Chantilly Highlands, Oak Hill VA 20171. Neighborhood Schools. February 2012.

Bill: We are planning to move to the Chantilly Highlands neighborhood in Oak Hill VA.

What can you tell us about the schools there?

 Steve: Well Bill, school starts the day after Labor Day here and has for decades. This year that date is Sept. 6.

Chantilly Highlands is located in Fairfax County Virginia, the 12th largest system in the US.

Therefore the resources for evaluating your child's education options are extensive and thorough.

The schools in our county are considered among the best in the nation.

Here are some numbers that you might find encouraging from the county website:

* The new four-year Virginia on-time graduation rate for Fairfax County was 91.2 percent for 2008 high school graduates.

* 92.6 percent of high school graduates continue on to some form of postsecondary education.

 * The dropout rate for school year 2007-08 was 1.5 percent.

• Members of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) class of 2009 posted a composite SAT score of 1664—the highest since the SAT went from two sections to three sections in 2006.

This exceeds the average combined scores of 1522 in Virginia and 1511 in the nation.

In 2007-08, 63.1 percent of graduates earned advanced diplomas.

• The number of FCPS students taking Advanced Placement exams rose from 10,313 in 2002 to 14,365 in 2008.

• In the June 2009 edition of Newsweek magazine, all eligible FCPS high schools were listed in the top five percent of public schools in the nation, based on the annual challenge index—which measures a school’s effort to challenge all students.

Fairfax has a great getting started page for those folks seeking registration information.

 Click here for the main page for the Fairfax County school system

Deb: How do I know which schools serve a home I might consider buying?

Steve: Deb, go to Fairfax County's school boundary site and enter the address of the prospective property.

You will be given the elementary, middle and high school that currently serves that home.

There is also a phone number for you to double check to see if any boundary changes are anticipated. This is especially important if you want to buy within a particular elementary school boundary.

Fairfax County schools are divided into clusters, then subdivided into pyramids named for the high school that tops the pyramid.

For example, Chantilly High School serves the neighborhood of Chantilly Highlands and is in cluster 7.

Click the link: Chantilly High pyramid is listed first, beginning with the elementary schools up through Franklin and Rocky Run Middle schools that feed into the high school.

(Always check the school boundary web site since many students with Herndon adresses fall within other high school boundaries. For example: the Herndon 20171 zip code could attend Westfields, Chantilly or Oakton High schools depending on where the boundary line is)

Diane: Are there any independent school evaluation sites you know of?

Jan: Here are three sites that our clients have found valuable.

Great Schools

School Digger

School Matters

 If you have any questions about Chantilly Highlands, please drop us an email and we will try to be get you the information you want.