Eastern MS Magnet Program: Need Info

[Anonymous]

Child was placed into the Eastern MS Magnet program. Home MS is North Bethesda.
Appreciate the humanities focus and reading/writing strengths, which are lacking at most MCPS MS, including NB, due to the lack of rigor in the MCPS English curriculum.
What is the advantage, if any, of attending Eastern? Long bus ride, 1 elective only, arts are not strong (music, etc) and have heard there is 90min/day of homework? Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Definitely not 90 min a day of homework. My kid spends maybe 30 min most days. Generally we like it so far.

Also note that while the kids only choose one elective, one of the "required" classes for the program is essentially an elective - Media Production - and we've been very impressed by it so far. If your kid's interests lie in that area, it may be a good fit.

[Anonymous]

You don’t have to accept the offer. Especially
if your child is not particularly interested in the program.

[Anonymous]

Time spent on homework depends and varies by kid.

[Anonymous]

Infrastructure is poor. Not sure how NB's campus building are.

[Anonymous]

Harder to be involved in the school activities/PTA if you don’t live nearby. Our 6th grader was able to connect with new friends, but hard for them to do random meetups since they don’t live nearby. Harder for our 6th grader to do more afterschool activities since she’ll be arriving pretty late and will have to do homework on top of the activities (we live in the Bethesda/CC area). She also has to give up a rec activity in our neighborhood since she won’t make it on time for practice (she will have to wait til 7th grade to join their school’s sports teams).

With all that said, my 6th grader is having a blast! She loves doing her homework since she thinks they’re challenging. They actually did a Socratic method-like interrogation panel early this year (which I think is amazing to do in a 6th-grade class). And yes, sometimes it may take her more than an hour or so to do homework, especially if it’s group work (she’s doing a homework on Animal Farm as we speak), but she enjoys writing so this is right up her alley.

We decided to give Eastern a try since our child wanted to go and we know we can always go back to our local middle school in Bethesda if it doesn’t work out. So if your child loves to read and write then you may want to have him/her try it and return to his/her homeschool if it doesn’t work out (although if your child is like mine, there’s no leaving Eastern once he/she gets a taste )!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Child was placed into the Eastern MS Magnet program. Home MS is North Bethesda.
Appreciate the humanities focus and reading/writing strengths, which are lacking at most MCPS MS, including NB, due to the lack of rigor in the MCPS English curriculum.
What is the advantage, if any, of attending Eastern? Long bus ride, 1 elective only, arts are not strong (music, etc) and have heard there is 90min/day of homework? Thanks in advance.

The advantage of Eastern is the extremely high expectations in terms of writing, the history/social studies instruction, and documentary film-making support. Kids who do the Eastern program are more than prepared for high school, not just for the Humanities, but also in terms of time management that carries over to any of the criteria-based high school programs.

The down side is how specialized the program is. If your kid really loves writing, and reading, and talking about what they read, then it's an amazing way to spend middle school. But if their interests lie elsewhere, I think it can be kind of a grind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Child was placed into the Eastern MS Magnet program. Home MS is North Bethesda.
Appreciate the humanities focus and reading/writing strengths, which are lacking at most MCPS MS, including NB, due to the lack of rigor in the MCPS English curriculum.
What is the advantage, if any, of attending Eastern? Long bus ride, 1 elective only, arts are not strong (music, etc) and have heard there is 90min/day of homework? Thanks in advance.

The advantage of Eastern is the extremely high expectations in terms of writing, the history/social studies instruction, and documentary film-making support. Kids who do the Eastern program are more than prepared for high school, not just for the Humanities, but also in terms of time management that carries over to any of the criteria-based high school programs.

The down side is how specialized the program is. If your kid really loves writing, and reading, and talking about what they read, then it's an amazing way to spend middle school. But if their interests lie elsewhere, I think it can be kind of a grind.

Thanks - this is very helpful. Kid is an all-rounder, and the downside that you wrote about is probably a deal-breaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Child was placed into the Eastern MS Magnet program. Home MS is North Bethesda.
Appreciate the humanities focus and reading/writing strengths, which are lacking at most MCPS MS, including NB, due to the lack of rigor in the MCPS English curriculum.
What is the advantage, if any, of attending Eastern? Long bus ride, 1 elective only, arts are not strong (music, etc) and have heard there is 90min/day of homework? Thanks in advance.

The advantage of Eastern is the extremely high expectations in terms of writing, the history/social studies instruction, and documentary film-making support. Kids who do the Eastern program are more than prepared for high school, not just for the Humanities, but also in terms of time management that carries over to any of the criteria-based high school programs.

The down side is how specialized the program is. If your kid really loves writing, and reading, and talking about what they read, then it's an amazing way to spend middle school. But if their interests lie elsewhere, I think it can be kind of a grind.

Thanks - this is very helpful. Kid is an all-rounder, and the downside that you wrote about is probably a deal-breaker.

I've had kids in both programs and somewhat counterintuitively the TPMS program is better for all-arounders because in my experience most of the pressure at TPMS comes from kids feeling like they need to compete with the "300 club" kids rather than from the teachers.

I would never try to talk someone out of the Eastern program, but through both the teacher expectations and the somewhat self-selecting nature of the program, it caters to specific subset of kids more than the TPMS program does.

[Anonymous]

Are there a lot of group projects at Eastern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there a lot of group projects at Eastern?

Collaboration is central to the program. Mostly in media, but the English and Social Studies classes also have many group projects. Dealbreaker if your kid can’t or won’t work well with others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there a lot of group projects at Eastern?

Collaboration is central to the program. Mostly in media, but the English and Social Studies classes also have many group projects. Dealbreaker if your kid can’t or won’t work well with others.

+1 Lots of group projects, and no real ability to pick one's own groups until 7th or 8th grades. It can be hard, because if a "do it early" kid is paired with a "does their best work at 11:59 the night the project is due" kid, both kids end up frustrated.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thank you for all the great info!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t have to accept the offer. Especially
if your child is not particularly interested in the program.

Definitely this, my kid strongly prefers math and wanted to be with friends. We turned the offer down. One way to make a kid hate something they already dislike is to force them to do more of it.

[Anonymous]

I worry that some of the warnings on this thread (including mine!) downplay the incredible elements of the Eastern magnet.

For a kid whose passions really lie in reading, analyzing literature, deep history dives, and learning how to communicate through writing and video production, it's an incredible life-changing middle school experience.

The teachers work together very closely to align the curriculum, which makes it much more of a wrap-around experience than a regular MS or even TPMS where kids might be spread across three levels of math.

My child is a HS senior now, and their closest friends are still the ones they made at Eastern.