Lakewood and Stone Mill Elementary - high % of Asians?

[Anonymous]

Kids learn from parents/at home: In a middle school, we heard an Ethiopian student out loud to a South Asian student say "my mom doesn't like Asians". The South Asian student then said "ok, so?" The South Asian kid was working with a few Ethiopians, one Black, and two mixed race kids on a project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Stone Mill has some of the highest test scores, parent satisfaction, and teacher satisfaction in the state. Nearby elementary schools have actual, serious problems, but people have no perspective and hyper-fixate on small problems.

[Anonymous]

My kid goes to a school with 30% asians. Mixed of 1st and 2nd generation. Though not like the schools mention, we find it not an issue. Parents have invited our kids to their b day parties. We do a lot of afternoon activities and we have pleasant chats. They bring in lots of bubble tea and bonchon to teacher appreciation luncheons. My daughter's friend group have chinese, korean, cambodians. My daughter love the snacks they bring.

[Anonymous]

I would not put my kids in that kind of environment, and I say this as an Asian American parent whose one kid went to a magnet program.

One DC wanted and needed an advanced magnet program; the other did not. I wanted to make sure that the one "not" did not feel so much pressure.

So, we chose the RM cluster. One DC did RMIB magnet (which is like 75%+ Asian); the other didn't. And even then, DC is taking lots of AP classes and feeling a bit of pressure. Don't want additional pressure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not put my kids in that kind of environment, and I say this as an Asian American parent whose one kid went to a magnet program.

One DC wanted and needed an advanced magnet program; the other did not. I wanted to make sure that the one "not" did not feel so much pressure.

So, we chose the RM cluster. One DC did RMIB magnet (which is like 75%+ Asian); the other didn't. And even then, DC is taking lots of AP classes and feeling a bit of pressure. Don't want additional pressure.

RMIB is more of a pressure cooker than Wootton.

[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.

[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.

OP stop just stop.

StoneMill and Lakewood are both fabulous schools. Any child would be lucky to go to either one.
We are a mixed community period. You find your peeps if you are a nice person and generally care about education.

You are looking for something that is not there period.

[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.

OP stop just stop.

StoneMill and Lakewood are both fabulous schools. Any child would be lucky to go to either one.
We are a mixed community period. You find your peeps if you are a nice person and generally care about education.

You are looking for something that is not there period.

Coming from the Jewish person who said Catholics are racists? Lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Both Asian Americans, so let’s call them East Asian Americans and South Asian Americans.

[Anonymous]

We just bought a house zoned to Lakewood/Frost/Wootton. I saw after closing that there was a high percentage of Asians in Lakewood but I didn’t known it was a cause for concern. We are a white/South Asian family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t do it. My parents bought a home in a school district that was 86 percent Jewish and as a Catholic I was not invited to anything and left out. No bullying etc. just left out

Stop it.

Just stop it.

I grew up as a Jew one of 4 families in my town Northport, Long Island NY and to this day the "Catholics" are still racists and antisemites.Treated my family or anyone not like them horribly. And maybe I will tell you about how the one AA family moved in.... The
"Catholics" were not welcoming at all. And still are not.

Spare us your utter BS.

Not sure why what the PP was saying was so offensive. Just their experience feeling like they were excluded. This would probably happen to any group that is a small minority in an area, regardless of the dominant ethnicity or religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not put my kids in that kind of environment, and I say this as an Asian American parent whose one kid went to a magnet program.

One DC wanted and needed an advanced magnet program; the other did not. I wanted to make sure that the one "not" did not feel so much pressure.

So, we chose the RM cluster. One DC did RMIB magnet (which is like 75%+ Asian); the other didn't. And even then, DC is taking lots of AP classes and feeling a bit of pressure. Don't want additional pressure.

RMIB is more of a pressure cooker than Wootton.

Yes, but RM itself is not. That was my point.

If a student wants the challenge, they can join RMIB. If they don't want that, they don't have to, and yet still take challenging AP classes without the added pressure from their peers, like Wootton cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just bought a house zoned to Lakewood/Frost/Wootton. I saw after closing that there was a high percentage of Asians in Lakewood but I didn’t known it was a cause for concern. We are a white/South Asian family.

It's only a concern if you don't want a pressure cooker environment for your kids.

Basically, wherever there are a lot of Asian kids, there will be a lot more academic pressure.

-signed Asian/white family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not put my kids in that kind of environment, and I say this as an Asian American parent whose one kid went to a magnet program.

One DC wanted and needed an advanced magnet program; the other did not. I wanted to make sure that the one "not" did not feel so much pressure.

So, we chose the RM cluster. One DC did RMIB magnet (which is like 75%+ Asian); the other didn't. And even then, DC is taking lots of AP classes and feeling a bit of pressure. Don't want additional pressure.

RMIB is more of a pressure cooker than Wootton.

Yes, but RM itself is not. That was my point.

If a student wants the challenge, they can join RMIB. If they don't want that, they don't have to, and yet still take challenging AP classes without the added pressure from their peers, like Wootton cluster.

Same for Wootton. There are a group of students are very competitive like RMIB. But rest of kids don’t care much and are very chilled. Whether it’s a pressure cooker depends on your own expectation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.
.

Folks, this is not a Chinese thing or an immigrant thing.
Before we moved to this area we were in one that was majority white and there were cliques of white kids from the same soccer, basketball and softball teams and cliques of kids from the same synagogue. If your child was not into those sports or not Jewish they might have felt like an outsider if they were friendly with these kids in school. There was a smaller group of South Asian kids who were all friendly with each other and did some supplementary programs on the weekends together. As our child did not do those programs they were not really included in the three main groups but it was not a big issue.

Now we are in the area you are talking about. We speak Chinese but our children don't attend the weekend or after school schools so they are left out of those experiences and not as tight with those kids. This is not the dominant clique. There are plenty of other children, the vast majority, who do not attend. Again this is a non-issue.