Piney Branch Elementary—do you like it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every poster that uses "mental health issues" as some kind of insult is a POS. Stop doing that, please. It's so offensive and yet inexplicably accepted as normal on these boards.

Perhaps, but that poster has an unhealthy obsession with a teacher that left the school years ago, and they would genuinely benefit from therapy.

The unhealthy obsession is with claiming that a teacher who was still at the school this time last year “left years ago”. Why are you obsessively lying? You keep saying the same thing again and again. There have been FOUR pages of discussion of you lying about when she left (the conversation has been on nothing but that topic for pages and pages). Why? Multiple people have confirmed you are wrong and yet you just can’t let it drop. You keep lying again and again. What’s wrong with you? Why is it in your interest to lie about this? I hate to say it but it does sound unstable.

Sure, you're claiming this but several others aren't so sure. You may want to check your facts.

There’s just one person who is claiming otherwise abs it is inexplicable. There has to be only 1 because there’s no explanation for multiple people being wrong. I don’t need to check my facts because I personally know who taught my child last year and what grade she was in at the time. Other posters have said the same thing over and over she taught at PBES s as recently as last year.

There's a person with a serious grudge against this teacher, but not so sure about the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm guys? It’s OP. Can someone just tell me if the school has a nice community? Are there cool extracurriculars for the kiddos? Aftercare options? Events like movie nights, fun fairs, etc? Sounds like this teacher is gone?

But like…do they ever bust out a bounce house and slushies? I just want a place my kids are happy, can find interesting things to do, and be reasonably challenged. Every school has some weird stuff baked in, but just overall.

I think this post, and other like it, say a lot. Notice that in a school of 500+ kids any posts are dominated by parents who are concerned about a cohort of 30 in a particular gifted program. If your kid is lucky enough together into that you'll likely be happy because the education is good and the cohort remains continuous through 5th. The rest is a mixed bag. They do field day. They have aftercare. They are extracurriculars and they are good but the fill up because the school is large. I wouldn't say anything is super special. Move nights and fun fairs? I don't recall that. 1/3 of the classrooms are windowless. This wasn't an issue for us because our 3rd grade teacher, who we loved, made the most of it and put up lights and it was cozy. Some people hate it.

When my kids went through there, they had excellent teachers. They made them feel special and engaged. Some were even demanding and expected a lot of them but they grew a lot while at Piney Branch. Maybe they got lucky but overall had a positive experience. I felt the kids got a lot more out of school than at TPES, but maybe that's the nature of early ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm guys? It’s OP. Can someone just tell me if the school has a nice community? Are there cool extracurriculars for the kiddos? Aftercare options? Events like movie nights, fun fairs, etc? Sounds like this teacher is gone?

But like…do they ever bust out a bounce house and slushies? I just want a place my kids are happy, can find interesting things to do, and be reasonably challenged. Every school has some weird stuff baked in, but just overall.

I think this post, and other like it, say a lot. Notice that in a school of 500+ kids any posts are dominated by parents who are concerned about a cohort of 30 in a particular gifted program. If your kid is lucky enough together into that you'll likely be happy because the education is good and the cohort remains continuous through 5th. The rest is a mixed bag. They do field day. They have aftercare. They are extracurriculars and they are good but the fill up because the school is large. I wouldn't say anything is super special. Move nights and fun fairs? I don't recall that. 1/3 of the classrooms are windowless. This wasn't an issue for us because our 3rd grade teacher, who we loved, made the most of it and put up lights and it was cozy. Some people hate it.

It’s fine but there isn’t much “community” to speak of surrounding the school and they certainly don’t do a ton of fun events. Families find community outside the school which leaves to some families feeling left out if they don’t go to kids adventures or Takoma soccer or scouts. There are two downsides to PBES 1) lack of younger kids and the impact 2) the building. The size is also a negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every poster that uses "mental health issues" as some kind of insult is a POS. Stop doing that, please. It's so offensive and yet inexplicably accepted as normal on these boards.

Perhaps, but that poster has an unhealthy obsession with a teacher that left the school years ago, and they would genuinely benefit from therapy.

You don't know this person. You are not remotely in any position to say that they would benefit from therapy. You are using the idea of "needing therapy" as an insult and strategy for discrediting people, which is disgusting.

I've been watching this thread for a while now, chuckling.

You folks ever notice that whenever you hit on a sensitive topic with MCPS, there's a scramble to discredit what's being said? Do a search on words like "therapy", "unhinged", "obsession" and how closely the comments are made on those topics time-wise.

The funniest part is that the comment works both ways. If the comment is supposedly unhinged, obsessed, etc., then what kind of person is hanging on this website hitting refresh all day long waiting on their keyboards just to call that person unhinged, obsessed, etc.? Are parents out there with really nothing better to do than read this blog all day long , or it's a teacher skipping classes , or MCPS/BOE staff or maybe someone else paid to throw shade as their full time job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every poster that uses "mental health issues" as some kind of insult is a POS. Stop doing that, please. It's so offensive and yet inexplicably accepted as normal on these boards.

Perhaps, but that poster has an unhealthy obsession with a teacher that left the school years ago, and they would genuinely benefit from therapy.

You don't know this person. You are not remotely in any position to say that they would benefit from therapy. You are using the idea of "needing therapy" as an insult and strategy for discrediting people, which is disgusting.

I've been watching this thread for a while now, chuckling.

You folks ever notice that whenever you hit on a sensitive topic with MCPS, there's a scramble to discredit what's being said? Do a search on words like "therapy", "unhinged", "obsession" and how closely the comments are made on those topics time-wise.

The funniest part is that the comment works both ways. If the comment is supposedly unhinged, obsessed, etc., then what kind of person is hanging on this website hitting refresh all day long waiting on their keyboards just to call that person unhinged, obsessed, etc.? Are parents out there with really nothing better to do than read this blog all day long , or it's a teacher skipping classes , or MCPS/BOE staff or maybe someone else paid to throw shade as their full time job?

An even simpler explanation is the posters who get these comments are making questionable statements. This discussion revolves around a teacher with high expectations for her students. This didn't sit well with some parents, while others welcomed the rigor since it was for an enriched course of study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every poster that uses "mental health issues" as some kind of insult is a POS. Stop doing that, please. It's so offensive and yet inexplicably accepted as normal on these boards.

DCUM is, generally, quite loony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every poster that uses "mental health issues" as some kind of insult is a POS. Stop doing that, please. It's so offensive and yet inexplicably accepted as normal on these boards.

Perhaps, but that poster has an unhealthy obsession with a teacher that left the school years ago, and they would genuinely benefit from therapy.

You don't know this person. You are not remotely in any position to say that they would benefit from therapy. You are using the idea of "needing therapy" as an insult and strategy for discrediting people, which is disgusting.

I've been watching this thread for a while now, chuckling.

You folks ever notice that whenever you hit on a sensitive topic with MCPS, there's a scramble to discredit what's being said? Do a search on words like "therapy", "unhinged", "obsession" and how closely the comments are made on those topics time-wise.

The funniest part is that the comment works both ways. If the comment is supposedly unhinged, obsessed, etc., then what kind of person is hanging on this website hitting refresh all day long waiting on their keyboards just to call that person unhinged, obsessed, etc.? Are parents out there with really nothing better to do than read this blog all day long , or it's a teacher skipping classes , or MCPS/BOE staff or maybe someone else paid to throw shade as their full time job?

An even simpler explanation is the posters who get these comments are making questionable statements. This discussion revolves around a teacher with high expectations for her students. This didn't sit well with some parents, while others welcomed the rigor since it was for an enriched course of study.

This was around the time of the discrimination against Asian's lawsuit, wasn't it?

Would be interested to see what MCPS said in those lawsuits to see if it conflicted with anything else they've said.