Considering moving to MCPS for the schools - where should we move?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Certainly the test scores at some Silver Spring schools may be lower than a tsome Bethesda schools, but I for one, judge the quality of a school on much more than test scores.

Ha, you sound like someone in DC!

No, I am not in DC. I am not 14:29, but our family is similar to hers in many ways. We and our children are very happy in Silver Spring.

[Anonymous]

Families are very happy with the Kensington neighborhoods that feed into Kensington Parkwood to WJ cluster. What I like about this neighborhood is that you can find affordable homes, like capes and split levels, to $1 Mil new-builds. I also find the familys (parents--eh, women/moms) to be down to earth and inclusive. So the kids follow suit. KP has a little private school feel, where the neighborhood is very involved and attached to its progress.

I prefer it to the hyper-feel of Bethesda schools, anyway.

[Anonymous]

Montgomery County is HUGE - with many many elementary and other schools. All follow the MCPS curriculum, although yes there are still many differences among the schools. I don't think you should move to a specific part of MC just for a specific school, bc so many other factors should affect your decision of where to move(like commutes!! Do you need to be metro accessible, for example, and if so, does it benefit you more to be on one end ofthe red line vs the other), like what feel you wan from your neighborhood, do you want older or newer home, price range for home, etc. - i would narrow down to a few areas within MC, and then you can focus on specific schools within hose areas. Also, you will find supporters and detractors for most schools, so you need to think about what is important to you/your family w/r/t schools.

[Anonymous]

OP here. THanks for the responses. Don't need to be metro accessible but want to be close in to DC for a shorter commute. Would prefer a neighborhood where we could walk to shops but that seems to significantly increase the housing costs from what I can see.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like Takoma Park, Woodside, and areas in/around downtown Silver Spring would fit the bill in terms of being kid-friendly and walkable. It is also no accident that the majority of the magnets are located in this part of the county, to attract and hold families with higher SES in the public schools. And most if not all of the TKPK/SS elementary schools have reduced class sizes K-2. Check it out.

[Anonymous]

Takoma Park, Woodside and Silver Spring are great neighborhoods - we live in one of them! Walkable, kid-friendly and close-in. Thanks, PP, for the nice words about our neighborhoods.

But I need to warn OP that the schools, overall, have an academic reputation that is not as stellar as the schools in the western part of the county. In fact, our schools are known as the "downcounty" schools.

My understanding is that the magnets are designed to draw high-SES "upcounty" kids to the "downcounty" schools. And to keep high-SES kids in MoCo in general.

But the magnets are not intended to keep high-SES families within the downcounty schools' boundaries, because living downcounty won't, for the most part, give your kid any advantage for getting into the magnets.
There seem to be a few exceptions - a few highly gifted centers and the Takoma Park math and science magnet reserve some slots for area kids. But to take advantage of this, you need to live within the magnet school's own boundaries - just living downcounty, in Wheaton or most parts of Silver Spring, won't confer an advantage for getting into the Takoma Park magnet.

[Anonymous]

OK, but just to clarify -- the term downcounty isn't pejorative, it's descriptive of location.

[Anonymous]

Downcounty is a geographical description. Technically Bethesda is also downcounty. The schools in specific clusters, though, are part of the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) - Blair, Einstein, Northwood, Kennedy, Wheaton. Also not pejorative, just decriptive.

And 16:43 is right to point out that only a few programs reserve spots for in-boundary kids - TPES and TPMS math/science magnets and Blair's Communications Arts Program (CAP) which is open to DCC residents and out-of-boundary kids who attend DCC middle schools through their many magnets (arts, science, immersion, etc.).

As a SS parent of kids have been in DCC schools K-12, thrived, and are now getting in to the colleges of their choice I see only one downside: any college they attend is bound to be less diverse than what they experince so far. But we are much more comfortable with diversity than we would be if surrounded by affluence. Both have their challenges.

[Anonymous]

16:43 again. Thanks 17:05, I should have mentioned the downcounty consortium, which opens up schools like Einstein's IB program and the Blair CAP program to kids from any of the downcounty consortium schools. Entrance to CAP is by test, but entrance to Einstein, Northwood and others is by lottery.

We too like the socio-economic diversity. So do our kids -- as they get older they talk about appreciating it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, but just to clarify -- the term downcounty isn't pejorative, it's descriptive of location.

I actually do use the term "downcounty" in a pejorative sense: e.g. "That is, like, so downcounty?".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you really can't go wrong with any of the schools in the area. Some say Whitman is best but in the past it has and it has not improved over the years ( I went there myself) and it is great but the other schools have improved so much that Whitmans polish is starting to fade.

but agian all great schools, if you want your kid to go to a good college, you can't go wrong at any level.

Just curious what you think Whitman can do better. I agree that the other schools have improved dramatically - in fact I lived in the BCC district in high school and my parents sent me to private school because BCC wasn't considered at all good in those days. Now people move there for the school. But I have a child at Whitman now and we have been very pleased with the school. Excellent academics and academic performance, strong sports, strong drama and newspaper, very involved students with a wide range of interests, very involved parent body. The only shortcoming is that it probably isn't a great fit for an underachiever and maybe some of the other schools are better for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you really can't go wrong with any of the schools in the area. Some say Whitman is best but in the past it has and it has not improved over the years ( I went there myself) and it is great but the other schools have improved so much that Whitmans polish is starting to fade.

but agian all great schools, if you want your kid to go to a good college, you can't go wrong at any level.

Just curious what you think Whitman can do better. I agree that the other schools have improved dramatically - in fact I lived in the BCC district in high school and my parents sent me to private school because BCC wasn't considered at all good in those days. Now people move there for the school. But I have a child at Whitman now and we have been very pleased with the school. Excellent academics and academic performance, strong sports, strong drama and newspaper, very involved students with a wide range of interests, very involved parent body. The only shortcoming is that it probably isn't a great fit for an underachiever and maybe some of the other schools are better for that.

I agree with this. It is also not a good fit for a student who struggles, and/or who is not particularly academically-oriented. In fact, it is a nightmare for such students, who are left wondering what is wrong with them.

Many (maybe most) students who fit this description are not "underachievers." They have different interests and abilities than your average Whitman student does, but that doesn't make them underachievers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like Takoma Park, Woodside, and areas in/around downtown Silver Spring would fit the bill in terms of being kid-friendly and walkable. It is also no accident that the majority of the magnets are located in this part of the county, to attract and hold families with higher SES in the public schools. And most if not all of the TKPK/SS elementary schools have reduced class sizes K-2. Check it out.

We live in one of these neighborhoods, too, and have been very happy with the area, schools-wise and otherwise.

[Anonymous]

I live in Chevy Chase View, which is a Kensington address but feeds into BCC. It's walkable to Kensington, which is nice on the weekends for the Farmers' Market and the other shops as well. Also, there are lots of great parks within a few blocks of most houses in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Acceptable Montgomery school clusters. Whitman, Bcc, Walter Johnson, Wooton, Quince Orchard, Poolesville, Churchill, Sherwood, Magruder, Blair, Damascus, Clarksville.