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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Relocating to Moco/Need help with elem school selection
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Anonymous
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Hi,
Our family will be relocating to Maryland from Texas this summer, and we'd love info about elementary schools from parents. Our DC's current school can be described as: a fine arts magnet (both in-boundary and transfer students attend music, dance, art classes) an IB PYP school a smallish school for an urban district (5 kindergarten classes) a diverse school (43 different countries represented) an exemplary school in TX (roughly meaning 90% or higher test scores) Which Moco elementary schools would you say are similar? Many thanks! |
Anonymous
| start with the MCPS website. You can see stats on diversity, test scores, special programs, FARMS percentages, etc. |
Anonymous
| College Gardens is the only PYP school in MoCo. It is large by MoCo standards (which maybe be 5 classes per grade?). I think it is very diverse with a Chinese immersion program (By lottery county program/seperate from the other classes). Don't know about test scores. I don't think MoCo has any fine arts magnets on the elementary level. Best Wishes |
Anonymous
| arent' there at least two elementary schools with "arts integration" programs -Kensington Parkwood and Drew? Loiderman Middle is an arts magnet. |
Anonymous
| Farmland is a possibility -- high scores and very international. Also, reopening this fall after an extensive renovation (rebuild), so basically a brand new school. |
Anonymous
| You have to be more specific--MoCo has more than 150 elementary schools and the county is huge. Many many schools would fit the characteristics you describe. What cities are you looking at for homes? One you have a location ("Montgomery County" is really too broad) you will get some more specific responses. Silver Spring and Gaithersburg would be more diverse areas, Bethesda would be consistently higher scores (although MANY SS/Gburg schools also fit this profile) but is much more expensive. Rockville is probably in the middle in terms of diversity, and also has some great schools. |
Anonymous
Yes, those two and also Potomac Elementary. Here's a blurb about arts integration from Potomac's website: "Arts Integration is a teaching approach that incorporates the indicators of an arts curriculum as well as other content areas. Natural connections are made between subjects within lessons. Each enhances the topic. During a lesson, students learn about art forms (movement, theater, visual art or music) and content (reading, math, science, writing, and social studies)." OP, this approach is obviously different than a fine arts magnet, since the emphasis is on the subject curriculum rather than on the arts curriculum. But we (and our kids) love the approach to education. |
Anonymous
| Op - where in Texas - there are lots of Texas expatriates here - so that might help. K-P has arts integration - you'll find that many, many of the schools in MoCo are great schools - examplary by Texas standards. Which of the characteristics that you listed do you care most about - i.e. small size of school (although I think that most ES have less 5 or less K classes, could be wrong), fine arts integration (more difficult to find), diversity of students (not difficult to find anywhere because DC has such a diverse population - even in the "less diverse" areas many countries are represented if not ethnicities. IB PYP is only College Gardens - but many of the elementary schools offer rigorous instruction - and there are a handful of Highly Gifted Centers that also might be what you are looking for if your children have that type of ability. If I were you I would also start with MCPS website to get an idea - MoCo is one of the largest school systems in the country, so you may want to narrow down your choices for where you want to live (i.e. Rockville, Bethesda, Silver Spring, Olney or Germantown) and then start looking at whether those areas have the types of schools you are interested in. |
Anonymous
FYI MoCo has 131, soon to be 132, elem schools-not 150. OP, you can look at Schools at a Glance on the MCPS website and see stats on each school. There is no document that consolidates the data, unfortunately, so it makes comparisons difficult. If you want to compare you may actually need to take the data and put it in one document yourself. |
Anonymous
Wow, such a difference! You're right, that's much smaller. OP will definitely want to go school by school with only 131 to sort through. |
Anonymous
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Someone sent me this link a while back, and I thought it was interesting. It give some very basic school stats and ranks schools 1-10. It covers all of MD, so you'll need to zoom in on the various regions of MoCo.
http://schoolperformancemaps.com/md/ |
Anonymous
| Looks like that map is based on the MSAs. It would be interesting to see that map overlaid with a map of household income. |
Anonymous
| Spectrum School Selection and Placement can help you sort through the all the resources, data and options to get exactly the right school. Finding a home-school, like finding a home is no easy task. It has to have just the right fit, particularly when there is a transition involved. If you are still searching in MoCo, Maryland or VA, Call 301-681-6233 or e-mail spectrumschools@weinfeldeducationgroup.com, with nearly 30 experienced educational consultants to give you the right insight you need to make a good choice. |
Anonymous
What a FANTASTIC site!! Tahnks so much for posting, PP!! (not the OP but someone else tryign to make sense of whether my schools are tolerable or not in my area of MoCo) |
Anonymous
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That site is fantastic--but look closely at the data. Most of the schools I clicked on used test scores from 2007, which is ancient history in the world of MCPS.
It might give you a good start for an area, but I wouldn't use it for individual schools. |