Alexandria middle and high schools (Arlington, McLean: real estate market, credit, houses)

[Nydczva]

We're looking to move to Alexandria, and I understand from reading other threads that many parents in Alexandria send their kids to private school. While this would be a last resort for us, the public schools appear to have enough challenges (esp. in the upper grades) that I'd like private school to be a possibility.

Are there any secular (non-Christian) private high schools in or near Alexandria that are popular with Alexandria parents? Everything I've found through my research is through grade 8 only or Christian, which doesn't work for us.

[brooklynborndad]

are you set on moving to the city of Alexandria? cause if you just have to move to work in Alex, odds are you will end up living in Arlington or Fairfax, where the public schools have great reputes.

That said, lots of kids do just fine at Alex's sole public high school, TC Williams - the catch phrase we heard for TC is "Yale or jail" - its genuinely diverse.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by Nydczva

We're looking to move to Alexandria, and I understand from reading other threads that many parents in Alexandria send their kids to private school. While this would be a last resort for us, the public schools appear to have enough challenges (esp. in the upper grades) that I'd like private school to be a possibility.

Are there any secular (non-Christian) private high schools in or near Alexandria that are popular with Alexandria parents? Everything I've found through my research is through grade 8 only or Christian, which doesn't work for us.

I do tend to think of most of the private high schools in Alexandria itself as Christian (Episcopal, Bishop Ireton, St. Stephen's).

There may be some small secular private schools in Alexandria, but they aren't well known. You might want to look at the Potomac School in McLean. It is an independent school and, according to its web site, has bus service back and forth to Old Town Alexandria.

[Nydczva]

Thanks for the tip-off on the Potomac School. It looks like a nice place, although so expensive! (No more than many private schools, I know, but still.) I'd be interested in hearing about any other nearby secular private schools that anyone might know of.

We actually live in Arlington now and want to move to Alexandria to be near Old Town. We love the ambience and the street life, and after visiting a few times we decided to move there. Further research is revealing all the problems with this plan -- old, overpriced houses, sclerotic real estate market, hit-or-miss elementary school districts, even iffier upper schools.

The schools are actually my biggest concern. Overpaying for an old house wouldn't bother me too much if we liked it and knew we could stay there, but I'm concerned about moving somewhere we'll have to leave once our daughter finishes elementary school!

[robbobobbo]

Perhaps you should go to a PTA meeting or follow the ACPS web site for other upcoming community meetings. Talk to parents whose kids are in public school. Maybe you'd feel reassured, or maybe you'd still have an "iffy" feeling about the schools, but at least you'd have more information on which to base your decision.

[brooklynborndad]

well we do know kids from our synagogue who went to the "better" elementary schools in Alex, who stayed on all the way through 12th. You don't HAVE to leave.

We at one point considered moving to Alex, but DD was already at TJ and Alex had decided to not send to TJ. They did that in part, IIUC, because they wanted to keep their top students at TC.

Moderator Cut

[car54]

I spent about 5 hours at TC Williams last Saturday (field trip).

It's a beautiful new building...as nice, or nicer than any high school in Fairfax County.

[CaliTerp07]

I lived across the street from an ACPS middle school and just a couple miles from TJ for a couple years, so my neighborhood had lots of kids from both schools. The kids would come by selling stuff for various fundraisers and I'd talk to them while I got suckered into whatever they were selling. Most were incredibly polite, driven (with good college choices when asked) and involved in extra curriculars. If you are an involved parent, which it sounds like you are, I feel like your child(ren) will succeed in ACPS schools. Anywhere else, they'd be ranked well. Here, being in FCPS's shadow, they get a bad rap.

Another thing to consider is that ACPS is significantly smaller than FCPS. That's good and bad. The good thing (a huge good thing, IMO), is that your child is less of a number and more of a person. The negative is that there aren't the sort of magnet programs and specialty schools that FCPS has.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by CaliTerp07

I lived across the street from an ACPS middle school and just a couple miles from TJ for a couple years, so my neighborhood had lots of kids from both schools. The kids would come by selling stuff for various fundraisers and I'd talk to them while I got suckered into whatever they were selling. Most were incredibly polite, driven (with good college choices when asked) and involved in extra curriculars. If you are an involved parent, which it sounds like you are, I feel like your child(ren) will succeed in ACPS schools. Anywhere else, they'd be ranked well. Here, being in FCPS's shadow, they get a bad rap.

Another thing to consider is that ACPS is significantly smaller than FCPS. That's good and bad. The good thing (a huge good thing, IMO), is that your child is less of a number and more of a person. The negative is that there aren't the sort of magnet programs and specialty schools that FCPS has.

Maybe - however, it was the State of Virginia, not Fairfax County, that labeled TC Williams a "persistently lowest achieving school" a few years back.

It seems to me that, if you don't want your residents at least thinking about sending their kids to private school, you don't let that happen to your flagship public high school. It's not enough to say "we have a new building and our very top students are admitted to Yale," if people end up worrying about what might happen to their own child. To its credit, though, the City of Alexandria now appears to be responding diligently to the state's findings.

In addition, while ACPS may be smaller than FCPS, TC Williams itself is larger than many FCPS high schools. That's different than, say, the City of Falls Church, which runs a small system with a high school (George Mason) that has far fewer students than any FCPS high school.

[CaliTerp07]

Originally Posted by JEB77

Maybe - however, it was the State of Virginia, not Fairfax County, that labeled TC Williams a "persistently lowest achieving school" a few years back.

It seems to me that, if you don't want your residents thinking about sending their kids to private school, you don't let that happen to your local high school. To its credit, though, the City of Alexandria now appears to be responding diligently to the state's findings.

In addition, while ACPS may be smaller than FCPS, TC Williams itself is larger than many FCPS high schools. That's different than, say, the City of Falls Church, which runs a small system with a small high school (George Mason) that is much smaller than any FCPS high school.

The middle school I'm student teaching at is a red flag school in FCPS/Virginia. One of (if not the) lowest in the county. That said...the kids who are college bound are flying there. They still have GT classes (heck, the kids are taking Algebra and Geometry before high school!), still send kids to TJ, and still do a darn good job preparing kids for high school. The school's overall SOL scores are low--but that doesn't effect the kids who are in all these honors classes.

If your kids are average academically, then it's probably more important to look at class sizes and teaching practices and SOL score distribution (is that even something you can find?) The middle of the road kids are the ones who get lost at the large or struggling schools.