Anonymous wrote:All else being equal schools have almost no influence on how smart your kid is.

That combined with the big fish small pond phenomena is lower GS schools in a slam dunk

Good luck paying for college overpaying for a house too lolz

The fish tend to shrink in the smaller ponds.

All else being equal schools have almost no influence on how smart your kid is.

That combined with the big fish small pond phenomena is lower GS schools in a slam dunk

Good luck paying for college overpaying for a house too lolz

Something I'm not sure has been mentioned...

Hayfield Secondary has no trailers; the school is in fine shape.

This means that my children are able to navigate between functioning classrooms with proper space, heat and air conditioning all day long. The benefits of learning in real classrooms instead of being stuck in trailers cannot be underestimated!

We're currently zoned for Chantilly but hate living so far out ... honestly we're probably going to move to Alexandria zoned for either Hayfield or West Potomac in a few years. As long as a school is large to accommodate a wide variety of classes and interests (not an issue around here), and has AP classes, I'm fine with it. There are some good elementary schools feeding to those HS's too. Middle seems rough but when is middle school not rough? My DH graduated from a high school that had real safety and student issues - not in this area, is now rated a 2 on Greatschools and wasn't much better when he was there - and then went to an Ivy and a selective grad school.

If the student was going to be in - almost entirely - AP classes, a low ranked high school is fine. I wouldn't want that for my children. It may not be appropriate, but if you know your child and it would be ok for them ... however it really limits their academic peers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide.

Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students.

There is no reason to move any of West Springfield oer to Lee. It just makes zero sense.

West springfield has the most logical boundaries in all of Fairfax County. It does not have capacity problems and will actually be under capacity when renovations are complete.it is not the wealthiest zone by any stretch of imagination, just solidly middle/upper middle class. It has done an exceptional job educating all of its students, with some of the highest black and hispanic achievement in the county and state. It is not a large or oversized school like LB, Robinson or many of the other schools.

The only reason to rezone WSHS is to try to socially engineer things and to appease Lee parents. Moving a neighborhood from WSHS to Lee will do nothing to raise achievement at Lee. The only thing it would achieve would be to drive down property values i whatever neighborhood got rezoned to Lee.

And to answer OPs question, I don't see what is wrong with attending Hayfield. It seems like a solid choice if it fits your budget and commute. With tye recent development in retail, etc, I bet that high school will continue to improve and that area will be very in demand in the next decade.

I have also heard good things about West Potomac.

Love the area, but why are Hayfield's AP pass rates so crappy compared to other schools? I can't understand why only 25% of the kids taking AP Calc AB can/want to pass the exam. Only 30% passed the AP calc exam. West Po (72% for chem). Statistics 47% Hay, 87% WestPo. World Hist 54% Hay, 79% West Po. I didn't include classes like Eng. Lang -- where the participation rate seems to indicate that it is a "try AP" class for kids who aren't really ready. I want to see Hay do well, but I can never understand why the pass rates for AP are the lowest in the county (excluding the IB schools where kids take AP exams without taking the class). Maybe the kids taking AP classes at West Po are the ones who really want to take them, and maybe the admin at Hay is trying to sweep in kids who don't really belong in AP level (i.e. Chris Matthews challenge philosophy). ---- just looked at the racial data on AP participating -- clearly there are far more black kids (both raw #s and the percentages) taking AP at Hay than at West Po, and more white kids (both as a proportion and sheer numbers) at West Po than at Hay.

That may be part of the equation. But, it doesn't necessarily explain low pass rates on classes that you would expect only the most motivated to take (i.e. AP Chem, Calc AB or Calc BC). I don't know what the explanation is there.

Meant to say AP CHEM exam (30% pass for Hay). Typo.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide.

Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students.

There is no reason to move any of West Springfield oer to Lee. It just makes zero sense.

West springfield has the most logical boundaries in all of Fairfax County. It does not have capacity problems and will actually be under capacity when renovations are complete.it is not the wealthiest zone by any stretch of imagination, just solidly middle/upper middle class. It has done an exceptional job educating all of its students, with some of the highest black and hispanic achievement in the county and state. It is not a large or oversized school like LB, Robinson or many of the other schools.

The only reason to rezone WSHS is to try to socially engineer things and to appease Lee parents. Moving a neighborhood from WSHS to Lee will do nothing to raise achievement at Lee. The only thing it would achieve would be to drive down property values i whatever neighborhood got rezoned to Lee.

And to answer OPs question, I don't see what is wrong with attending Hayfield. It seems like a solid choice if it fits your budget and commute. With tye recent development in retail, etc, I bet that high school will continue to improve and that area will be very in demand in the next decade.

I have also heard good things about West Potomac.

Love the area, but why are Hayfield's AP pass rates so crappy compared to other schools? I can't understand why only 25% of the kids taking AP Calc AB can/want to pass the exam. Only 30% passed the AP calc exam. West Po (72% for chem). Statistics 47% Hay, 87% WestPo. World Hist 54% Hay, 79% West Po. I didn't include classes like Eng. Lang -- where the participation rate seems to indicate that it is a "try AP" class for kids who aren't really ready. I want to see Hay do well, but I can never understand why the pass rates for AP are the lowest in the county (excluding the IB schools where kids take AP exams without taking the class). Maybe the kids taking AP classes at West Po are the ones who really want to take them, and maybe the admin at Hay is trying to sweep in kids who don't really belong in AP level (i.e. Chris Matthews challenge philosophy). ---- just looked at the racial data on AP participating -- clearly there are far more black kids (both raw #s and the percentages) taking AP at Hay than at West Po, and more white kids (both as a proportion and sheer numbers) at West Po than at Hay.

That may be part of the equation. But, it doesn't necessarily explain low pass rates on classes that you would expect only the most motivated to take (i.e. AP Chem, Calc AB or Calc BC). I don't know what the explanation is there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide.

Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students.

There is no reason to move any of West Springfield oer to Lee. It just makes zero sense.

West springfield has the most logical boundaries in all of Fairfax County. It does not have capacity problems and will actually be under capacity when renovations are complete.it is not the wealthiest zone by any stretch of imagination, just solidly middle/upper middle class. It has done an exceptional job educating all of its students, with some of the highest black and hispanic achievement in the county and state. It is not a large or oversized school like LB, Robinson or many of the other schools.

The only reason to rezone WSHS is to try to socially engineer things and to appease Lee parents. Moving a neighborhood from WSHS to Lee will do nothing to raise achievement at Lee. The only thing it would achieve would be to drive down property values i whatever neighborhood got rezoned to Lee.

And to answer OPs question, I don't see what is wrong with attending Hayfield. It seems like a solid choice if it fits your budget and commute. With tye recent development in retail, etc, I bet that high school will continue to improve and that area will be very in demand in the next decade.

I have also heard good things about West Potomac.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the county continues its misguided effort to focus the bulk of FARMS/ESOL resources in a handful of schools, those schools will become defacto ghettos as higher-income families flee. That's what is happening now with the lower-performing schools. Boundaries need to be adjusted to bring in higher SES students. Also, offer challenging college-prep courses to make the schools attractive. Scrap the IB program except for 1 or 2 schools county-wide.

Then lobby the School Board to move part of Woodson to Annandale, part of West Springfield to Lee, and part of West Potomac to Mount Vernon, and to get rid of IB at each of Annandale, Lee and Mount Vernon. You can't blame people for wanting to avoid IB when it's a niche program that only appeals to a small percentage of students.

There is no reason to move any of West Springfield oer to Lee. It just makes zero sense.

West springfield has the most logical boundaries in all of Fairfax County. It does not have capacity problems and will actually be under capacity when renovations are complete.it is not the wealthiest zone by any stretch of imagination, just solidly middle/upper middle class. It has done an exceptional job educating all of its students, with some of the highest black and hispanic achievement in the county and state. It is not a large or oversized school like LB, Robinson or many of the other schools.

The only reason to rezone WSHS is to try to socially engineer things and to appease Lee parents. Moving a neighborhood from WSHS to Lee will do nothing to raise achievement at Lee. The only thing it would achieve would be to drive down property values i whatever neighborhood got rezoned to Lee.

PP here, and BTW I went to Robinson. I did not feel like our kids experience at West Potomac was substantially different from my experience at Robinson. Appropriate peer groups are available.

My child graduated from West Potomac and attends UC Berkeley. Accepted at W&M, UVA also. Had an overall positive experience at West Po.

My kids are still young but I have many colleagues whose children have been zoned to West Potomac. Like any pool of kids they've had the same varying outcomes. Some have been very successful there, some have fallen into drug problems there, some have chosen private school.


I think the sensible answer is to live where you're happy and address problems if they arise. The only reason I would move ahead of time is if there were legitimate safety concern at a school or if I had real information that the school leadership was toxic. All FFX county schools have good programs and classes available. And children can succeed anywhere, just as they can get in trouble anywhere.

I have one who graduated Hayfield a year ago (accepted at JMU, Tech, UVA and is at UMW) and another who will be a Junior at Hayfield this fall. They both participated in theater, one on swim team and the school paper. Both took several Honors classes and older took 4 APs, younger likely will too. They have lots of friends and enjoy school. I have been impressed by their teachers' education levels, dedication and experience. Both were in private before HS.

We're currently zoned for Falls Church (a GS 4) and the kids who live next door to us attend FCHS. They could easily have pupil-placed to Marshall, but chose not to. We've heard nothing but positive feedback thus far.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH went to Hayfield, went to W&M and was accepted as an Echols a scholar at UVa. Every single one of his friends went to UVA, W&M, or Ivy.

Hayfield is a fine school and GS means nothing. ESPECIALLY in a Fairfax Co. All things being equal, how do you think Hayfield ranks against 90% of the high schools in the country.

Yeah. Plus, isn't Belvoir still in boundaries for Hayfield? All those officers have kids too...

Objectively speaking, Hayfield's average SAT scores are a hair above the national average (1482), quite a below the FCPS average (1672), and about equivalent to the VA state average (1533).

The horror!

Those numbers are true, but looking at it as a whole is not right. Look at the number of black kids taking the SAT at Hayfield -- far, far more than most schools. They obviously put a lot of effort into getting kids from lower income backgrounds to take the SAT. I realize not all of the AA kids are low-income, but the numbers show that they are encouraging kids from the rt. 1 corridor to try it. Lo and behold, the AA average scores are relatively lower (as they are nationally) and that affects the overall school average. The ave. SAT scores for white kids are not stellar, but they appear to be on-par with other schools -- like Briar Woods (which has very few AA kids). What it does have in common with Hayfield is similar HHI (comparing the white kids at Hayfield to the overall population at Briar Woods -- which is predominantly white). I think what we're seeing mostly is the effect of HHI (both on the school level and the sub-group level).

FWIW, I know a couple of girls who graduated from Hayfield in the last couple of years... one got into NYU (chose something else b/c of the cost), another got into Wellesley (chose Wash U St. Louis for the sports team she liked better) and another is at W/Mary (although she was pissed not to get into Princeton). They all took 8-12 AP exams.

Not sayin' the school admin is the greatest or that the community prioritizes academics over sports -- but basically, you put your kids in the honors classes, they make friends with the honors kids and those who are motivated, do exceptionally well. Those who are somewhat motivated do o.k. too (as they would at other schools).