Vale

The teachers here are pretty good, especially the tenured ones. Unfortunately, the school's principal and assistant Principals keeps pushing good teachers out and bringing in underqualified ones. The number of good teachers that have left the past few years is startling. The community here is friendly and engaged. Overall, I give the teaching staff a 4/5, the community a 5/5, and the Principal and APs a 1/5.The Principal and Assistant Principals do not engage with the community at all, and are barely present at school events like concerts, plays, and programs. The place is still in ok shape due to great students, great parents, and pretty good teachers. However, the missing ingredient to a great environment is a School Administration that is friendly, engaged, and cares about learning and children. Sometimes there is bullying and the administration seems to ignore it or wipe it under the rug out of self-preservation. It often seems like they don't care about the students, the community, or even the teachers. Oakton, Va is a wonderful place and it's too bad that the School Administration seems to have it out for this community.

Excellent teachers and excellent special education program. The school has gone through some leadership changes but the culture, community, and committed teacher corps is unchanged. We have loved sending our kids here.

There is very little social emotional support at this school not a well-balanced demographic either that is representative of other schools in the area. Most teachers do the bare minimum, and the AAP counselor is more of a gate keeper than an educator. Go at you own peril.

Worst school your child may enter, worst.

I am a recently graduated alumni. No words can do this school justice. It has provided me with all the tools I will need through out life (within reason :)

Some of the courses taught are reasonable, but this school is not a great fit for academically gifted students. The course material tends to be repetitive and a lot of busiwork, even in the honors and AP courses. My children were challenged with the workload, but not with the sophistication and thought-provoking nature of instruction, more just the myriad of often boring assignments that needed to be handed in for grades. Over the years, I think my children learned more from their own personal pursuit of knowledge than they did from attending this school. That certainly makes me question the investment. Also, Flint Hill administration is horrible! They do NOT act in the best interest of students and take a my-way-or-the-highway approach. They are incapable of understanding nuance, don’t act in sophisticated way, and can’t handle basic communications with decorum and professionalism. They also treat athletes and kids whose parents donate to the school very differently than other kids - definitely a two-tiered system. They don’t have policies for disciplinary actions and make up everything as they go along. Don Paige, director of the Upper School, was a HUGE problem. He is now gone (my guess is he was pushed out) so maybe it is starting to come around but the problems with the administration were pretty deep seated when my kids were there.