PG school options?

[Anonymous]

14:56 and 13:50 here. I really don't think people are talking about the schools in the highest SES portions of the county when we talk about the problems with schools.

Many of the more affordable areas of the county are zoned for schools that are not high performers. I can afford to move to the nicer areas of PG county now, but I couldn't when I bought my house. The biggest problem for me now is that Bowie would increase my commute by an hour.

P.S. Tulip Grove's aftercare program is about $300 per month, this is almost twice the cost of aftercare at Eaton Elementary in DC. I couldn't find aftercare expenses on the site, and was told to call back after getting an estimate on the phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:56 and 13:50 here. I really don't think people are talking about the schools in the highest SES portions of the county when we talk about the problems with schools.

Many of the more affordable areas of the county are zoned for schools that are not high performers. I can afford to move to the nicer areas of PG county now, but I couldn't when I bought my house. The biggest problem for me now is that Bowie would increase my commute by an hour.

P.S. Tulip Grove's aftercare program is about $300 per month, this is almost twice the cost of aftercare at Eaton Elementary in DC. I couldn't find aftercare expenses on the site, and was told to call back after getting an estimate on the phone.

Yes, the commuting issue is a tricky one all around, especially if you and your spouse work in completely different locations (which was the situation I had and why neither MOCO or NOVA, as many like to suggest, would have worked).

As for what people are talking about, well, I think it varies. I was on a thread last week in which a woman declared there was "no way" she'd send her children to Bowie High School. Frankly, I got the impression she didn't really know much about the school or the programs offered. My impression was that the problem for her was that the large AA population. And I find that sort of troublesome.

[Anonymous]

13:50 here. I really want to make my local schools work. I am that concerned neighbor that sweeps the streets, cuts other people's grass, hires their kids to help out around the house, and knows everyone by name on my street and much of the neighborhood.

I think I might approach the Post about having a "Behind the Headlines" discussion just for PG county. Because the schools are in such need of real discussion, I wonder if Jeff would be willing to make a separate topic for PG County schools instead of lumping us in with the rest of Maryland.

The DC boards are very active and people are really talking about starting a new French immersion charter school because of the discussions.

Jeff, are you on board?

[Anonymous]

I am relatively new to the boards and I wish there was more activity related to PG. I am having a difficult time navigating the perception from the actual performance of the neighborhood schools close to me. (I was the one who asked about Yorktown and Rockledge)

[Anonymous]

This is what I have proposed to Jeff:

Jeff,

I have seen that you are very active on the DC public and charter school boards. As a PG county resident deeply concerned with the state of the schools, I was wondering if you would separate out PG county on the schools forum. The county needs to start a movement, a grassroots movement, and I can think of no better place that to start with your forum."

There are people that watch this forum from all over the country. We need something, our voices need to be heard. If someone else is connected with a group of people that are proposing real change to the schools, please post the contact information.

[Anonymous]

I think the problem is that even if he starts a new forum specifically for PG, the problem is that there just aren't as many PG people on here.

I don't know why that is. I almost stopped coming to this website entirely because I read so many negative things about PG. I, frankly, didn't want to read through threads of commentary by people who think I'm horrible because I live in, gasp, PG.

But it is a fascinating website with a lot of interesting threads, so I decided not to let the PG hate get to me and to combat it when and where I could.

But the more I read on here, the more I really sincerely believe a big part of it is that there just aren't many people here who live in PG now (you get the odd "I grew up PG in the '80s or '90s..., but a lot of things change in 2 or 3 decades).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am relatively new to the boards and I wish there was more activity related to PG. I am having a difficult time navigating the perception from the actual performance of the neighborhood schools close to me. (I was the one who asked about Yorktown and Rockledge)

Do you live in Bowie? I do, and I think the perception/reality thing is key. I walk my neighborhood and the two surrounding me frequently, am always talking with neighbors, et cetera, and most of the people are nice, intelligent, perfectly normal middle class people. And there are lots of kids, and they go to, gasp, public school. So I really find it hard to believe that the surrounding schools are that horrible.

I've done some research on Great Schools and even by visiting school websites. I haven't seen anything that makes me think the schools are as doom and gloom as they say.

Test scores reflected on those sites are averages. I think that the test score situation feeds itself. A school gets good scores, so a lot of ambitious, motivated students/parents move to the area to attend that school. Those students then get good scores, and the cycle continues. The school attracts a disproportionate number of students who would probably score high even if they attended a different school.

The reverse is that a school has average scores (let's say a great schools rating of 6). Well, students/parents who are highly motivated and ambitious (college bound) freak out and get scared off, so they avoid those schools by either moving away or going to private schools. So the average school tends to lose a lot of the top students in the area. (I'm not suggesting the other students there are horrible, but if the top students leave, the scores will reflect it.)

I'm not entirely convinced that the highly motivated students would necessarily have had lower scores if they attended the school with the average rating because I haven't seen any evidence that the teachers at those schools are any worse than at schools in other counties.

[Anonymous]

There are several things that I am looking at and trying to compare with DC Public Schools, DC Charters, and MoCo Schools:

Curriculum
Beforecare and Aftercare Programs and Cost
FARMS rate
Greenspace
Extracurricular/Enrichment Activities
Parent Involvement
Monthly Parent Communication
Discipline Methods
Test Scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are several things that I am looking at and trying to compare with DC Public Schools, DC Charters, and MoCo Schools:

Curriculum
Beforecare and Aftercare Programs and Cost
FARMS rate
Greenspace
Extracurricular/Enrichment Activities
Parent Involvement
Monthly Parent Communication
Discipline Methods
Test Scores

Well, I believe the FARMS rate is listed on the Great Schools page for each school, as are the score averages.

Some schools have their own website, and they list what extracurricular/enrichment activities are available. School websites will also list if a school has before and after care options, but often they don't list the cost.

Parent involvement and discipline methods are two things I don't think you're going to find much info on, but that goes for any school system, including MOCO and Howard County. All school and county websites will have some generic, positive thing on there, but I don't think you'll really find any specific answers.

Greenspace. I don't know about the rest of PG County, but the schools in Bowie have plenty of greenspace as far as I can tell. In general, Bowie has a lot of parks and athletic fields and biking trails.

I would add that I think that just because the before and after care offered at a particular school is high doesn't mean that there aren't other options. There are actually some local daycares that provide before and after care for neighborhood schools. You might want to do a little research on daycare.

Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Back to the initial question....
I don't think anyone has suggested New Hope Acadamy which is in Landover. I have no personal experience but I have plenty of neighbors who send their kids there.
http://www.newhopeacademy.org/international/index.php?home/

[Anonymous]

There are some other posts on New Hope on these forums. The Unification roots of the school spook a lot of people. But PP is right, that is another PG school, though also not secular.

I think the other thing to consider is whether your child is TAG identified. If so that opens up more options and the TAG centers have had friendlier lottery odds than the other specialty programs. Though, as mentioned on another post, I wish PG would funnel into the centers based on some sort of tier/rank system rather than straight up lottery for anyone who gets the TAG identification. Pull out is great for a bright kid who is doing well in the neighborhood school, but there are some kids who really can't be maintained in their neighborhood schools with just pull out/in classroom TAG and then the county loses those kids when they don't get into center.

[Anonymous]

13:50 here and the person that suggested a separate forum for PG County Schools.

Thanks for the information on the New Hope Academy. The price is a little more expensive than some of the other parochial schools but it is another option.

To the 17:41, the aftercare program is very important to me. I really like the more structured, age-appropriate aftercare programs and the local daycare centers do not offer that.

Since Jeff asked about a separate forum, I would like the first thread to be a resource guide for PG county parents looking for school options.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I think the PG school page is a great idea!

My son will be a 2nd grader, so we are looking at elementary schools. I am fine with public schools, but I don't know which ones are considered 'ok' - we fell in love with a house and the FARMS rate at the zoned elementary was 92% - which doesn't bode well for academic performance. I am ok with us moving to PG But I would love to know where I should be looking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am ok with us moving to PG But I would love to know where I should be looking

It sounds crass to put it this way, but the safest course educationally speaking is to follow the gentrification.

The Post had a front page article last summer about the influx of white families to PG (according to recent Census data), and the authors pinpointed the Hyattsville area. The white households are primarily upper-middle class and there are also highly educated AA and Asian families moving to places like Arts District Hyattsville. This is having a very positive effect on Hyattsville Elementary.

University Park, just north of Hyattsville, has long had a stable and affluent population, which results in University Park Elementary being a stellar performer, even by MOCO standards.

And if for whatever reason you end up not happy in the local PS, there are excellent private options in St. Jerome Academy and Friends Community School, and DeMatha and Seton high schools are also close by. St. Jerome in particular is a bargain among private schools and has a substantial non-Catholic enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am ok with us moving to PG But I would love to know where I should be looking

It sounds crass to put it this way, but the safest course educationally speaking is to follow the gentrification.

The Post had a front page article last summer about the influx of white families to PG (according to recent Census data), and the authors pinpointed the Hyattsville area. The white households are primarily upper-middle class and there are also highly educated AA and Asian families moving to places like Arts District Hyattsville. This is having a very positive effect on Hyattsville Elementary.

University Park, just north of Hyattsville, has long had a stable and affluent population, which results in University Park Elementary being a stellar performer, even by MOCO standards.

And if for whatever reason you end up not happy in the local PS, there are excellent private options in St. Jerome Academy and Friends Community School, and DeMatha and Seton high schools are also close by. St. Jerome in particular is a bargain among private schools and has a substantial non-Catholic enrollment.

No. You do not need to "follow the gentrification." There are plenty of majority AA areas in PG that are very affluent and nice. I'm not even black and I found this post a little bit offensive, like you need to follow the white people to find a livable place. No wonder PG has such a stigma, if this is the way people think.