Your experience with a 40% FARMS rate Middle School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Howard county is currently being redistricted and the latest proposal moves 200 kids from one of the best middle schools( the one we will go in a few years) to the one with the highest FARM rate. The present FARM rate of this school is 52% and the target after redistricting will probably be 40%. The PAARC scores for this school hover in the 20 and 30 percents.

Now the usual cries of not wanting our kids to go t those schools, crime, home values are doing the rounds and I'm not claiming to be above those. But in all honesty, I didn't go to school here and I'm trying to understand what our experience there might be like. We are currently in a < 5% FARMS rate elementary. middle and high school pyramid. I feel some of the hesitancy, including my own, might be people not really knowing what the new school is like.

I am truly trying to have an open mind and trying to understand what my kids would lose by going here. I don't believe 3 years of middle school make or break your life. Does this truly give my otherwise v protected kids a window into the world that's out there or is peer pressure and the price of poor choices too high in middle school. If your kids attended such a middle school coming from an elementary school like described, what was your experience and the pros and cons of this.

I am assuming that you mean "one of the middle schools with the smallest numbers of poor kids."

My personal opinion is that it's positively harmful for affluent kids to go to a school where everyone is affluent and the racial/ethnic demographics are very skewed - "best middle school" notwithstanding. It's not a good bubble to be in.

[Anonymous]

That’s a big jump for the teachers/admin to handle. On the one hand, they might not be jaded yet, so they might be super energetic and idealistic and all. Or they might be inexperienced and overwhelmed by the challenges of the new population.

We went to a 90% FARMS elementary and I was surprised by how little it affected my kid in the younger grades. It is different, I know, but the teachers were able to teach his classmates the letters while reading with him on a third grade level more than I expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok. Here goes. We need to more information. What are the demographics? In my opinion, ESOL kids are generally very hard working, nice kids. If kids come here from overseas they generally have good manners as long as they are coming with stable families. If the majority of the struggling students are AA, we might be looking at a situation of many students being in single parent, generational poverty. This tends to have worse affects on learning, and create major issues with student behavior due to anger issues. Obviously, I am stereotyping everything here. But we need more specific information.

Personally, I think it is a disservice to send a kid to a less than 5% FARMS rate school as well. They should have transported students from the High farms school to the low farms school instead.

Op here. The school is 50 percent black. The plan is to move about 200 mostly Asian and white kids there ( so not a small feed) and move about 80 kids from there to our low farms school.
Of course we don't know if any of this will go through due to opposition brewing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s a big jump for the teachers/admin to handle. On the one hand, they might not be jaded yet, so they might be super energetic and idealistic and all. Or they might be inexperienced and overwhelmed by the challenges of the new population.

We went to a 90% FARMS elementary and I was surprised by how little it affected my kid in the younger grades. It is different, I know, but the teachers were able to teach his classmates the letters while reading with him on a third grade level more than I expected.

Re-read the OP. The plan evidently is to move some of the kids (including OP's) from a very-low-poverty school to a higher-poverty school, thereby decreasing the percentage of poor kids at the higher-poverty school. Presumably some of the kids from low-income families at the higher-poverty school will be moved to a lower-poverty school, but OP is not asking about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can say this only on an anonymous forum. If you can do anything to not be in this situation - move, go to private school - then do so.

Op here,. That is why I chose to ask this in an anonymous forum as opposed to Facebook - so that I can get an honest opinion. Can you elaborate on why you feel this way?

OP, "honest opinions" are not necessarily a good thing. Especially when they're anonymous "honest opinions".

Op here. PP, we have a buzzing Facebook forum. The only thing I've heard in the last 2 days is either shrill opposition and how this is unfair having to go from a 10 rated school to a 5 rated one or preaching about how all schools in hoco are good and our kids are resilient and will be fine anyway. I have not heard a single nuanced view of what the actual challenges would be for the kids being moved in order to help somebody with an open mind form an opinion.
Fwiw, we are Asians and my son is a v nerdy and somewhat socially clueless kid. I wonder if bullying would be a risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can say this only on an anonymous forum. If you can do anything to not be in this situation - move, go to private school - then do so.

Op here,. That is why I chose to ask this in an anonymous forum as opposed to Facebook - so that I can get an honest opinion. Can you elaborate on why you feel this way?

OP, "honest opinions" are not necessarily a good thing. Especially when they're anonymous "honest opinions".

Op here. PP, we have a buzzing Facebook forum. The only thing I've heard in the last 2 days is either shrill opposition and how this is unfair having to go from a 10 rated school to a 5 rated one or preaching about how all schools in hoco are good and our kids are resilient and will be fine anyway. I have not heard a single nuanced view of what the actual challenges would be for the kids being moved in order to help somebody with an open mind form an opinion.
Fwiw, we are Asians and my son is a v nerdy and somewhat socially clueless kid. I wonder if bullying would be a risk.

Yes, bullying will be a risk - at the middle school you're currently zoned for, as well as at any middle school you might be rezoned to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids went to a high FARMS % school in Montgomery County and there were a ton of benefits, like smaller class sizes and additional resources, as a result. I also appreciated the diversity of the community and the different ways in which families chose to support the school.

Please be honest.

We are at a high FARMS school in MoCo and the smaller class size benefit is only until 3rd grade. Then class sizes go up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They kids were so hungry they ate off my kids plate!! Seriously, though, WTF is wrong with you people?

Except that the kids are not ‘hungry’.

Often time the kids don’t even want to be at school and actively degrade the school environment.

[Anonymous]

I would only do it if your kid will be in separate gifted/advanced/honors courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They kids were so hungry they ate off my kids plate!! Seriously, though, WTF is wrong with you people?

Except that the kids are not ‘hungry’.

Often time the kids don’t even want to be at school and actively degrade the school environment.

Middle-class kids never do that.

Wait, what?

[Anonymous]

My kids (now going into 9th and 11th) attended a MS in VA that was exactly 40% FARMs. There were zero issues. Mostly great teachers, the kids were appropriately challenged, made friends from a range of SES levels, engaged in after school activities, no issues with bullying. DD did complain some about disruptive boys in some classes but the ones she mentioned specifically were from her affluent elementary school, so don't assume it's "the poors" who are disruptive. I'd be much more concerned about sending them to a <5% FARMs/highly affluent school where there is likely to be much more peer pressure around materialism (which was the kind of MS and HS I went to).

I think the bigger issue in OPs situation is the big change in school environment and people bringing a bad attitude/expectations into it. Seems like a lot of families are going to go into it looking for problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Howard county is currently being redistricted and the latest proposal moves 200 kids from one of the best middle schools( the one we will go in a few years) to the one with the highest FARM rate. The present FARM rate of this school is 52% and the target after redistricting will probably be 40%. The PAARC scores for this school hover in the 20 and 30 percents.

Now the usual cries of not wanting our kids to go t those schools, crime, home values are doing the rounds and I'm not claiming to be above those. But in all honesty, I didn't go to school here and I'm trying to understand what our experience there might be like. We are currently in a < 5% FARMS rate elementary. middle and high school pyramid. I feel some of the hesitancy, including my own, might be people not really knowing what the new school is like.

I am truly trying to have an open mind and trying to understand what my kids would lose by going here. I don't believe 3 years of middle school make or break your life. Does this truly give my otherwise v protected kids a window into the world that's out there or is peer pressure and the price of poor choices too high in middle school. If your kids attended such a middle school coming from an elementary school like described, what was your experience and the pros and cons of this.

I am assuming that you mean "one of the middle schools with the smallest numbers of poor kids."

My personal opinion is that it's positively harmful for affluent kids to go to a school where everyone is affluent and the racial/ethnic demographics are very skewed - "best middle school" notwithstanding. It's not a good bubble to be in.

Using that logic would you move to a crime infested dangerous neighborhood

[Anonymous]

Not in HoCo but my kids go to a 40% FARMs school. Only in elementary and actually we have better resources and specialists at our school as a result. It really matters on teacher experience - we had a teacher who was terrible and had no classroom control. But other teachers have been fine. I plan to send our kids to the same middle school and high school. We know friends whose kids have gone through the schools and went on to college. At older grades I would assume that if your kid is in honors they will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather work for a company that has 5% or 40% people who are not contributing?
They may not be on your department but....

Not contributing to what??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In HoCo, if your kids are in a full GT curriculum, only your home value is at stake. Education should be fine. My oldest attended a 6/10 HoCo elementary with a decent FARMS percentage. We moved to MoCo, and she is a very strong student in middle school.

Now, if your kids are in the regular curricilum, I would fight, fight, fight, and if your school lost rent out my house out and move to a better school dustrict. Middle school is not the time to seek out social justice.

Agree with this.