ISO: Information on Ashburton elementary school?

[Anonymous]

We are thinking of putting an offer on a house which feeds into Ashburton elementary school in Bethesda and I would love to hear from any parents who have their kids enrolled there. How involved are the parents? Teachers? How crowded is the school? Any feedback would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Pros: good parent involvement, some great teachers, recent addition so there are no trailers and plenty of room inside the building, nice brand new playground (but NO shade)

Cons: very test focused, lots of teaching to the test/MSA prep, a few exceptionally bad teachers, a pleasant but somewhat incompetent principal.

[Anonymous]

Ashburton parent here. 1 kid went all the way through, the other one's almost done. I just came across this old thread and I have to stick up for "my" school.

If there are exceptionately bad teachers at Ashburton, my kids haven't had them, and I honestly have not heard other parents talking about them. My kids' teachers have all been fantastic. And the principal is wonderful.

I'm sure there are things that could be improved, just like any other school, but we have been very, very, very pleased with our experience. But the best "proof of the pudding" is our kids - they are both happy, motivated learners, and they like school.

[Anonymous]

Thought I heard that Ashburton had a large spike in enrollment and is now over crowded and working out the kinks. I would ask.

[Anonymous]

My son is African American and went to Ashburton from k to 5th grade. A good school but not very diverse. Some of the teachers were borderline racist in my opinion and treated my son not so well. The principal is great though and she does make an effort.

[Anonymous]

My son is AA and went to Ashburton from K to 5th grade. It really is an excellent school, but I had a lot of problems with bullying. Also, I think some of the teachers are borderline racist, as they always wanted to make my son feel he was naughty. Because my son is black, they wanted to believe the worst regardless of the fact that my son is well behaved and consistently achieved good grades.

[Anonymous]

I keep seeing this borderline racism comment about Ashburton and I just have to point out again that this is an extremely diverse school. There are over 30 countries represented school-wide. I'm not saying that the PP did not have a bad experience, but I just don't see racism as a huge problems at Ashburton.

[Anonymous]

I am not 17:57, but I wanted to say the following. It does not matter that there are 30 countries.

My experience in Bethesda schools is that you are accepted as long as you are exactly like them. It is that "you can't be as good if you are different" racism. At Wood Acres is it racism against muslims. they think there must be something strange about your Muslim child if she is uncomfortable around your dog so you bring even more dogs to school. Disgusting!

[Anonymous]

I do think it matters. How can you be exactly like somebody if you have a completely different cultural context? Now you might be talking about socio-economics, and I'll admit--there isn't much diversity there. Wood Acres is not AshbutOn, so the experience there might be different. Since I don't know that school, I can't comment. But I do know Ashburton. There are complaints aBout things but racism isn't one that I've heard until I read this thread.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a choice on which teacher you get?

[Anonymous]

Generally in public school you do not have a choice of which teacher you get absent special circumstances.

[Anonymous]

I'm an asian parent of a child who has excelled in the generally positive to very positive learning environment at AES. While party to a group clearly overrepresented versus the general demographic in the county, there exists a some what nuanced cultural bias. It is seldom overt and I'm convinced mostly unintentional much like the many extremely nice regionally biased folks I've met traveling the country. Even today, there can be dramatic differences in being raised in the South or North and even West, Middle, and Northeast. After analyzing the most recent socio-economic data for all county elementary schools, oddly AES is arguably the most balanced across all available demographics. Because of the rather odd and what I believe to be politically driven districting, AES has a district that looks like an octopus that wraps down and around smaller districts (GParkE) who seemed to have jettisioned traditionally lower cost housing tracts (wonder why?). I honestly do not recall a more richly diverse mix ... more affluent, yes many ... less affluent, also many ... predominantly Caucasion or non-Caucasion, also many. Numbers really don't lie ... Nationally or locally. The broken system of education is what forces schools to teach to the test ... we can only compensate when possible during the non-school time with children until policy and group think is changed.

Unfortunately, we currently parent some of the most confident students in the world ... despite the harsh reality of our real rank amongst the industrialized world.

While resources can help overcome many educational needs, there really is no surrogate for a richly diverse learning environment albeit by local standards. More like trying to decide between the OBX, Rehobeth, or Cape Cod than real choices most Americans are facing these days.

I'll admit to girding at the over the top, draconian dogma used to rule the lunchroom but it is cozy if not comfortably overcrowded and there are ALOT of students pouring into the school.

[Anonymous]

1 1/2 weeks into Ashburton community and off to a great start. Very diverse, very active parent community and a lot (a whole lot) of happy, helpful children. First impressions only, but happy that these are the impressions I have so far!