Lakewood and Stone Mill Elementary - high % of Asians?

[Anonymous]

I'm moving to the DC area this year and in the market for a house in the Rockville/Potomac area. I'm curious about Lakewood and Stone Mill. The % of Asians at both is around 50% which is quite high, and I've heard there's a large Chinese community. Does anyone know whether it's mostly first generation immigrants? Asking as a 2nd generation Chinese American who mostly speaks English at home, and doesn't intend to foster the same type of academic intensity as 1st generation immigrants may be inclined to do (like my parents did with me).

Is there a reason to be dissuaded from moving into the school zone based on the demographics? I don't want to throw my kids into an overly competitive environment in elementary school. What are people's experiences who have kids who went here?

I hope this doesn't come across as racist or insensitive in any way...I'm genuinely wondering about how it might impact the school and my kid's experience. I have plenty of Asian friends, both first generation and not, but 50% just seems like a lot.

[Anonymous]

Have several friends whose kids went to Wootton high school and to the elementaries in Wootton cluster. You will see a lot of Asian and South Asian kids in these schools and it is competitive from what I hear. But at the same time, it is easy to form a friend group and no one I know has complained about any of these schools. From what I heard the Asians and South Asian kids end up hanging out together because of similarities in culture.

[Anonymous]

DC has a good friend at one of these schools and the family loves it. They are second generation. It sounded like the families were really friendly and like anywhere it was a mix of more academically oriented families and ones that are less so.

Being at a different school with a concentration of Asians, I have never felt anything but support from the families of immigrants. They shared resources with us and each other and genuinely were happy when a certain kid did well in Math Kangaroo or a dance contest.

In all frankness, I did not feel that way about the non-Asian families who seemed to want to gatekeep opportunities, pretended their kids weren't getting tutored when they were, and said negative things behind other families' backs and especially targeted any child that was doing well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm moving to the DC area this year and in the market for a house in the Rockville/Potomac area. I'm curious about Lakewood and Stone Mill. The % of Asians at both is around 50% which is quite high, and I've heard there's a large Chinese community. Does anyone know whether it's mostly first generation immigrants? Asking as a 2nd generation Chinese American who mostly speaks English at home, and doesn't intend to foster the same type of academic intensity as 1st generation immigrants may be inclined to do (like my parents did with me).

Is there a reason to be dissuaded from moving into the school zone based on the demographics? I don't want to throw my kids into an overly competitive environment in elementary school. What are people's experiences who have kids who went here?

I hope this doesn't come across as racist or insensitive in any way...I'm genuinely wondering about how it might impact the school and my kid's experience. I have plenty of Asian friends, both first generation and not, but 50% just seems like a lot.

My opinion, don’t do it. The communities at these schools are a majority of first generation immigrants and at school events all parents talk to each other in Chinese. If you don’t speak Chinese fluently you will be left out.
I am a second generation south Asian parent and it’s difficult for me to talk with the Chinese parents bc they form there own “clique” at school events and chat groups and talk to each other in Chinese. For example, I was at one elementary school event and talking with a Asian parent who I though was friendly, her Asian friend came and they were totally ignoring me and rudely talk in Chinese in the middle of our conversation. It was very demeaning and quite shocking.
All The kids are all friendly with each other at school but I have noticed the Chinese community doesn’t really hang out or do play dates after school with other kids bc they are over schedules withMusic lessons or after school,academic classes. The kids also “miss” out on a lot of bday parties invites if the bday kid is not chinese , anyways these are my observation for the past 5 years. Please research further OP and make your own decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm moving to the DC area this year and in the market for a house in the Rockville/Potomac area. I'm curious about Lakewood and Stone Mill. The % of Asians at both is around 50% which is quite high, and I've heard there's a large Chinese community. Does anyone know whether it's mostly first generation immigrants? Asking as a 2nd generation Chinese American who mostly speaks English at home, and doesn't intend to foster the same type of academic intensity as 1st generation immigrants may be inclined to do (like my parents did with me).

Is there a reason to be dissuaded from moving into the school zone based on the demographics? I don't want to throw my kids into an overly competitive environment in elementary school. What are people's experiences who have kids who went here?

I hope this doesn't come across as racist or insensitive in any way...I'm genuinely wondering about how it might impact the school and my kid's experience. I have plenty of Asian friends, both first generation and not, but 50% just seems like a lot.

My opinion, don’t do it. The communities at these schools are a majority of first generation immigrants and at school events all parents talk to each other in Chinese. If you don’t speak Chinese fluently you will be left out.
I am a second generation south Asian parent and it’s difficult for me to talk with the Chinese parents bc they form there own “clique” at school events and chat groups and talk to each other in Chinese. For example, I was at one elementary school event and talking with a Asian parent who I though was friendly, her Asian friend came and they were totally ignoring me and rudely talk in Chinese in the middle of our conversation. It was very demeaning and quite shocking.
All The kids are all friendly with each other at school but I have noticed the Chinese community doesn’t really hang out or do play dates after school with other kids bc they are over schedules withMusic lessons or after school,academic classes. The kids also “miss” out on a lot of bday parties invites if the bday kid is not chinese , anyways these are my observation for the past 5 years. Please research further OP and make your own decisions.

Got it, ok. So out of the 50%, a large proportion of that is first generation Chinese? I wouldn’t be as concerned if there were many other Asian groups represented or many non-first gen, but I totally see what you mean. I can understand conversational Chinese and speak some, but I’ve definitely been excluded in the past given my lack of fluency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC has a good friend at one of these schools and the family loves it. They are second generation. It sounded like the families were really friendly and like anywhere it was a mix of more academically oriented families and ones that are less so.

Being at a different school with a concentration of Asians, I have never felt anything but support from the families of immigrants. They shared resources with us and each other and genuinely were happy when a certain kid did well in Math Kangaroo or a dance contest.

In all frankness, I did not feel that way about the non-Asian families who seemed to want to gatekeep opportunities, pretended their kids weren't getting tutored when they were, and said negative things behind other families' backs and especially targeted any child that was doing well.

100% true. For instance, at one school, gatekeeper(s) were the school's listserv moderator(s), withholding pertinent info while viewing the messages themselves but not approving them to be posted. Later found some key info had been shared by members of school community but was not known to all because moderator did not post or forward those messages. A few other examples too long to post here.

[Anonymous]

I'm white and will be sending my kid to Stone Mill. It looks like people are complaining about things that can occasionally happen when you are a minority. Very amusing. But both are great schools, OP, there is no reason to be afraid of Asians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm white and will be sending my kid to Stone Mill. It looks like people are complaining about things that can occasionally happen when you are a minority. Very amusing. But both are great schools, OP, there is no reason to be afraid of Asians.

Glad the stress and hurt is funny to you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has a good friend at one of these schools and the family loves it. They are second generation. It sounded like the families were really friendly and like anywhere it was a mix of more academically oriented families and ones that are less so.

Being at a different school with a concentration of Asians, I have never felt anything but support from the families of immigrants. They shared resources with us and each other and genuinely were happy when a certain kid did well in Math Kangaroo or a dance contest.

In all frankness, I did not feel that way about the non-Asian families who seemed to want to gatekeep opportunities, pretended their kids weren't getting tutored when they were, and said negative things behind other families' backs and especially targeted any child that was doing well.

100% true. For instance, at one school, gatekeeper(s) were the school's listserv moderator(s), withholding pertinent info while viewing the messages themselves but not approving them to be posted. Later found some key info had been shared by members of school community but was not known to all because moderator did not post or forward those messages. A few other examples too long to post here.

Yikes. Would love to hear more. Don’t feel prepared for this kind of thing at all…Need to know what we’re coming up against!

[Anonymous]

From what we can tell they're mostly first generation immigrants from the mainland and a good number of researchers/phds and those types of people.

In general a lot of families(not just the Asian families) in those areas are highly educated where we'd guess that one out of every three homes has a doctorate, jd, etc.

Sometimes I wonder if we made the right choice. Where our family doesn't exactly fit in with the rest of the other families even though we might look the same. There's no real issues, animosity, exclusion or anything. And everyone is pretty friendly. Just different types of people.

But at the same time, I hopefully don't have to worry about my kids being bullied or excluded based on race and they can feel more normal. Although it was disheartening to have them come home one day when they were younger saying how another kid was making racist comments about Asians and having trying to figure out how to explain it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm moving to the DC area this year and in the market for a house in the Rockville/Potomac area. I'm curious about Lakewood and Stone Mill. The % of Asians at both is around 50% which is quite high, and I've heard there's a large Chinese community. Does anyone know whether it's mostly first generation immigrants? Asking as a 2nd generation Chinese American who mostly speaks English at home, and doesn't intend to foster the same type of academic intensity as 1st generation immigrants may be inclined to do (like my parents did with me).

Is there a reason to be dissuaded from moving into the school zone based on the demographics? I don't want to throw my kids into an overly competitive environment in elementary school. What are people's experiences who have kids who went here?

I hope this doesn't come across as racist or insensitive in any way...I'm genuinely wondering about how it might impact the school and my kid's experience. I have plenty of Asian friends, both first generation and not, but 50% just seems like a lot.

My opinion, don’t do it. The communities at these schools are a majority of first generation immigrants and at school events all parents talk to each other in Chinese. If you don’t speak Chinese fluently you will be left out.
I am a second generation south Asian parent and it’s difficult for me to talk with the Chinese parents bc they form there own “clique” at school events and chat groups and talk to each other in Chinese. For example, I was at one elementary school event and talking with a Asian parent who I though was friendly, her Asian friend came and they were totally ignoring me and rudely talk in Chinese in the middle of our conversation. It was very demeaning and quite shocking.
All The kids are all friendly with each other at school but I have noticed the Chinese community doesn’t really hang out or do play dates after school with other kids bc they are over schedules withMusic lessons or after school,academic classes. The kids also “miss” out on a lot of bday parties invites if the bday kid is not chinese , anyways these are my observation for the past 5 years. Please research further OP and make your own decisions.

True, our kids have witnessed and experienced this. Not in this cluster. The poster who had written about being Catholic in a Jewish neighborhood is spot on. Probably any area where you are the minority you and your kids will experience similar situations. Other times it is differences in priorities and expectations on topics such as whether kid should be over scheduled with activities or not, believing homework should be given each day vs those opposed to homework, church going vs not attending etc.., can be the deciding factors on whom to befriend. Hope OP can find more 2nd Gen folks but know even within a certain generation there are wide differences, have unfortunately seen and experienced that too.

[Anonymous]

The parents are mostly 1st gen at those schools, are in Chinese clubs where they speak their language, and push their kids hard. As 2nd gen, your family may feel like an outsider. The kids are nice although there is a subtle ethnocentrism against certain groups, and they stick mostly with other kids in those Chinese clubs.

I’ve witnessed those kids treat URMs as invisible, micro aggressive about their ethnic hair, etc, so I think those kids may test ok but are more like drones programmed by their parents. Those schools are clean and safe though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has a good friend at one of these schools and the family loves it. They are second generation. It sounded like the families were really friendly and like anywhere it was a mix of more academically oriented families and ones that are less so.

Being at a different school with a concentration of Asians, I have never felt anything but support from the families of immigrants. They shared resources with us and each other and genuinely were happy when a certain kid did well in Math Kangaroo or a dance contest.

In all frankness, I did not feel that way about the non-Asian families who seemed to want to gatekeep opportunities, pretended their kids weren't getting tutored when they were, and said negative things behind other families' backs and especially targeted any child that was doing well.

100% true. For instance, at one school, gatekeeper(s) were the school's listserv moderator(s), withholding pertinent info while viewing the messages themselves but not approving them to be posted. Later found some key info had been shared by members of school community but was not known to all because moderator did not post or forward those messages. A few other examples too long to post here.

Yikes. Would love to hear more. Don’t feel prepared for this kind of thing at all…Need to know what we’re coming up against!

Sorry. Let me clarify. Experiences were NOT at the schools mentioned in this thread's title.

[Anonymous]

I have an older kid in a program that is vast majority Asian. We are white. All his friends are Asian, with a variety of different backgrounds. It is an extremely competitive, hardworking environment, and the kids are great. But socially he isn’t as well integrated as the kids who share a cultural background who know each other from outside school and have been going to the same extra curricular for years. Many of the other kids get together outside school but don’t include the white boy. It’s not really a complaint - it is what it is - but I understand that it might be an issue for some.

[Anonymous]

Non African kid but an ethnic minority has experienced African blacks making racist comments towards them. The groups that claim they are being targeted. It's sad out there! This was in a different cluster.