How do I evaluate my elementary school (the 'for dummies' version :)

[Anonymous]

From these boards I am familiar with the schools deemed to be 'good'. I don't live in there

So what I'm trying to figure out is how good/bad is the elementary school I'm assigned to? We're still 2yrs away, but if we should try to move or look at private schools, I need to start thinking about it now.

Tell me how to evaluate my school. I've made it as far as identifying the school on the mcps website & finding the 'at a glance' statistics, so have a sense of the racial makeup, teacher:student ratios, but what shoudl I be looking for? I assume the % of kids above the 50th percent should be high, but what's high? What do I conclude about the large racial discrepancies in those percents? Help!!


And, I heard somewhere that if a school hadn't passed some minimum level of assessments, you could petition to go to another school. Just a rumor? What's that story?

Thanks!!!

[Anonymous]

I would visit the school and ask to take a tour. Then I would talk with the parents of kids in my neighborhood who have kids there or who had kids there. You can certainly learn a lot about a school by looking at the "At a Glance" reports, but you can't learn everything. personally, at my "not good" elementary, I was interested in the classroom size, how the classes were run, and whether my neighbors' kids were having a good experience in terms of learning and socializing. Then you can weigh that against the pros/cons of whatever private schools you are considering and do what's best for your situation. Good luck!