ESS/TPMS/Blair vs Sligo Creek/SSIMS/Northwood

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've had kids at both ESS/TMPS and SCES/SSIMS, and can attest that they are more alike than they are different. The differences are pretty small when you come down to it, just in terms of where the focus is and what extracurriculars are offered.

ESS is small, offers individualized attention, and has a focus on community building. Fun events include International Night, a robust STEM Fair, and the Talent Show. They were also an early pilot for the Enriched Literacy Curriculum, so have good options for advanced kids.

SCES is larger but very well-run and the new administrators seem great. The French Immersion kids are kind of segregated from the rest of the school, but everyone has access to activities the Outdoor Classroom and the GeoBowl contest. The presence of the French program means they don't have access to the Enriched Literacy Curriculum, which is a shame.

TPMS benefits from the STEM magnet and offers three years of Computer Science for all kids. It also has a strong competition math team and the best MS orchestra in MCPS.

SSIMS has the IB program for middle school, and a closer-knit student community because a lot of the kids move over from the immersion program. The fact that the buliding is an old high school makes it interesting and they have an upcoming renovation to the gymnasiaum that will be great.

+1

I have had kids at both ESS and SCES and this all rings true to me. No experience yet at the middle school or high school level.

In general, I think the education a kid will receive at ESS and SCES will be really similar -- and will be more linked to their classroom teacher than to the school as a whole. I will say one advantage to SCES for our family has been the aftercare program, which is very well run through KidsCo. There also seem to be more after-school clubs at SCES -- chess, panda programmer, etc. ESS had some of those clubs too, but not as many as SCES.

In short, at the elementary level at least, I don't think you can go wrong!

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t fuss too much about high schools at this point. No matter what happens with boundaries in the next decade, between DCC Choice, lottery magnet programs, and the system-wide and regional application magnets, there are plenty of options.

Frankly, there are so many options for a well-prepared kid, it’s almost overwhelming. I had less trouble choosing a college than my kid did picking a high school. If you really hate the school you’re zoned for when the time comes, you’re unlikely to be inescapably stuck with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Depending on your point of view, this could also be seen as an advantage....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Depending on your point of view, this could also be seen as an advantage....

It's a disadvantage in terms of class sizes. Sligo Creek and Woodlin have regular class sizes, while the others are either Focus or Title I schools and have reduced class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Depending on your point of view, this could also be seen as an advantage....

It's a disadvantage in terms of class sizes. Sligo Creek and Woodlin have regular class sizes, while the others are either Focus or Title I schools and have reduced class sizes.

Both my kids attended a focus school in the same vicinity which I felt was fantastic. Classes were 16-18 kids and most got the 1:1 attention they need to fully reach their potential at that young age. Kids were varied from struggling to reading a year or more over grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Depending on your point of view, this could also be seen as an advantage....

Of course it could. It usually is seen that way. I think we all know why, but apparently not all of us are aware how wrongheaded it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Depending on your point of view, this could also be seen as an advantage....

Of course it could. It usually is seen that way. I think we all know why, but apparently not all of us are aware how wrongheaded it is.

Everyone has a limit, I don’t see you jumping to send your kids to New Hampshirite estates elementary. While I will concede at the elementary level it makes less of a difference at some point many of poor kids grow up to be problems. At what level does FARMs impact school quality, most sociologists say it is way lower than most of those levels. I’ll let you use your kids to prove them wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Depending on your point of view, this could also be seen as an advantage....

Of course it could. It usually is seen that way. I think we all know why, but apparently not all of us are aware how wrongheaded it is.

Everyone has a limit, I don’t see you jumping to send your kids to New Hampshirite estates elementary. While I will concede at the elementary level it makes less of a difference at some point many of poor kids grow up to be problems. At what level does FARMs impact school quality, most sociologists say it is way lower than most of those levels. I’ll let you use your kids to prove them wrong

Both my kids attended a focus elementary that had around 35% FARMS and did great. THey went through what is now called CES and both HS and MS magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the SCES/SSIMS/Northwood pyramid. Didn't see any logic in trying to bet on high school boundaries with a kid this age (6). Great neighborhood.

My only dissatisfaction w/it is that SCES is MUCH more affluent than ESS and has issues typical of undiversified affluence.

This is a good point. SCES has a much lower FARMS rate than any school surrounding it:

Sligo Creek: 9.9%
East Silver Spring: 52.2%
Oak View: 69.0%
Highland View: 48.4%
Pine Crest: 49.1%
Flora Singer: 43.1%
Woodlin: 29.5%

Sligo Creek ES is less diverse than neighboring schools, but a lot of that is due to the immersion program. About 40% of the kids in the school are in French Immersion, and the program skews whiter and wealthier than the norm for eastern MoCo. Remove the French kids, and Sligo Creek looks more like the neighborhood. It would still be white than ESS and Oak View, but it would look more like Woodlin.

I think the same kid gets the same education pretty much everywhere, but it is interesting to look at how special programs skew the demographics at some of the schools on this list. If you kid isn't in that special program, then they have the "home school" demographics in their classroom, but the overall school looks different than those classrooms.

SCES would be a tiny MCPS school, and much more economically diverse, without the French program, for example. ESSES shows up as having a relatively high number of kids with disabilities, and then you notice they have an entire grade level made up of three separate PEP programs. PCES and OVES are both regional CES programs, so 4 classrooms in the school are comprised of kids not normally in the attendance zone.

With all of these nuances in the mix, it's really unclear what the broader school demographics tell us about the home school experience.

[Anonymous]

Bumping this conversation, looking for any more recent experiences with these two pyramids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've had kids at both ESS/TMPS and SCES/SSIMS, and can attest that they are more alike than they are different. The differences are pretty small when you come down to it, just in terms of where the focus is and what extracurriculars are offered.

ESS is small, offers individualized attention, and has a focus on community building. Fun events include International Night, a robust STEM Fair, and the Talent Show. They were also an early pilot for the Enriched Literacy Curriculum, so have good options for advanced kids.

SCES is larger but very well-run and the new administrators seem great. The French Immersion kids are kind of segregated from the rest of the school, but everyone has access to activities the Outdoor Classroom and the GeoBowl contest. The presence of the French program means they don't have access to the Enriched Literacy Curriculum, which is a shame.

TPMS benefits from the STEM magnet and offers three years of Computer Science for all kids. It also has a strong competition math team and the best MS orchestra in MCPS.

SSIMS has the IB program for middle school, and a closer-knit student community because a lot of the kids move over from the immersion program. The fact that the buliding is an old high school makes it interesting and they have an upcoming renovation to the gymnasiaum that will be great.

TPMS offers three years of computer science for magnet kids, not all kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP in case you don’t know Northwood High School soon have a new building, too

And when Northwood's new building opens (planned for fall 2025) it is likely some areas currently zoned to Blair will be rezoned to Northwood to relieve some of Blair's overcrowding.

Since this discussion got bumped, the open date is now fall 2026 as discussed over here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/225/1128527.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've had kids at both ESS/TMPS and SCES/SSIMS, and can attest that they are more alike than they are different. The differences are pretty small when you come down to it, just in terms of where the focus is and what extracurriculars are offered.

ESS is small, offers individualized attention, and has a focus on community building. Fun events include International Night, a robust STEM Fair, and the Talent Show. They were also an early pilot for the Enriched Literacy Curriculum, so have good options for advanced kids.

SCES is larger but very well-run and the new administrators seem great. The French Immersion kids are kind of segregated from the rest of the school, but everyone has access to activities the Outdoor Classroom and the GeoBowl contest. The presence of the French program means they don't have access to the Enriched Literacy Curriculum, which is a shame.

TPMS benefits from the STEM magnet and offers three years of Computer Science for all kids. It also has a strong competition math team and the best MS orchestra in MCPS.

SSIMS has the IB program for middle school, and a closer-knit student community because a lot of the kids move over from the immersion program. The fact that the buliding is an old high school makes it interesting and they have an upcoming renovation to the gymnasiaum that will be great.

TPMS offers three years of computer science for magnet kids, not all kids.

That isn't true. They have classes in programming for non-magnet as well but they're different. For example, in 6th grade they start by programming robots using scratch.

[Anonymous]

Northwood is a sleeping giant. The current principal is very impressive and responsive compared to the lackluster former principal.

The most recent report card data was good for Northwood also.

The glaring negative is the rundown building and once the new building opens that won’t be a factor.

[Anonymous]

Choose the house and neighborhood and ES. There are so many options for MS, and who knows what will happen by then with boundaries and your own kid! I don’t mean to freak you out but … your child might be shown to have learning disabilities that mean a move to private for you. Or your job might change. Or your one kid might get bullied or be the bully. Or maybe there will be a new principal at the school you choose who is great! or terrible! And you have to change plans.

I am saying this to my past self. I agonized about where the house I bought tracked to high school. I bought when my oldest was six. Since then, my kids have gone to Einstein (which I swear I was so freaked out about!) and Blair and they’ve been FINE!

Once you get into a community and your kids are going to school with a cohort and you become friends with families etc… the worry about HS lessens.

I am sure you’re more mentally stable than I was, OP, I just wanted to give you advice I wish I’d gotten.

TLDR- buy for the house/neighborhood.. either you’ll become fine with whatever school everyone’s going to, or something in your life will change and then you’ll at least be happy in your house/area.