Preschools in Vienna or Falls Church City? (Reston, McLean: chapel, lawyers)

[BayAreaFamily]

Hi - we are moving to NOVA next summer and need to find a preschool for all 3 of our children. We'll most likely live in either Vienna or Falls Church City. Can anyone recommend a good preschool in or around these two cities? We'd like to keep commuting time to a minimum. If NOVA is anything like the San Francisco area, you need to apply nearly a year in advance to get accepted into a good preschool. Since we need 3 slots, I'd really like to get a jump on things!

Any suggestions at all would be appreciated. Thanks.

[saganista]

Many local churches in Vienna have longstanding preschool operations, and some are quite good, but results may vary considerably depending on the particular teacher or team of teachers. That may be true to some extent in any school, but perhaps moreso in these schools than in others. Our family had a very good experience with the Wesley Methodist Preschool, but we lucked out in getting two excellent teachers right off the bat and then being able to stay with that team from one year to the next. In two years, we never had any indication of the church's religious thinking filtering into any of the school activities.

There are meanwhile three well-regarded private preschools in Vienna proper, and it probably should be noted that many families choose to leave their kids in familiar private school surroundings for kindergarten, then move them into the public school system for first grade. It should probably also be noted that these places aren't necessarily cheap. Appletree II is on the west side of town, and has about 100 students in its pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes. That's all they offer. There are some overtly Christian apsects to the curriculum, which some might find a problem. The Green Hedges School is on the north side of town, near the high school. It has about 200 students, nearly equally divided across the ten grade levels (PK, K, and 1-8) that it accomodates. It is very highly regarded. The preschool is Montessori. The third is the Parkwood School, which is on the south side, just down the street from the Vienna Aquatic Club. It has about 250 students, nearly 90% of them in the PK program, and the rest in Kindergarten. Parkwood has long been a superb program. The people who founded and built the school are all retired now, and I haven't had kids young enough to attend since that happened, but its reputation at the least continues on. If I tried, I don't think there is a way that I could overstate the positive impressions that I had from my own two years as a Parkwood parent.

Some might say that the Town & Country School should be included also, but it is well outside of Vienna proper, and there have been some recent issues there that resulted in significant 'turnover'.

There are quite a few other preschool programs around the area. This site has some general info on many of them, along with links to the webpages of those schools that have them...

Private Schools (broken link)

[claremarie]

Our kids went to the Falls Church Day School, housed in the church that gives Falls Church its name. It used to be an Episcopal Church until the congregation decided to affiliate with a Nigerian church with more orthodox Christian teachings. There is a definite Christian flavor to the preschool program, with the children attending chapel services on a weekly basis.
Another Falls Church preschool is located at Columbia Baptist Church, just a stone's throw from the Falls Church.

Another option is the Temple Rodef Shalom on Westmoreland Street in the Falls Church/McLean area. It is open to children of all faiths, though, like most area preschools housed in a church, priority is given to Temple members. The children learn about and celebrate the Jewish holidays, but the curriculum is essentially secular. I have a friend with no religious convictions who happily sent her children there, and I know another woman from our Catholic parish who was on the Rodef preschool faculty for years.

Because most preschool programs for younger kids are half-days, you will be making two round trips only a few hours apart -- a convenient location is critical. It might be difficult to choose a preschool until you've narrowed down your housing options.

[BayAreaFamily]

Thank you for your suggestions - I will be looking into them! Has anyone heard of the Dolley Madison Preschool? It is in McLean at the intersection of Rte 123 and Kirby Road. I'm wondering with traffic how long it would take to get there in the mornings from either Vienna or Falls Church City?

[claremarie]

I have heard good things about the Dolley Madison preschool, and have a friend who taught there when her husband was posted at the World Bank. It would be an easy run from Falls Church City, taking side roads to Kirby, which flows rather smoothly even in rush hour. From Vienna, you'd be dealing with rush-hour traffic along 123 -- perhaps Saganista could give a better prediction of the time (along with turn by turn directions for shortcuts...)
If you're willing to travel to McLean for preschool, there are several other options near Dolley Madison, including Montessori schools (which tend to be more expensive than the garden-variety preschool).

[saganista]

Well, I wouldn't recommend actually using Route-123 north out of Vienna during a typical morning rush. There are several major backup areas along the way to Kirby Road. At other hours, however, it would be a fairly easy run that way, but not as easy as from Falls Church. To get over there during the a.m. rush from Vienna, I would basically just go to Falls Church. Sneak out the southside of town, endure maybe a quarter-mile of backup on Cedar Lane, then cut off onto Idyllwood Road which turns into Kirby Road as you cross Great Falls Street. I'd leave maybe 35 minutes before I wanted to get there and figure I ought to have a few minutes to spare. But basically, this would be a bit of a schlep to be doing from Vienna. If that school were a regular destination, I think I'd then be thinking of the FC area more than Vienna as the prime target. It would add a little to the Reston commute, but the extra would be all outbound, and not awful...just extra...

[BayAreaFamily]

Thank you both. I'm really surprised at the traffic situation in NOVA! It sounds worse than out here. We've lived through horribly long and dreadful commutes and don't want to endure that again! So it seems like most of the traffic congestion is inbound (ie heading towards DC)? If we lived in Falls Church City, would there be much traffic heading out to Reston during the rush hours? By looking at the map, it seems like you could take Rte 7 to Reston? Are there back roads?

Again, I really appreciate your taking the time to provide such detailed responses.

[claremarie]

As far as I can tell, most of the rush-hour traffic in Northern Virginia is still headed in the DC direction, but much of the recent growth in employment has been in the Tyson's and Dulles Corridor areas, so there is also congestion heading to and from Tyson's, especially on the Beltway, Route 7, and Route 123. That situation will only get worse, at least in the short term, as the massive Tyson's construction projects (the Metro extension and the addition of new toll lanes on the Beltway) get underway starting in several months.
I don't think there's that much traffic from Falls Church out to Reston during the morning rush, but I don't really have much firsthand experience with that situation. Depending on your starting point in Falls Church, the Dulles Toll Road might be the best option to the Reston area.

[saganista]

Falls Church to Reston is better than Reston to Falls Church. I went to Reston (from Vienna-ish) this morning. It was a breeze. I also came back. It was not such a breeze. The Toll Road was pretty shaky, and I shouldn't have been in the worst of it either.

The biggest problem with FC to Reston is how to deal with Tysons. If you take Route-7, you've got about a three-mile stretch there where your average speed could be about 3 mph. That'll hurt. Once you clear Tysons, the Toll Road outbound isn't usually bad...heavy but moving at or near a speed limit pace. You can also avoid paying the toll by staying on Route-7 out to 606 (Baron Cameron Avenue).

One possible option to slogging through Tysons every day would be to run out of FC over to McLean on Great Falls Street, then cross 123 onto Lewinsville Road, following that until it hits Route-7 out behind Wolftrap. Unfortunately, I haven't done the Lewinsville part of that run for six or seven years, so there might be new issues with it that I'm not aware of. You do have to cross Spring Hill Road, which does carry some Tysons volume.

Another option would be to hop over to Vienna, then take Lawyers Road to Hunter Mill Road. This is the route I took outbound this morning. It's consistently reliable (except in snow), and it gives you easy options to pick up the Toll Road, Sunset Hills, Sunrise Valley, or to continue on to Baron Cameron. Getting over to and then through Vienna to pick up Lawyers Road would depend where in FC you were starting out. Idyllwood, Shreve Road, Lee Highway...any of them might work depending on start point. There are bottlenecks in Vienna to avoid, but it isn't that hard to do so.

[BayAreaFamily]

Hi Sanganista: I gave Parkwood Preschool a call and spoke to Ms. Vickery! She's quite lovely - kind of like a grandmother type. They don't have a website, but she's sending me their brochure. I was wondering if you could give me some feedback since you sent your children there. What are the qualifications of the teachers? Here in CA, you only need a HS degree and some college courses to teach preschool. I'd prefer more experienced teachers if possible. What is an average day like? Do they have art time, music time, playground time, etc.? Where schools do the children go on to? Did you feel your children were prepared for life beyond Parkwood?

Thanks.