Came here for Base Camp for work. It's a nice size school compared to the middle schools I have…read morebeen in. The staff from APS were really great, informative and supportive in the learning of their educators!

This school is the worst never send your child here if you care about their safety. My son was…read morephysically abused by a staff member and had bruises on his body. When my husband contacted the school the principal didn't show any concern and was more interested in protecting the staff member that was involved and not my child. I will be homeschooling my child from now on at least I will know he will be safe. This school takes no accountability for anything.

*****EDIT**** Nope…read more According to a few of the mothers who I still talk to and have their children attend there, it's honestly not as great... especially for POC . Ps- Audrey O is a faculty member so it's hard to take that review seriously. I appreciate her effort to improve the school's rating, however. *****EDIT***** Apparently the school got a total faculty makeover. Thank god. They caught on to the fact that there were some issues. So I moved my stars up slightly only because my children no longer attend there so I don't know what the environment is like there currently. I am still scarred from what I had to endure there for the few years my son did attend. However, I don't want to take away from the possibility that the school has improved. ************* It got to a point where I sent my child to a private school because I couldn't let my child go another year in this disaster of a school. Before, this school had raving reviews, but in the past few years- it has just been miserable. Many of the teachers here are pleasant but it's the administrative staff that I worry about. They do not seem engaged with their students nor truly care for their academic success. My child tended to have trouble in school and much of it had to do with his struggle with impulse. The teacher has been kind enough to "allow" an evaluation to take place but I have had so much push-back from the staff. I understand that it costs the school a great deal of money when doing an IEP, but it's for the benefit of the child! I just want to ensure that my child is getting the specialized instruction he needs in order to be confident in school. The year prior, he came home comfortable with the idea that he is just "not smart".That shouldn't ever be the case. My husband and I do our best to try and have him tutured at home, help him with reading, and occasionally see a specialist to assist with impulse control. Despite our efforts at home, my child still struggles at school. During my conference with the school however, I was informed by their assistant principle, Mrs. McNamee, that his issues were stemmed from the fact that he gets too much attention at home. What? Then they proceeded to still push back with getting my child any help until they FINALLY settled on having a 504 plan done. I want to give them the benefit of a doubt- but they have left me with the impression that that if your child has any type of disorder, language barrier, or disability- you're in for a world of grief here. Oh and heaven forbid you're a step parent. According to Mrs. McNamee, step parents dont have an opinion.

Braddock Elementary School is definitely a shining gem in Fairfax County. I am in and out of the…read moreschool every day and I can confidently say that the students are happy to be there. As a member of the PTA, I see teachers who go over and beyond for our kids. Parents, including me, are extremely engaged and volunteer countless hours. We are blessed that the administration allows our students the opportunity to participate in a wide range of after school activities that really enrich my kids. The staff and and administration genuinely live what they do and it truly shows. When your kids come home and all they can talk about is school you know you have them in a winning school! I swear that the principal must live there because she is there every single time I am in the school no matter what time of day! I really enjoy getting to talk to the parent liaison who always has time to listen when I need to talk! When my kids are challenged in such a warm, safe, and meaningful way they are on the path to becoming lifelong learners. This school is amazing and serves its widely diverse population well!

this school is just so fun! i really like the teachers there they have good teaching.read more

This review is for black people considering working at Luther Jackson or black parents considering…read moreLJ as a positive learning environment for their students. This story is about a black substitute teacher. It was 1:00 PM. That was the time just written in the logout book. The substitute teacher then gave his ID badge to a short elderly white woman admin. He left the office and proceeded to the front waiting area. While in the area, he noticed that the gym students were doing some type of test so they were not in their normal PE clothes. The teacher never spoke to nor interacted with anyone during this time. It had been about 5 minutes since the teacher had left the office. The same woman he had given his ID badge to cam up to him and said that he had to sit down by the front door or wait outside. He told her that he would do no such thing and that he worked for FCPS Fairfax County Public Schools and he knew that was not a requirement of its employees. He then said that the woman was racially harassing him and that he recognized her behaviour as such. The "lady" leaves and no more than 5 minutes later police officer comes over to the teacher and asks him to leave or wait outside. He can tell that the officer is only doing what was requested of him. The teacher again refuses to leave. No more than 5 minutes go by and again 2 assistant principals arrive to continue the harassment of the teacher. They tell him he is creating a disturbance. He disagrees. In the middle of their arguing the teachers ride called and he leaves mid-argument. He had a teacher request him for the next day. The students, "Respect and like you." was her rationale for asking him to sub her science class. But he knew that the racist white admins at Luther Jackson would, and did, prevent him from ever subbing at his alma matter again. Luther Jackson is a less than ideal environment for black children. They have no support from the culturally incompetent and racist white people that make the decisions there.

Alright, I didn't even think it was possible to check in, let alone write a review for a…read moreschool...but both Brad B and Jeff W have given totally different ratings so...I'm here to make up the difference. I give LB a 3.5 star rating ( Yelp: we need a way to give a .5 review). I graduated from here, and my brother attends now. It's a secondary school (a middle and a high school). There are a lot of students in one class year...my graduating class was about 700 students. The teachers, for the most part, are great. However, they could use more improvement on the quality of teacher's and quantity of teacher's they provide. I felt like most of my teachers were running around because they have so many students and could not provide the adequate attention for an individual student. The guidance counselor office could also use some help, as most days and times my and my brother's counselor is not available. It's very frustrating to track him down to ask about classes, recommendations, and nominations. The school has many elective classes and extracurricular activities available for students.

One of the worsts school I've ever attended and I've attended a lot of them. Sending your kids here…read morewould be a big mistake. Be careful.

Ok - so I went here in the late 70s and early 80s, but I still have fond memories, and for the…read morerecord one of my teachers, Ms. Moke, still works here. I remember her quite fondly. The education was stellar, and it prepared me extremely well for my future in junior high school. I have fond memories of mooning my first grade teacher at the encouragement of a fellow student, and afternoon meetings in The Pod, where on at least one occasion the anti-smoking people came to pass around chunks of blackened lung inside plastic to scare us away from that filthy habit. It worked. There was also a safety video depicting kids being taken on stretchers into ambulances... because naughty kids who threw things had injured them. My fondest memory of this place, however, was of the air raids. Once monthly or so, we'd practice the end of times when the air raid signal went off and we'd go into the halls, line up against the walls, duck and cover, expecting chunks of the ceiling to rain down upon our heads. Ahh. Those were good times. I secretly hope that they're still showing that little turtle movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixy5FBLnh7o and practicing those air raids. 'Cuz ya never know...

This is by far the worst school I have ever had the privilege of tell to "f" off! Usually, when…read moreyou tell a school "hey let some other child have the privilege of dealing with your classy busy bodies" they actually leave you alone. Well not this school. I am still a month (+) later being harassed by this school and the old hen busy bodies that run it! To add insult to injury here, I fought to get my child into this school only to be treated so horribly and harassed each and every day for the month that he was there.! Now I am having to fight just to get them to leave us alone. Apparently.... class and good breeding does not run amongst these busy bodies! The mere motto "live and let live" really needs to be stressed to these people. If someone does not wish for their child to go here show some class and part with respect. Do not continue to harass them months later, because you are jealous of their happiness. Live and let live people. Not everyone will find this school good and just because you don't want your homes to decrease in value or you don't want to get involved with your kids education does not make this a good school. That says more about you. This is a public school and somewhere along the way someone has misinformed them and left them with the thought that they are "special". What ever fairy dust was sprinkled by what ever fairy, the people in this neighborhood should really ban together and dust it off! You are a PUBLIC school and not a good one! No never ever would I recommend them, not even to a bug.

Excellent outdoor track and field…read more Free to use and open to the public when school activities are not in process. I used to receive email updates for when the track was opened or closed, but I probably no longer use that email address, so I'm out of the loop. I used to come here with a running group to do track speed work and speed drills. Another time I used to come regularly was for a weekly boot camp group that met where during designated week nights. Nice 8-lane track. Standard 4x around is mile. There are bleechers so some people run up and down those as well. Public restrooms are available and in working order when I was here and easy to find at the entrance. I am not certain where parking is. I lucked up and usually find parking on the surrounding neighborhood streets. I am sure there is a school parking lot around the corner or something. Plenty of people out for brisk walks and jogging around the track and others were playing American football and soccer in the middle of the field. Highly recommend!

Very nice sized high school in Arlington County Schools. Really great and informative staff here,…read morethat are willing to help and support each other!

I like the school and the principal is chill and most of the teachers are nice and funny, the…read moremiddle school is fun and there isn't too much homework. There are many kids there and I had fun in all my 5 years.

Commonwealth Academy promotes itself as a school that has expertise in ADHD and executive…read morefunctioning. Our experience there this last year with our son (12) was the opposite, and the staff was extremely unwilling to work with us on his needs. It gets worse. In the end, a false report of child abuse and neglect was filed against us, we believe and have strong evidence to back it up by senior school staff in retaliation for disputes we had with them. In my opinion, the place is not safe for your kids or you. We enrolled mid-year, when our local school was having issues meeting his needs. He has a learning profile that includes ADHD, language processing difficulties, and executive function difficulties. When we interviewed the school, which is billed as particularly suited for a child of his profile, we were very excited about the approach and attention to executive function, and the admissions head similarly felt it would be a great fit for our son. For a school that supposedly focuses on executive function skills, they offered him almost nothing in the way of support there, and made it very difficult for him (and us) to figure out what his assignments even were. There was no consistent place where or how assignments were listed; some were online, some were via emails, and some were given in class. This is a nightmare for someone with executive function difficulties, and only set him up for failure. The school was also slow to implement an assisted listening device, provided by us, that has greatly helped our son in his previous school. We had discussed using the device with CA prior to enrollment and they had agreed in principle. It took them over three months to actually begin using it. One of us is a licensed counselor and former teacher with years of professional expertise and success in helping children with learning profiles similar to our son's. With this expertise, we tried very hard to work with the school on how best to serve our son, and offered specific interventions to help him access the curriculum and get through the day. The school presented considerable resistance and foot-dragging and at one point, the head of the middle school told us that we were no longer welcome to email them. They were not only not interested in the resources we offered, they at times seemed offended by it. Another dispute centered around repeated and inappropriate suggestions from certain staff that we should get medical diagnoses and/or therapy for our son. For our son's privacy, I am not going to discuss the nature of these requests, but we have in fact involved his health care providers in addressing his in-school challenges, and we provided evidence of this in the form of doctor's notes to the staff on multiple occasions. After about the third time these requests were made, we complained to the head of school, who responded very supportively and agreed the staff had been inappropriate. It was two days after this that the false report to DC CFSA was made. The report included the allegation that we "refused" to take our son to the doctor, and other disturbing allegations that were simply made up out of whole cloth. After 35 days the report was ruled Unfounded by DC CFSA, which means a report they consider untrue. Based on the timing and the content of the allegations in the report as communicated to us by the social workers, we believe it's almost a certainly that it was made by one of three people there, two of whom are still there and are fairly senior in the school's administration. We removed him from the school the day the report was filed and home schooled him for the remainder of the year. The school was uncooperative in providing assignments and materials during this time, and was uncooperative in our investigation of who filed the false report. They have also not provided materials needed for applications to other schools, obstructing our efforts to find a new placement for him. Parents considering Commonwealth Academy should be aware that (1) it is not what it claims to be in terms of support for ADHD and executive function, and (2) it apparently employs people who are willing to weaponize Child and Family Services against parents by filing false and malicious reports accusing them of child abuse and neglect.

This review is just for the sports facilities. My son had a baseball game at their wonderful field…read more I have attended both football and baseball games here and the stadium facilities are top notch. The track is six lanes and built for speed. The concessions and restrooms are fancy by most high school standards. I cannot attest to the school itself, but the students and staff treated the visiting team with respect. Four stars for the sports facilities.

I've gone to this school for a year and a half and this is what I've taken from it so far…read more The consolers could not care less about your needs. They only care if they want to. The guys are the most annoying people I've ever encountered. Half the teachers don't even teach. They will take away the only thing you like about the school and try to cover it up by letting you wear white shoes. None of the bathroom doors lock. If you are an introvert you're out of luck. The people your mother asked if they enjoyed their experience either lied or went to a different Bishop O'Connell high school. The school is not as good as it seems.