Glenelg Country School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. We are at GCS and absolutely hate it. Can't wait for it to be over. Must admit that I used to laugh at many private school posters on dcum for how angry and mean they sounded about particular schools. I used to think, "your school can't possibly be as bad as you are making it sound". Mea culpa. I get it. It is unfortunately possible to have such a negative experience. It is unfortunately possible for a school to be really awful. For us, GCS is that school...toxic!

So sorry that you are experiencing a toxic school environment at Glenelg Country. What are your plans going forward? Asking because we live in HoCo and curious about other independent school options besides GCS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GCS is a private school for HoCo residents who don't want to send their kids to.public school and don't want to commute to DC or Baltimore for private. The school has a hold on these parents and will continue to attract them with little effort and the little effort shows. The teaching in upper school is quite weak with a lot of turnover. The social experience in upper school caters mostly to athletes or kids whose parents have money. The school makes little effort to promote an inclusive environment.

Ultimately we did not stay. We went back to public but would have also been willing to do a further commute to a better private school - one that has an actual philosophy.

DD graduated from GCS a few years ago and it was fine but "little effort" as described in previous post is such an accurate description of this school. This school is enrollment stable simply because there is no other private high school in HoCo. That guaranteed stability breeds a complacency that is very much felt. They get by on having attractive buildings and athletic facilities and a big donor pool.of wealthy HoCo families who want the school to be exclusive to the HoCo wealth. There is nothing at all special about what goes on inside those lovely buildings socially or academically. Honestly the teaching is years behind the research that exists around learning science and instructional practice. And socially it's kind of a nightmare in the spirit of the worst ways you see high school drama played out on TV.

My kid was fine and our experience was fine but in hindsight I don't feel confident that it was worth the money we invested.

[Anonymous]

We looked at Glenelg last year during the SSFS crisis. In the middle of the open house GCS had arranged just for SSFS families we got the email saying SSFS was staying open. Crazy time! So glad we didn't end up at GCS but still sour about what happened at SSFS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We looked at Glenelg last year during the SSFS crisis. In the middle of the open house GCS had arranged just for SSFS families we got the email saying SSFS was staying open. Crazy time! So glad we didn't end up at GCS but still sour about what happened at SSFS!

I'm new hear and thought I was reading old fake news about SSFS... what happened? I'm now curious 😂

[Anonymous]

I don’t know why Glenelg parents don’t just send their kid to a good hoco public school. If they really want to do private they should suck it up and commute to one of the many Baltimore private schools that provide an excellent education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why Glenelg parents don’t just send their kid to a good hoco public school. If they really want to do private they should suck it up and commute to one of the many Baltimore private schools that provide an excellent education.

Or, if you're looking for a private school that has an actual philosophy guiding it then make a commute in the other direction to SSFS. To be fair though both SSFS AND many of the Baltimore area privates have bus transportation with stops in Columbia and Ellicott City at least. SSFS also has a stop in Fulton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why Glenelg parents don’t just send their kid to a good hoco public school. If they really want to do private they should suck it up and commute to one of the many Baltimore private schools that provide an excellent education.

Or, if you're looking for a private school that has an actual philosophy guiding it then make a commute in the other direction to SSFS. To be fair though both SSFS AND many of the Baltimore area privates have bus transportation with stops in Columbia and Ellicott City at least. SSFS also has a stop in Fulton.

SSFS is on our list...maybe Park and Friends. This is for middle school. We toured GCS for our older DC, and while it's decent, we found a boarding school that was a better fit. It's tough being in Howard County as most of the schools are good, but none of them really meet our needs fully at the secondary level.

[Anonymous]

What's with all the faculty/staff turnover this year at GCS in the upper school? They need to replace a math teacher, two humanities positions, two Spanish teachers, varsity girls head soccer coach, varsity girls basketball coach... quite a lot for a single year.

[Anonymous]

Colleagues whose kids went there are definitely snobby and right skewing. They were Hispanic ethnicity but raised in US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleagues whose kids went there are definitely snobby and right skewing. They were Hispanic ethnicity but raised in US.

Fascinating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong HoCo resident here and very familiar with GCS. Never understood why people choose this school. It is literally just a smaller version of public. Same behavior concerns as public - drinking, drugs, and now vaping - bullying, etc. Teachers at GCS aren't any more caring than public school teachers maybe even less caring. Athletics arent any more competitive than public. Course offerings aren't any better. It's literally just a difference of class size which I understand is important to some. If you want a private school experience, pick a better one. Head to the Park School or McDonough, or Mount St. Joe or in the opposite direction try Good Counsel or Sandy Spring.

Yep. Smaller class sizes. Other than that you're just trading one problem for another or shifting problems. Behavior is a good example. You're not getting less behavior problems at Glenelg in terms of the ratio per number of students. You're just getting a different set of behavior problems at GCS that don't even get addressed properly because of the wealth and power of the tuition paying parents.
Sure, kids in upper school at GCS get conduct points but it's kind of a joke because it doesn't really act as a determent and there's no focus on developing character anyway.

[Anonymous]

I never heard of Glenelg Country until a bunch of kids from SSFS ended up going to the school. But I have since heard that a bunch are now leaving Glenelg and returning to SSFS. Does that say something good about SSFS or something bad about Glenelg or both? Interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never heard of Glenelg Country until a bunch of kids from SSFS ended up going to the school. But I have since heard that a bunch are now leaving Glenelg and returning to SSFS. Does that say something good about SSFS or something bad about Glenelg or both? Interesting.

I'm an SSFS parent, and I think what it says is that schools aren't all interchangeable and a student that finds SSFS to be a good fit might not also find the same at Glenelg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never heard of Glenelg Country until a bunch of kids from SSFS ended up going to the school. But I have since heard that a bunch are now leaving Glenelg and returning to SSFS. Does that say something good about SSFS or something bad about Glenelg or both? Interesting.

I'm an SSFS parent, and I think what it says is that schools aren't all interchangeable and a student that finds SSFS to be a good fit might not also find the same at Glenelg.

I agree. We are a GCS family and have only ever heard good things about SSFS but our kids are very happy at GCS and I suspect SSFS would not be a good fit for us. You find a school that fits.

[Anonymous]

Howard county has decent public schools if you look at AP classes, SAT scores, and college outcomes so any private school is going to have that as competition.

Lots of parents get somewhat offended when you turn down the local public school and go private. They can be nasty about other parents' decisions, since it does not validate their public school mindset.

This appears to be coming across in the discussion of GCS. I have no kids there but you have to realize some of us have no interest in public schools to begin with so that was never a consideration.