, W-L would be average or slightly below average in Fairfax and Wakefield would be at the very bottom. Yorktown was really the only Arlington school we were prepared to consider, and the only one comparable to the better Fairfax schools.

Says the Fairfax poster

Huh? Nottingham, Williamsburg, Yorktown. Best in APS.

Um, no. Would never choose Williamsburg over Swanson. Maybe 15 years ago...

That would put you squarely in the minority, then, pp. Williamsburg is widely regarded as the most desirable MS in Arlington.

Or you, PP, could just be stuck in the past. While academics are about the same, it's a well-known fact that Swanson has a much more nurturing environment than Williamsburg. Oh, and fewer instances of behavior that one would not expect to have to deal with at least until hs. Most N.Arl. parents I know are either happy they are at Swanson or regret not being there.

Wasn't there a very public ousting of a Principal at Williamsburg recently. I remember the crazy posts about it. Maybe they started a petition to get rid of her !

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've read, W-L would be average or slightly below average in Fairfax and Wakefield would be at the very bottom. Yorktown was really the only Arlington school we were prepared to consider, and the only one comparable to the better Fairfax schools.

Says the Fairfax poster

Huh? Nottingham, Williamsburg, Yorktown. Best in APS.

Um, no. Would never choose Williamsburg over Swanson. Maybe 15 years ago...

That would put you squarely in the minority, then, pp. Williamsburg is widely regarded as the most desirable MS in Arlington.

Or you, PP, could just be stuck in the past. While academics are about the same, it's a well-known fact that Swanson has a much more nurturing environment than Williamsburg. Oh, and fewer instances of behavior that one would not expect to have to deal with at least until hs. Most N.Arl. parents I know are either happy they are at Swanson or regret not being there.

Anonymous wrote:23:11 here - my concern was less with Yorktown and more with the elementary school, which is 1% FARMS and at least 84% white. (Asians make up the largest minority group, by a landslide.) Our neighborhood is very, very, very caucasian. So yes, I am a little concerned that my daughter will grow up with an unrealistic view of the world. Her preschool is diverse, and we do a lot of our extracurriculars in South Arlington, but still.

the thing to note with Wakefield - and TC Williams - and the lower ranked Fairfax schools - is that once you control for the demographics within the schools, the college-prep white kids tend to achieve everywhere. Kids tend to hang with other kids who are like them.

We just moved to Yorktown and I was concerned about the area being majority white since our kids are biracial (I'm white, DH is Asian). But I've been surprised to find that on my street and the street directly behind mine, there are 3 other Asian/White biracial families. So at least my kids look like some of the other kids in the neighborhood. But yes, there aren't many other minorities that live in our immediate vicinity...

Anonymous wrote:You Yorktown assholes praising your white school are the same ones moaning how unfair it us for a portion of rich LV to get automatic entry to ASF elementary. God- you are one fucked group of people.

+1

I was thinking the same exact thing. Whatever suits their needs at any particular time. Chameleons. One minute it is all about county-wide fairness--oh poor me--and then it is "fuck the brown people, my kids won't go to HS with them". I won't miss when the choice people zone out in middle school to their elite Willismsburg and YHS.