Recommend your public HS in Montgomery or Howard County - Looking for solid academics AND diversity

[Anonymous]

Poolesville High School has that kind of diversity, due to the large magnet population. Magnet classes or not, it is a very nice, smaller high school. The community is middle class. Some rich and some working class. The feeder MS and ES schools have less diversity than the high school. Monocacy ES has a higher FARMs rate than Poolesville Elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.

For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.

Yeah, Blair would come the closest to that. 24% white, 24% black, 34% Hispanic. And 33% FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poolesville High School has that kind of diversity, due to the large magnet population. Magnet classes or not, it is a very nice, smaller high school. The community is middle class. Some rich and some working class. The feeder MS and ES schools have less diversity than the high school. Monocacy ES has a higher FARMs rate than Poolesville Elementary.

Poolesville is 5.7% Black.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.

For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.

Yeah, Blair would come the closest to that. 24% white, 24% black, 34% Hispanic. And 33% FARMS.

+1, Blair is what you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.

For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.

Love me some working class!

[Anonymous]

Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville is another one that is pretty perfect across the board in the diversity percentages.

[Anonymous]

One note for the OP - I don't know where you are coming from, but one thing to note about Maryland is that the county-wide school districts are a mixed blessing.

On the down side, it is a huge and sometimes unresponsive bureaucracy.

Here's the good thing, though: it is all one system and one curriculum. So, when you are looking at schools, demographics and quality of administration are basically all that separates one school from the next.

Unlike the town-based schools that are common in other parts of the country, there really is very little difference between the schools. Yes, Whitman has an obscenely wealthy school foundation and Blair doesn't, but the foundation does things like throwing prom after-parties, not hiring teachers.

There are schools in "rich" neighborhoods that have crappy facilities and bad administrators, and schools in "poor" neighborhoods with fancy buildings and great folks at the top.

For that reason, there is really less variation than you would think.

[Anonymous]

Another note for the OP: today's boundaries are not set in stone. Blair is very overcrowded. Northwood HS down the road is getting a large addition. It's entirely possible some changes will be made within the next 5 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.

For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.

This is Blair. Also, no school in Montgomery County with this profile will have a GS rating higher than 5 so you can go ahead and ignore those scores. GS ratings in Montgomery are directly proportional to how white/Asian the school is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.

For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.[/quote]

Yeah, Blair would come the closest to that. 24% white, 24% black, 34% Hispanic. And 33% FARMS.

BUT BUT... Middle class would definitely be FARMS-eligible. Say 1/2 of working class is FARMS-eligible

Majority..say 80% Middle class would be close to 0% FARMS.
some...say 20% working class would be 10% FARMS.

Therefore, "majority middle class with some working class" means ~10%-ish FARMS

Furthermore, that 33% FARMS is including the magnet students. Non-magnet Blair would be ~40% FARMS.

Therefore, I hope OP recognized that Blair's 33% FARMS is too high compare for her preferred "majority middle class with some working class."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.

For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.

How many % FARMS does OP want?

[Anonymous]

The problem in MOCO is that the area is economically segregated. At Blair the poor kids are AA and hispanic, the MC/UMC kids are white, the magnet kids are asian American and white. There are very few AA students in the magnet programs. The kids stay within their SES and academic cohort groups. You might as well be at Churchill or Whitman. The same is true at non-magnet schools like QO. The poor kids are AA and almost all the wealthy kids are white or Asian Americans.

UMC AA parents find themselves being in a very small minority in all MCPS schools and many decide to go private as well. PG attracts many more UMC and MC AA families but the schools outside of the TAG programs are a problem so many people do private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
What kind of “diversity” do you mean? Honest question.


For example: 1/4 white, 1/4 black, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 other

And I would love majority middle class with some working class.

Probably Columbia in Howard County. MOCO has UMC, lower paid professionals and low income. Most of the middle class and working class people live in Frederick or Howard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem in MOCO is that the area is economically segregated. At Blair the poor kids are AA and hispanic, the MC/UMC kids are white, the magnet kids are asian American and white. There are very few AA students in the magnet programs. The kids stay within their SES and academic cohort groups. You might as well be at Churchill or Whitman. The same is true at non-magnet schools like QO. The poor kids are AA and almost all the wealthy kids are white or Asian Americans.

UMC AA parents find themselves being in a very small minority in all MCPS schools and many decide to go private as well. PG attracts many more UMC and MC AA families but the schools outside of the TAG programs are a problem so many people do private school.

Not true. The magnet programs are <500 students out of 3,200+. There are ~1200 White or Asian students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem in MOCO is that the area is economically segregated. At Blair the poor kids are AA and hispanic, the MC/UMC kids are white, the magnet kids are asian American and white. There are very few AA students in the magnet programs. The kids stay within their SES and academic cohort groups. You might as well be at Churchill or Whitman. The same is true at non-magnet schools like QO. The poor kids are AA and almost all the wealthy kids are white or Asian Americans.

UMC AA parents find themselves being in a very small minority in all MCPS schools and many decide to go private as well. PG attracts many more UMC and MC AA families but the schools outside of the TAG programs are a problem so many people do private school.

Not true. The magnet programs are <500 students out of 3,200+. There are ~1200 White or Asian students.

why "not true"?

the PP never stated that there were few white students outside of the magnet programs...