I have a freshman at Poolesville smacs program AMA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title says it all. I was in the same position last year and want to help others.

How's the outcome of the graduates? Experience with hardworking peers, experience with rigorous curriculums, how do kids value those?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Title says it all. I was in the same position last year and want to help others.

How's the outcome of the graduates? Experience with hardworking peers, experience with rigorous curriculums, how do kids value those?

OP here. Do you mean where do the graduating seniors attend college? Some attend prestigious colleges, Its all over the place, a very big majority attend umcp. So far my child hasn’t had a whole lot of group work, it’s more like the teacher “lectures” and gives tests. Some kids teach their peers in a positive collaborative way (in some classes there is not enough time to teach or do much group work) but mostly the super smart kids brag about their high scores on the quizzes and tests. So I’m not sure what value kids are learning from these interactions.

[Anonymous]

DP. My child is in the humanities prgm. So I can’t comment on smacs program specifically. But my comment is about the school in general and how due to construction many classes are in portables, in fact there are 12 portables which Poolesville calls “portable city”.
Half my kids classes are there and it’s is spread out throughout the day, not clumped all together so my child has to walk back and forth from the main building to the portables and back again and it takes five minutes. The route to portable city is crowded, muddy, piss poor scaffolding that doesn’t protect from the rain, kids ar pushing each other to get to class on time. It’s very poor planning on Poolesville part.

[Anonymous]

OP, was your kid in a magnet middle school program? Interested in how the workload compares. (Mine is and does not have a demanding workload at all, and breezes through magnet classes, so wondering if he’s just organized or if he’s in for a rude awakening if he gets in to SMCS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, was your kid in a magnet middle school program? Interested in how the workload compares. (Mine is and does not have a demanding workload at all, and breezes through magnet classes, so wondering if he’s just organized or if he’s in for a rude awakening if he gets in to SMCS).

OP here. Yes, my child was at the magnet program at rcms. My child had a very easy time at rcms, maybe 1-2 hours of hw a night, if that. Did very well in middle school, yes this was very rude awakening for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, was your kid in a magnet middle school program? Interested in how the workload compares. (Mine is and does not have a demanding workload at all, and breezes through magnet classes, so wondering if he’s just organized or if he’s in for a rude awakening if he gets in to SMCS).

OP here. Yes, my child was at the magnet program at rcms. My child had a very easy time at rcms, maybe 1-2 hours of hw a night, if that. Did very well in middle school, yes this was very rude awakening for us.

Hm, mine is at TPMS and I doubt he has 1-2 hours a week! Mostly he gets his homework done in between classes at school and rarely has much to do at home unless he’s really into a computer science project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, was your kid in a magnet middle school program? Interested in how the workload compares. (Mine is and does not have a demanding workload at all, and breezes through magnet classes, so wondering if he’s just organized or if he’s in for a rude awakening if he gets in to SMCS).

OP here. Yes, my child was at the magnet program at rcms. My child had a very easy time at rcms, maybe 1-2 hours of hw a night, if that. Did very well in middle school, yes this was very rude awakening for us.

Hm, mine is at TPMS and I doubt he has 1-2 hours a week! Mostly he gets his homework done in between classes at school and rarely has much to do at home unless he’s really into a computer science project.

Same here and wonder if it is always like that in TPMS or it has been watered these days.

[Anonymous]

OP, comparing with the chances kids getting in CES or Magnet middle school, is it even more competitive to get into the criteria based high schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, comparing with the chances kids getting in CES or Magnet middle school, is it even more competitive to get into the criteria based high schools?

There are many more seats in high school programs. There are the fewest seats for middle school magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, comparing with the chances kids getting in CES or Magnet middle school, is it even more competitive to get into the criteria based high schools?

OP here, I felt middle school magnet was the most competitive to get in. But those who did get in (this is before the lottery system) I felt were the best and brightest kids.

[Anonymous]

Do kids from non-magnet MS have the same sense of belonging in SMACS? Maybe academically and socially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do kids from non-magnet MS have the same sense of belonging in SMACS? Maybe academically and socially.

OP here. Sorry, I am not sure of the answer to that. But number wise out of 60 freshman smac kids, ~35-40 are from the magnet middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. My child is in the humanities prgm. So I can’t comment on smacs program specifically. But my comment is about the school in general and how due to construction many classes are in portables, in fact there are 12 portables which Poolesville calls “portable city”.
Half my kids classes are there and it’s is spread out throughout the day, not clumped all together so my child has to walk back and forth from the main building to the portables and back again and it takes five minutes. The route to portable city is crowded, muddy, piss poor scaffolding that doesn’t protect from the rain, kids ar pushing each other to get to class on time. It’s very poor planning on Poolesville part.

There are portables because they are rebuilding the school without resorting to shipping the kids to a holding school. The new building opens for the 2024 school year. It’s going to be beautiful if you look at the plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:How much does a kid have to love math to tolerate having a longer school day than everyone else?

The Long day is brutal, you have to REALLY love math. Kids wake up at 5:30-6 am to take a 6:45 bus and many don’t get home until 5-5:30 pm. It’s ridiculous that the hardest program at Poolesville is the one with the longest day. Many kids don’t go to bed until like 1 a.m. almost everyday, not just several times a quarter before a big test/project. It’s almost everyday on very little sleep.

DP. The lack of sleep is true. I didn’t understand why then , but now I realize it’s Bc in many classes the kids have to teach themselves material and learn on their own Bc the teachers are really lacking in that teaching department.

Really? The teachers aren’t good? Everyone I know really likes it. I don’t have a Poolesville kid, but i do have a couple that went to Blair’s SMAC and their teachers are fantastic. I’d be surprised if Poolesville’s aren’t also good.

I can’t speak about Blair’s smac prgm. But Poolesville teachers have a reputation of being good teachers not Bc they teach the subject matter well, but bc the kids study like hell and sleep late in the night to study and others cheat on tests, and all of them get good grades and so teachers are given credit for that. But many of these smacs kids will be successful wherever they go.

My senior has a 4.0 and does not cheat. He studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, comparing with the chances kids getting in CES or Magnet middle school, is it even more competitive to get into the criteria based high schools?

There are many more seats in high school programs. There are the fewest seats for middle school magnets.

There are 100 seats for each grade in both HS and MS (excluding the in-boundary set aside for TPMS).