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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Another family considering moving to MoCo for the schools, but must stay east - recommendations?
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Anonymous
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I'm at Ritchie Park In Rockville and I want to say a couple of things-
-my school is not all white- -I do not think my school is the best- -also, I think it is trying way to hard to be a "Potomac" cluster school even though it is in Rockville. I'm actually considering a move to Silver Spring to help with my commute AND TO get away from the craziness that is the bethesda/potomac elementary schools. There is a difference even though the curriculum is the same. My daughter gets more homework than everyone of my friends in silver spring schools, they want her writing 2 sentences every day and reading at a first grade level NOW. Because all the potomac parents' kids have tutors. It is true and I'm over it. |
Anonymous
OMG, I'm so tired of hearing, "if your kid is happy at the current school, then he or she must not be HGC material." Are you the poster who routinely tells parents who disagree you, "if you think such-and-such, then your kid can't be HG"? Because this is basically what you said in your post above. And I've seen this put more bluntly - basically my paraphrases - on other threads. Newsflash: Lots of kids are HG or even PG yet don't feel a need to apply to HGCs. We know a number of such kids who are now in MS or HS magnets. We didn't apply to an HGC - a neighbor complained that her kid at an HGC spent a year filling in state maps. Now DC is in the TP magnet and one of the magnet classes isn't going fast enough, so earlier this week we bought a third $$$ textbook in the particular subject so that DC can accelerate (studying at home) beyond the magnet class level. Several of us have tried to point out to you that HG and PG kids vary tremendously. Some need the structure that only an HGC can provide. Others love their friends at the current school. We've also told you that acceleration isn't always an end to itself - social and other factors are important, and the kid may be able to find stimulation outside school as well (my kid and the textbooks, for example). On another thread (having nothing to do with giftedness or even MoCo) somebody posted that over 50% of learning takes place at home. This is definitely true for our family. Maybe not for your kid. But just because our kids are different, let's not keep calling each other's kids dumb, or patronizing them as merely "smart." OK? |
Anonymous
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No, I'm not that poster, and you have missed my point. I'm not talking about "HGC material" -- your phrase, not mine -- as some kind of cut off of super smartness. I know HG and PG kids vary tremendously -- THAT was my point. But if they are happy and challenged in their home schools, they don't need the HGC. I think you are making the same point as I am.
I never called ANY kids dumb or even "merely smart," ever. The only labeling of smart I used was for my own child who stayed at his home ES, and I certainly didn't mean that as patronizing. He is very smart. It makes sense to me that 50% of learning occurs at home. But does that mean that a child who's unhappy in the neighborhood school should be forced to stay in an environment that isn't right for him/her, just because she/he is getting enrichment at home? No, of course not. |
Anonymous
| Another vote for Rosemary Hills - my son is a first grader and has had a wonderful experience so far both educationally and socially. The parent involvement is overwhelming and we've had only great teachers so far. And of course BCC is a huge selling point for the future. OP the dirty little secret is that almost all of the better performing schools (a classification that tends to correlate with higher household incomes) in MoCo are overcrowded. That's the Faustian bargain that County has made that has enabled them to make a lot of progress at lower performing schools. I don't love it, but I get the logic. You'll find similar class sizes as RH at most of the other Bethesda elementaries. If you want lower student-teacher ratiios, you'll have better luck at a school that has been identified as struggling with lower test scores. I wish my kid had the really low ratios that his best friend at a small private school has, but overall I wouldn't sacrifice the great attributes of a school like RH simply to have fewer kids per classroom unless you are confident the overall learning environment is a good one too. |
Anonymous
Then why on earth did you post this: "Oh my god I am so royally sick of hearing about people complaining about magnets, measuring schools based on test schools alone, and claiming their school is so vastly wonderful that kids don't need to apply to the HGCs." That post directly contradicts your claim to be happy, or even to understand, why super-smart kids would choose to remain at their current schools. If there's some other way to read that point - if you meant something else by it - then go ahead and explain. |
Anonymous
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Oh no, it's the "you have missed my point" poster. Another blight on the DCUM landscape....
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Anonymous
You'll find that craziness over in Silver Spring too. Plus, never ending discussions of how to get kids into magnets. |
Anonymous
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It's just a meaningless way to evaluate a school.
If a school has kids who leave for the HGCs, it doesn't mean that school doesn't also do a wonderful job. It just means that those kids appear to need a different kind of environment. Conversely, a school that doesn't have a lot of kids leave for the HGC isn't necessarily a better school. My point is that the kids who need to leave for the HGCs are atypical. There could be several one year and none the next. HGCs aren't just there to skim a set percentage off the top of each school -- they are there to accommodate kids who aren't served well by their home schools. HGC participation is a red herring when it comes to evaluating a school. It just doesn't apply for the vast majority of kids (even some who are EG/PG) and doesn't help people make a decision about their own children. |
Anonymous
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15:26 again. I forgot I wanted to add something else, which was part of my original post about being "royally sick."
I'm sick of people complaining about these magnets. These kids have a right to an appropriate education and they have to go somewhere. If they did a whole-school magnet that would just make people complain in a different way. If they did a GT class in every school, that would create its own problems. Education isn't one size fits all. We should be looking for many ways to engage and challenge kids, and that means all different kinds of schools and programs. We need more specialized programs, not fewer! |
Anonymous
It's the poster who loves the term "red herring" again. Yes, we've seen a lot of you in this forum waxing on about your magnet kids and all their advanced education needs. To the Richie Park poster: this kind of parent is commonplace in Silver Spring. |
Anonymous
That's mean, and it's not true. You are conflating me with other people and attributing posts to me that aren't mine. And I'm not talking about Silver Spring. |
Anonymous
The point people were making was that their own home schools were so great that even HG/PG kids didn't feel a need to apply to the HGCs. Nobody here has said her home school is great "because X kids leave it every year for an HGC." I don't actually recall a single recent post, anywhere in this forum, that said that HGC exmissions are a marker for a good ES. So if you're the "Oh my god, I'm so royally sick" poster, then I think you're on the wrong track here. In fact, if somebody posts that "even the genius kids stay at our school because it's so great," I think that's useful information for kids of all abilities. Including OP's kid, of whom we know very little. I'm not the poster who is complaining about your use of the words "red herring," BTW. But I do get embarrassed by the poster (you?) who comes on here regularly to make a stink about how unique her kid's needs are and how the rest of us just don't understand. To be honest, it starts to look like that poster has turned her kid's IQ into an excuse to play the victim on DCUM and make it all about herself. I say this as the parent of two magnet kids, both of whom have been happy in a variety of environments, including regular ES, private and magnets. Kids have different needs, whatever their IQs (replay the broken record). |
Anonymous
| 10:35 here. I posted about kids not leaving for HGCs. I don't know what 14:00's problem is, but she missed my point. Some people want to send their kids to HGCs to try to escape schools that have lower test scores than they would like because they think their kids won't be challenged enough. My point was merely that even though the test scores at HVES are lower than at some other schools, bright kids are still being challenged and having their needs met. My point was about our home school, not about the HGCs. Geez. |
Anonymous
| Apparently 14:00 just didn't read your post, or any of the posts that followed it. She saw the acronym HCG and went off.... |
Anonymous
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10:16 here -
My point about being aware of magnet programs is not about those programs specifically but about their impact on the local schools where they are housed. Some administrators are more skilled than others in making schools with magnets work as a whole. Reportedly, there is a good feeling about the HGC at Oakview's impact on the local school. As others have said there is a lot of local support for Forest Knolls - which has a whole-school communications program - and Highland View which is a small school with a big heart; both are K-5 schools which may have the benefit of continuity while the schools that are twinned K-2/3-5 may have to work harder to overcome the transitions. Hope that clarifies. |