To any parents strongly committed to sending kids to public school

[Anonymous]

My husband and I moved to MoCo for the schools. Our kids are zoned to go to Rosemary Hills then NCC through to BCC. Considering I come from a crappy school system in the midwest and still have done well for myself, I had been happy that my kids were going to get to go to public school and still get a great education. Lately I'm getting more and more nervous about the budget cuts, increasing class sizes, cutting reading and science. I understand when cuts are needed that maybe art and music won't be able to survive in a public school setting, but the fundamentals - reading, math, science - I don't want to compromise my kids' education in those areas.

So here are my questions. For all the negativity about the future of MoCo schools, is it still better than most places, and this is all coming from people who want their public schools to have all the resources of the privates of this area? Are things getting just a bit worse than they have been, considering that MoCo has been close to the top of public schools for the last decade, or are they really going to hell in a hand basket? We could afford private school, and said we would do that if our children had needs that public school couldn't meet, but philosophically I have always believed that there is something wonderful about the community of public school. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

We're in the same zone, and have tried to keep our options open in terms of alternatives to public school although it would probably have to be parochial. I realize that the current budget debates are deeply worrying, so I'm not trying to write off your concerns. But it wasn't clear from your post: are your kids already at the elementary stage? If not it might be worthwhile to talk to families who are as well as PTA folks and visiting the schools themselves.

Fwiw, our experience so far at RHPS has been amazing, and I don't see the parent community at this stage as preparing to flee (and many of them have the resources to do so.) Just the opposite - the parents in this cluster are super motivated and involved with the schools, which is one of the reasons why the quality stays so high. At a field trip last week for my child's first class, literally half of the students in my child's class had a parent there to chaperone. Many of us had taken off work to participate, and it was definitely dads and as well as moms, so this is not merely about super-SAHMs although there are lots of those too (and more power to them.) That may not be the most illustrative example, but to me it underscores how committed these families are to ensuring that the quality of their children's education remains high, even in tight budget situations.

[Anonymous]

You are fine, the area schools are way ahead of most areas interms of funding. the school board wants the world and they ask for it every year. this is nothing new.

[Anonymous]

I REALLY want to do public school because we moved to our area specifically for the schools. I also just can not wrap my head around spending 25K-30K per child per year until college for private school. We have two kids and could afford it tightly but I would much rather put the money toward college and retirement.

I went to a crappy midwestern public school too until high school. For high school, I went to a pricey boarding school. This was valuable to me as the public schools were not great where I lived but more importantly there was almost an anti-intellectual, anti-education culture in the area. The smart kids hid the fact that they were smart. Everyone, even the smart kids, all went to state schools for college. In this area public schools are much better, there is a diverse community, lots of interesting museum activities, extra classes and volunteer opportunities for kids etc. I think or at least I hope that we can supplement what the public schools are not offering by taking advantage of what the area has to offer.

I do wish that parents in Montgomery County could legally fund or donate to their schools. Parent volunteers are great but they are not trained for special ed or as reading specialists. It woud be nice if PTAs could fund raise within their communities for things that would make a direct impact on the school. The participation would be high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It woud be nice if PTAs could fund raise within their communities for things that would make a direct impact on the school. The participation would be high.

though they could but the funds have to be equally divided among the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It woud be nice if PTAs could fund raise within their communities for things that would make a direct impact on the school. The participation would be high.

though they could but the funds have to be equally divided among the county.

I "thought"...

[Anonymous]

We are in the same position as OP. I am not too worried about all the talk of budget cuts and we are looking forward to sending our child to RHPS next year. I was impressed by the school and the involvement of the local community, and I definitely want our kids to have the opportunity to make friends in the neighborhood etc. Of course it could all turn out to be a horrible mistake and we could move to a plan B, but I at least want to give the public schools a try.

[Anonymous]

I think you are in a great school cluster and I don't see any way the school are going to go to "hell in a handbasket" any time in the immediate future.

[Anonymous]

I feel you re: growing up in an area where the smart kids had to "hide" their smarts, I grew up that way, too. I am 100% certain that's just not the case in most if not all of this area - and certainly not in the RH cluster. If anything, the pressure in MoCo to be conventionally smart and succeed may be a little over the top at times. The population as a whole is far too educated for this to occur with any regularity. Also, go to a PTA meeting or a County PTA meeting - the depth of feeling for making sure our children are proud and educated well is impressive - even when there is not unanimous agreement about how to achieve these goals.

[Anonymous]

Your children will be fine in MCPS, especially in your area. We can afford to send our DC to any private school. Instead DC attended public elementary, middle and will now attend public high school. Throughout this journey we closely looked into the "best" private schools (at various entry points) and DC was admitted to each of those schools, but at each juncture upon closer examination we choose to go with the public schools. In the lower grades we found the teachers better and more experinced in our public elementary school than even the most elite private schools and DC participated in a variety of extra-curricular activities offered by the school. We had a very active PTA. In middle school, we found that the private schools' math and science programs to be behind what our school provided. So, DC stayed and what we found was that DC had some of the best English teachers I have ever experienced. Although we had always thought and intended DC to attend an elite private school, for the prestige and because we still thought it would be better, once again we found that the pubic high school magnet and IB programs are superior academically. The elite private school provide many things a good public school can not, like small class sizes and select population, but otherwise in our case we have found our public schools to be just as good, if not better, in so many ways that really matter. Good luck.

P.S. - There were budget cuts and talks of budget cuts throughout our time too. We were concerned just like you, but everything was fine.