Just got the Downcounty Consortium high school lottery letter ...

[Anonymous]

My child is a junior at Northwood, and I think it's been a pretty good experience. The school just changed principals this fall, so I know it's been in flux, but the new one seems fairly on top of things. It's a smaller school, with just 1400 students, I think, half the size of Blair.

I know Northwood added Chinese as a language option this year, which is good because it was limited to just French and Spanish in the past. There seem to be a fair number of AP classes.

One difference with Northwood is that students take eight classes a day instead of seven. They take each class every other day. That way they can take more electives; they are also able to finish most class requirements by senior year and can take an abbreviated schedule. The school offers an internship program for seniors, which we're looking into right now.

I've had a few concerns about violent incidents in the past, but none this year, and they only affected the few students involved and not other students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Wheaton many many moons ago. DH wnet to Northwood before it closed. We've recently moved back to the area. When we went to HS, the only school to avoid was Einsten and that's because it was a very rough school--lots of fights. Blair you only went to if you got into the magnet.

So I'm curious....why are Wheaton, Kennedy, and Northwood today seen as the less desirable schools? Do they not offer the same type of honor level/AP classes that Blair and Einstein have? I don't hear of a lot of shootings or police being called in and such on the news at these schools. I assume that all HS still follow the same ciriculumn so that Biology is Biology no matter where it is taught. What makes these schools in the DCC not as good as the others?

Demographic and real estate changes.

I think Wheaton is more "urban" area, so higher % apartments (though there are more luxury apartments coming soon). Kennedy is just a bit further up from DC, so lower housing prices. Einstein area's housing prices are higher compared to Wheaton and Kennedy, I think (benefited from real estate boom, and recovered quite a bit).

More minority kids, bad economy, less time for families/parents to devote to kids = lower academic performance and "rougher" schools.

That just cracks me up. Probably because of my own HS experience, I have a hard time seeing Einstein as choice school. Then again, DH and I recently drove downtown and there are parts of DC that as HS kids we would never venture into and now we can't afford to buy a condo on those streets. Should have bought a run down row house in college when I could afford it

[Anonymous]

Our home school is Blair and DD has chosen to go there, mostly because all her friends from TPMS are going there. Ok, fine. But I really tried (unsuccessfully) to get her to consider Northwood because I think good things are happening there. Their fall production of "Annie" was one of the more entertaining HS productions I've seen; and this new program they are supposedly introducing where advanced kids can take college classes and earn credit while in high school was very appealing to this budget-conscious parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On a related note, does anyone know when the magnet results usually come in?

Magnet notifications are supposed to be mailed out on Jan. 31.

[Anonymous]

So how does the school assignment process work once the home zone kids are accounted for? Does a computer then take all the other kids who ranked a school #1 and randomly assign? I presume there's some kind of screening to ensure a gender and racial balance, right?

[Anonymous]

NP. Sorry to hijack, but I'm new to the area and this isn't worthy of a new thread. How are the boundaries determined? We live about a half-mile walk from Blair, but are zoned for Northwood, which is about a 1.5-mile walk. The line has to be drawn somewhere, I guess...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Sorry to hijack, but I'm new to the area and this isn't worthy of a new thread. How are the boundaries determined? We live about a half-mile walk from Blair, but are zoned for Northwood, which is about a 1.5-mile walk. The line has to be drawn somewhere, I guess...

Blair used to be at what is now Silver Spring International Middle School. The new building is much closer to Northwood, which means many kids closer to Blair are zoned for Northwood. They would have been closer to Northwood at Blair's old location. My daughter had a friend who was just four blocks away from Blair but zoned for Northwood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Sorry to hijack, but I'm new to the area and this isn't worthy of a new thread. How are the boundaries determined? We live about a half-mile walk from Blair, but are zoned for Northwood, which is about a 1.5-mile walk. The line has to be drawn somewhere, I guess...

Blair used to be at what is now Silver Spring International Middle School. The new building is much closer to Northwood, which means many kids closer to Blair are zoned for Northwood. They would have been closer to Northwood at Blair's old location. My daughter had a friend who was just four blocks away from Blair but zoned for Northwood.

We have friends who live about six houses away from Blair but are zoned for Northwood.

We live .75 mile away from Blair but are zoned for Einstein.

It makes no sense to me.

[Anonymous]

^^^PP here.

Einstein is ~6 miles away from our house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Sorry to hijack, but I'm new to the area and this isn't worthy of a new thread. How are the boundaries determined? We live about a half-mile walk from Blair, but are zoned for Northwood, which is about a 1.5-mile walk. The line has to be drawn somewhere, I guess...

Blair used to be at what is now Silver Spring International Middle School. The new building is much closer to Northwood, which means many kids closer to Blair are zoned for Northwood. They would have been closer to Northwood at Blair's old location. My daughter had a friend who was just four blocks away from Blair but zoned for Northwood.

But then why are kids who live directly across the street from SSIMS (the old Blair) also zoned for Northwood?? It's true the lines have to be drawn somewhere, and I'm sure they were drawn with good intentions, but it's sure is hard to see the logic in the boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is a junior at Northwood, and I think it's been a pretty good experience. The school just changed principals this fall, so I know it's been in flux, but the new one seems fairly on top of things. It's a smaller school, with just 1400 students, I think, half the size of Blair.

I know Northwood added Chinese as a language option this year, which is good because it was limited to just French and Spanish in the past. There seem to be a fair number of AP classes.

One difference with Northwood is that students take eight classes a day instead of seven. They take each class every other day. That way they can take more electives; they are also able to finish most class requirements by senior year and can take an abbreviated schedule. The school offers an internship program for seniors, which we're looking into right now.

I've had a few concerns about violent incidents in the past, but none this year, and they only affected the few students involved and not other students.

This is OP. Thanks for posting this! I talked to DS about what you posted, and we're going to go to the meeting and see what's what. Some of what you say is very interesting.

Can you tell me, which Academy is you child in? And is there a particular person at the school that you'd recommend for an informational meeting?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

This has been the case for years. Lesson learned: don't count on school options in the DCC. Buy a house in the school zone. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Sorry to hijack, but I'm new to the area and this isn't worthy of a new thread. How are the boundaries determined? We live about a half-mile walk from Blair, but are zoned for Northwood, which is about a 1.5-mile walk. The line has to be drawn somewhere, I guess...

Blair used to be at what is now Silver Spring International Middle School. The new building is much closer to Northwood, which means many kids closer to Blair are zoned for Northwood. They would have been closer to Northwood at Blair's old location. My daughter had a friend who was just four blocks away from Blair but zoned for Northwood.

PP here. Thanks for this info.

[Anonymous]

Too bad that didn't work for us. Bought in '99 when house was zoned for Blair. When Northwood opened, our neighborhood was rezoned for Northwood.