Pyle/whitman v maret
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Anonymous
| Move to Pyle / Whitman cluster or save money from buying a fancy house and send kids to maret? Kids in elementary school now. How do the experiences compare/contrast? |
Anonymous
| Why Maret? |
Anonymous
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If you are wedded to Maret as the only viable private school option, then apply and see if you get in before you decide to relocate your family.
We are zoned for different MS/HS in Bethesda, but we opted to stay in our small teeny mortgage home and send kids to private. Before moving to Bethesda everyone told us the schools were great, but that did not align with our experience in elementary so we applied out and it was the right call for our family. |
Anonymous
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How much do you think a house costs??!?!
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Anonymous
Thanks for sharing- I’m curious to hear more re what you didn’t like at the elementary school. |
Anonymous
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We moved to Bethesda when our kids were going into 3rd grade (two kids). One went to Norwood and the other to Bradley Hills public ES. It took only a couple of months for us to realize the kid in public school was getting a much better education and so we swapped the private kid into the same school (different class). We had thought he needed the smaller classrooms of a private (where he had been previously in CA) but he did not. He thrived in BHS. Both went onto Pyle (hit and miss) and Whitman (mostly excellent) and they graduated from HS this year.
I have however, heard really, really good things about Maret and met adult graduates of that school who seem to be doing extremely well and leading healthy, balanced lives. How much that is to do with their school experience, is debatable. |
Anonymous
The biggest issue was that the school was wildly overcrowded, but there were a ton of things that led to us feeling dissatisfied. A few examples: 1. Many families that came and went each year and many did not speak English so the level of “community engagement” was low, 2. Teachers didn’t really know our kids because they were quiet and the teachers were focused on disruptive, higher needs students (both kids had multiple years where there was at least one, if not more children in the classroom who was highly disruptive), 3. The principal was terrible, 4. Kids hated school—something which I would understand coming from a middle schooler, but not an otherwise well adjusted second grader, 5. Kids were not learning what we considered to be pretty standard ES curriculum skills/topics. We have plenty of friends who had very good experiences at BHES. Maybe we would have stayed in public had we lived a few neighborhoods over. That said, Pyle was a mixed experience for our friends and although WW is a good school, it’s still 500+ kids per class (roughly). I know my kids—they are bright but very willing to fly under the radar if given the opportunity. The small setting at their private did not allow them to do the bare minimum and that expectation was the challenge they needed to really dig in and level up. They loved school—even when it was hard, even in the typically awful MS years. Yes of course over the years we paid more in private school tuition than it would have cost to move to a comparable/slightly bigger house fifteen or twenty years ago, but given today’s rates and house prices, the math there is less clear. And I know that the day to day experience, curriculum, and education that my kids received was better than what they would have received at our zoned public. We vastly preferred the private school calendar/schedule, overall communication and flexibility, athletics experience, sense of community, etc etc at our private. This is just my personal experience based on my kids and our zoned schools and I am NOT trying to make a private is always better argument. The two potential experiences—Maret vs Pyle/WW—that OP is considering are very different. |
Anonymous
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OP, PO said it well — the two experiences (Maret vs Phoe/Whitman) are very different. It doesn’t seem like you need feedback from
DCUM to know that. |
Anonymous
| What cluster are you in now? I don’t think Pyle/Whitman is the be all/end all of MCPS so maybe it makes sense to just stay where you are and see if public school works for you. |
Anonymous
| Maret is for alternative kids. |
Anonymous
Statistically, it is the best cluster, historically. |
Anonymous
Most def not. They don’t like kids outside their mold. It’s for the kids of wealthy, well-connected families. |
Anonymous
Statistically, historically, it has the highest income parents and the highest test performance. That says little if anything about how a given kid would do if put there vs BCC vs WJ. |
Anonymous
Noise. Just look at their current college acceptances on Instagram. Outstanding. https://www.instagram.com/vikingdestinations.2026/ |
Anonymous
Are your kids currently enrolled at Maret? It’s incredibly difficult to get in, so I wouldn’t make any life choices until your kids (all of your kids - they’ve been known to accept one sibling and reject others) are admitted. |