Anyone leave a Magnet Program?

[Anonymous]

That's so stupid, really. And the entire county is full of liberals -- perhaps you should go to Virginia?

These programs are primarily located in areas with more economic disadvantage to help balance out the socioeconomic makeup of the school and attract higher performing students to stay in the area school clusters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's so stupid, really. And the entire county is full of liberals -- perhaps you should go to Virginia?

These programs are primarily located in areas with more economic disadvantage to help balance out the socioeconomic makeup of the school and attract higher performing students to stay in the area school clusters.

+1, it's for balancing. Also that you're stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are all of these special programs concentrated in one part of the county??

+1
HG kids are not well served in green zone schools and so also need convenient access to middle school magnets. It is odd that the HGCs are spread all through the county but the Eastern and Takoma Park middle school magnets are just in Silver Spring. We are in a HGC now but will probably not apply to the middle school magnets because of the distance and commute involved. It is a shame.

[Anonymous]

Even on the HS level, there is Blair to the East and RM to the West. We will also not apply to middle magnets due to distance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ I don't think this is true. DC attends Eastern also.

It is true that the behavioral environment is rough and there were two rounds of Slap Ass Week. There were two drug busts, both for marijuana.

However, I know for a fact that they pull kids off the waiting list, not from the comprehensive program. (Unless of course those comprehensive kids were on the waiting list.) And there were still kids on the waiting list at the end of 6th.

Quite sure of my info. No way to tell if the kids given spots were also on the magnet wait list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is interested in the Eastern Magnet for next year..but is a tiny and very young for her year kid. Not happy to hear about the environment you describe. Are your children ( and you) still happy enough with the program to continue? More details would be great.

There are similar kids as you describe now -- small, young. These are not the kids who dropped the program. Actually, in a way the physically small and not yet sexually developed girls are somewhat off the radar and thus not as much of a target. It's the girls who are pretty and sexually developed that really were gone after during Slap Ass Week and have to suffer the unwanted and over the boundary line attention of boys.

My child will continue, but it has been a rough year. The problem is that keeping DC back at the home school, creates a different set of problems (unchallenged, has to navigate a social environment where smart girls aren't valued, etc. ) It's picking between 2 not great options, each with a different set of pros and cons.

That said, I wish I had a fuller understanding of the social/behavioral environment before I sent DC. I would have been better able to support her earlier. I think DC has found it quite depressing and as the year goes on, we've had to have explicit conversations about how to handle situations and how to self-care for the stress. On a peer level -- the school is quite rough, with a lot of fighting, a lot of foul language, and a lot of sexual and racial discrimination. The magnet students are sheltered from some (but not all) of this, because it's not primarily magnet-on-magnet kid. But, even having to watch it happen to others can be distressing and intimidating.

While the academics are good, I think the teachers often confuse being academically tough with being a deliberate pain in the ass. DC has had to put up with projects assigned without deadlines and then deadlines laid down quickly at the last minute. Rubrics that aren't followed or being graded for things that weren't on the rubric. A lot of really arbitrary useless requirements. DC has found that most of the "challenge" from the program stems from the excessive and arbitrary rules. Although the academic challenge itself is greater than the home school, it's not at all overwhelming.

I might not have believed my DC's stories, or I might have put it off to DC being too sensitive, until I myself had a run in with one of the teachers! Plus, I hear DC and peers talking about it in the back seat during car pools.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Is Takoma Park magnet similar to Eastern in terms of these behavior problems?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Is Takoma Park magnet similar to Eastern in terms of these behavior problems?

Also Clemente how is the behavioral environment there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Is Takoma Park magnet similar to Eastern in terms of these behavior problems?

No, not at all! Yeah, a few girls have pursued my magnet kid pretty intensely and he's complained about it. But they weren't his type or something and he's managed to keep them at a distance. I have never heard of Slap Ass week at Takoma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Is Takoma Park magnet similar to Eastern in terms of these behavior problems?

No. My two kids went to the TPMS magnet program and neither had any problems remotely similar to what I hear goes on at Eastern.

My younger one was invited to both TPMS and Eastern and chose TPMS in part because of those problems. Other reasons included no foreign language (unless you take it after school), no orchestra (ditto), and a down-at-the-heels building/classroom environment.

[Anonymous]

Yes, this is heartbreaking but a lot of it is stuff we have experienced too. My rising 7th grade DS was just telling me today about all the cockroaches in the halls and lockers at Eastern.

I am appalled at the language and attitude he's picked up there, and the charged boy/girl environment. This is NOT limited to the neighborhood kids.

I haven't perceived some of the other issues here, like arbitrary deadlines and grading, etc. I think DS has been given pretty challenging work and it's very in-depth -- that's been great for him.

But the level of rigor in the non-magnet class he's had (not including math) was really awful -- just inexcusably dull and unchallenging. I am afraid that's the curriculum elsewhere and that's what worries me.