Kelly instituted the same transfer policy in Little Rock and Rockford, Ill., where he served as superintendent before coming to Prince William in 1987. In Rockford, parents asked to switch schools, and he had to turn them down because of boundary concerns.
"After a while, I thought, 'This is stupid. Why am I fighting this?' " Kelly said.
Andy Anderson, a fifth-grade teacher at Porter Traditional School, works with a small reading group. From left are Jennifer Brown, Amrit Kaur, Jayla Collier, Erik Quiroga, Janaye Oliver, Tiana Young, Kealey Cela and Stephen Kelsey.
(Len Spoden For The Washington Post)
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Specialty schools such as Pennington and Porter differ from the specialty programs. Although specialty programs expand on the standard curriculum, specialty schools offer the same subjects as any other. It is the atmosphere created by the school rules that is different -- and popular.
"It gave us all of the things we liked about the private school environment, but it also gave us some of the academic resources and rigor that Caitlin particularly needed," said Milt Johns (Brentsville), vice chairman of the Prince William County School Board and a former Pennington parent. His daughter is now in ninth grade at Battlefield High School.
Jayne Jones, a Porter parent and head of the fledgling school volunteer program, said she wanted her daughter to attend the school "to protect her a little bit."
"I just thought that she would do better in a smaller school," Jones said.
Kelly said such choices should not be seen as an indictment of the other county schools. "You need to develop reasons for them to stay," Kelly said. He said programs such as an international math and science program at Potomac High School and a math and science program at Rippon Middle School have cut down on what he called "white flight" there. At Potomac, 147 students transferred into the school this year to take part in the program.
Whitehead, formerly the principal of Montclair Elementary, used to feel such choices acutely. "I thought that if I had a child who moved to Pennington, I felt that I had failed that child."
Her opinions have changed. "Some children just need that kind of structure," she said. "That's not a knock."
