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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Moving to Baltimore area from NYC - need school help/info!
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Anonymous
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Hi - We are moving from New York City to the Baltimore area, my husband will be working at Hopkins. We have one child with effectively treated ADHD and one with a mild auditory processing issue. Both are in a small mainstream nurturing private school in NYC, and we would love to find a great public school system in the Baltimore suburbs that has support for kids with learning issues or ADHD, but provides excellent academics as well. Does anyone have any specific suggestions of school/districts/towns for us to look at? We have already gotten some town recommendations, but would love to hear from people who specifically have kids in school now. Our kids will be entering 3rd and 5th grade when we move, so we are interested in both elementary and middle schools.
Thanks so much in advance for any suggestions! |
Anonymous
| Howard County Public Schools are great. Clarksville and parts of Ellicott City and Columbia are wonderful areas to live with kids. |
Anonymous
I second this. It's your best bet in the Baltimore area for sure. |
Anonymous
I fully concur with this suggestion. We live in Clarksville and love the schools/area. Barbara Hucht helped up find our dream home -- she raised her kids in this area, is attentive to your needs, and no games. Good luck! |
Anonymous
I would love to live in Clarksville but we're unable to on our salaries. 
We live in Columbia off of 108 and our son will go to Thunder Hill ES. We specifically targeted our neighborhood so that he could attend that school. It's a nice, smallish community school and has a wonderful reputation. I'm an educator so elementary school was my #1 priority during our home search. |
Anonymous
That's a good school and a good area. (I grew up in HoCo.) I'm sure you know that; I'm just concurring. 
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Anonymous
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I agree with the previous posts just beware that you have no school choice in Howard county.
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Anonymous
| Hi - Original poster here, thanks so much for your suggestions. The towns we were considering were: Ellicott City, Towson, Columbia, Clarksville so your suggestions fit with that! To the poster who wrote about no school choice, can you provide more information? Are you not zoned for a particular school? |
Anonymous
Are there other jurisdictions where you do have a choice of school? |
Anonymous
| In Baltimore County, there are only a few magnet elementary schools. Try West Towson ES. It is a brand new school this year. Check out greatschools.net for reviews of other area schools. |
Anonymous
| No charter, no magnets, you are zoned for a particular schools but they have the ability to redistrict yearly. EC neighborhood could be districted for Columbia and Columbia could be districted fords EC, there are no hard boundaries lines except for the county lines. Howard county practices equity so all the schools learn from the same materials so in theory the student in Columbia will learn from and get the same education as the kid from Clarksville. I would also try Elkridge and Laurel. You can also try Fulton it is more expensive and newer than the other towns but you might can find a rental Good Luck. |
Anonymous
Don't even fret over "school choice," as it tends to create competition and is divisive in nature. It has failed miserably in Mo Co. Ho Co keeps it simple! Definitely there are differences among the schools, as those in the Western corner are surrounded by wealth with homes zoned on larger pieces of property. However, Maple Lawn, although a mixed-housing community, has some lovely homes filled with children and the ES - Fulton - is fully inclusive. Ho Co is well known for its fully inclusive program. |
Anonymous
| Baltimore county and Montgomery county have magnet programs. You should not have any problems with children with l.E.P.s in Howard County. If you want a smaller school than definitely investigate this fully as the school sizes vary a lot , in general Howard county has smaller schools but much larger than private schools. |
Anonymous
It'll be hard to go wrong with these options. |
Anonymous
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Howard County schools are exceptional. Most in part because the majority of the property taxes are spent on education. It is the pride of the area. If you visit www.greatschools.org you will get all the information that you need. I posted a blog recently http://activerain.com/blogsview/2190348/excellent-elementary-schools-are-one-of-the-reasons-why-buyers-want-to-find-a-home-in-ellicott-city- which puts all the information in one place about Ellicott City.
I am a very active Howard County Realtor and I would be more than happy to help you with your relocation. My name is Ellie McIntire and I can be reached at 443-418-7668. Google me or visit my local blog at http://activerain.com/blogs/sudoseppo. My profile on Zillow has my past client reviews |