Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP - incidentally, I am on the CARD mailing list. I do hope that does something. We don't want to move, but we would love it if the school got better before our kid gets there. It was better when we bought here and has since gone down hill from the report cards I can see on DOE. Something changed and I wondered if the rumors of what had happened elsewhere were true and if so what recourse I would have. I would rather stay here and have the school improve, but our kid's education comes first.

Of course it comes first. It's disgraceful what has happened.
I'm glad you are involved with card, I am too. I'm concerned that we don't have the numbers to make enough noise.
Of course a new county board with new priorities would be really helpful. There is an opportunity to change the course the county has been on. It really needs to happen.
We shouldn't have to be trying to shoehorn our children into north Arlington schools.

I'm new to all of this, but in the same boat. Sorry to ask: But what HAS happened??
Will check the CARD group... Can I find the report cards you mentioned on the APS website?
What can possibly be done? I mean one School Board election or another, it is all the same! No one on the School OR County Board seems interested to improve the schools!?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP - incidentally, I am on the CARD mailing list. I do hope that does something. We don't want to move, but we would love it if the school got better before our kid gets there. It was better when we bought here and has since gone down hill from the report cards I can see on DOE. Something changed and I wondered if the rumors of what had happened elsewhere were true and if so what recourse I would have. I would rather stay here and have the school improve, but our kid's education comes first.

Of course it comes first. It's disgraceful what has happened.
I'm glad you are involved with card, I am too. I'm concerned that we don't have the numbers to make enough noise.
Of course a new county board with new priorities would be really helpful. There is an opportunity to change the course the county has been on. It really needs to happen.
We shouldn't have to be trying to shoehorn our children into north Arlington schools.

Anonymous wrote:Hello Barcroft neighbor. Your children will not really have any "choice" school options. ATS has only a few slots a year. Barcroft no longer has enough seats for any more than siblings and a couple people off the wait list. This year some parents managed to get transferred to Key, discovery and Jamestown because the south Arlington school situation is unacceptable. But that won't last. Campbell is almost as poor as Barcroft.

barcroft is not a bad school, but it is not a good one either. Almost 70 percent of the school is poor. So, it is not a racial issue, although most but not all of those kids are Latino. They are from poorer families and carry all the baggage being poor carries in arlington. So, your child's teachers will be working to get them to learn despite their lack of home resources. If your child gets into the gifted program, you are fine. If your kid has special needs, good luck. If your kid is average, your kid will be overlooked. I have heard this from most parents who are willing to be honest. And, the PTA resources are low all because the poorer parents do not get involved and they certainly don't have money to spare. The lack of PTA support is STARK in comparison to weathier north arlington schools.

That said, if your children are racial minorities, they would stand out in many north Arlington schools that are overwhelmingly white. That is not good either.

Test scores were up for some of the poorer kids in many south arlington schools. But, there has been huge pressure to get them up. And, for the first time this year kids can retake them! So, the scores cannot be compared to prior years. No one is talking about that. White kids scored worse in many south arlington scools, Barcroft in particular. So, what does that tell you? Not everything, but something and the lower scores were across the board.

If you want to get involved in this county's push to make south Arlington home to every poorer family in the county, there are folks trying to stop it. There is a group trying to stop all affordable housing as a totally unrealistic use of scarce county funds. Another group mentioned earlier, card I believe, that seems to support affordable housing as long as it is dispersed around the county (like real diversity). And by the way, it the affordable housing that makes schools like Barcroft poor despite the wealth of the two neighborhoods that feed into it (alcova heights and Barcroft).

In case you care about my kids. I sent them to Barcroft and pulled them out after a year. There was little learning going on, only catch up and discipline. They go to a private school and are thriving. I weighed moving versus private. Our house is custom and no one wanted to move. I moved here from another area and did not do my school research.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Think carefully before you decide to stay, OP. These elementary school issues will be visited in 2-3 years upon Kenmore Middle School. It is an untenable situation in Randolph, Barcroft, Abingdon. The teachers are being asked to do the near-impossible (raise the scores of the County's poorest kids while challenging the middle and beyond). The timetable for improvement is long and timetable for your child's education is short. And transfers to places like Jamestown & Discovery should you get one) are only good until they meet the capacity threshold. Then, you will be returned to your neighborhood school.

Sounds like someone hasn't been paying attention. Kenmore is already struggling--it did not meet federal requirements. (see recent test scores).

do you have inside info on this? doesn't sound like individual school accreditation is released yet according to APS press release... or did i misunderstand something?

"State accreditation and federal accountability reports, including student group and annual measurable objective (AMO) data, will be issued by VDOE on September 15, along with updated school and division report cards. "

Anonymous wrote:

Think carefully before you decide to stay, OP. These elementary school issues will be visited in 2-3 years upon Kenmore Middle School. It is an untenable situation in Randolph, Barcroft, Abingdon. The teachers are being asked to do the near-impossible (raise the scores of the County's poorest kids while challenging the middle and beyond). The timetable for improvement is long and timetable for your child's education is short. And transfers to places like Jamestown & Discovery should you get one) are only good until they meet the capacity threshold. Then, you will be returned to your neighborhood school.

Sounds like someone hasn't been paying attention. Kenmore is already struggling--it did not meet federal requirements. (see recent test scores).

Think carefully before you decide to stay, OP. These elementary school issues will be visited in 2-3 years upon Kenmore Middle School. It is an untenable situation in Randolph, Barcroft, Abingdon. The teachers are being asked to do the near-impossible (raise the scores of the County's poorest kids while challenging the middle and beyond). The timetable for improvement is long and timetable for your child's education is short. And transfers to places like Jamestown & Discovery should you get one) are only good until they meet the capacity threshold. Then, you will be returned to your neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
SOL's shouldn't be ignored. They aren't the only piece of the puzzle, but at these high esol/farms schools - SOL prep is the focus. What do you want your child's day to look like?

Until we have a different superintendent, all kids' days are going to be heavy on the SOL prep. In high-EOL and FARMS schools, the prep happens before and after school, too.

Anonymous wrote:
SOL's shouldn't be ignored. They aren't the only piece of the puzzle, but at these high esol/farms schools - SOL prep is the focus. What do you want your child's day to look like?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP - incidentally, I am on the CARD mailing list. I do hope that does something. We don't want to move, but we would love it if the school got better before our kid gets there. It was better when we bought here and has since gone down hill from the report cards I can see on DOE. Something changed and I wondered if the rumors of what had happened elsewhere were true and if so what recourse I would have. I would rather stay here and have the school improve, but our kid's education comes first.

Which report card are you looking at, and what is it based on? If it's just SOL scores, don't worry about it.

If you've visited the school and it set off your Spidey sense, that's a different (as in real) problem.

SOL's shouldn't be ignored. They aren't the only piece of the puzzle, but at these high esol/farms schools - SOL prep is the focus. What do you want your child's day to look like?
It's also been said up thread, but bears repeating- the middle class scores have gone down in some of these schools and they are often below their SES peers on the north side.
I think the county really doesn't want to discuss this, but it's a problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP - incidentally, I am on the CARD mailing list. I do hope that does something. We don't want to move, but we would love it if the school got better before our kid gets there. It was better when we bought here and has since gone down hill from the report cards I can see on DOE. Something changed and I wondered if the rumors of what had happened elsewhere were true and if so what recourse I would have. I would rather stay here and have the school improve, but our kid's education comes first.

Which report card are you looking at, and what is it based on? If it's just SOL scores, don't worry about it.

If you've visited the school and it set off your Spidey sense, that's a different (as in real) problem.

Anonymous wrote:I am OP - incidentally, I am on the CARD mailing list. I do hope that does something. We don't want to move, but we would love it if the school got better before our kid gets there. It was better when we bought here and has since gone down hill from the report cards I can see on DOE. Something changed and I wondered if the rumors of what had happened elsewhere were true and if so what recourse I would have. I would rather stay here and have the school improve, but our kid's education comes first.