Best elementary school for a STEM gifted child?

[Anonymous]

TPES and then PBES. STEM classes in the curriculum starting in 1st grade and TPES has a really strong enriched math program for 2nd grade.

[Anonymous]

The only glitch in the TPES to PBES for STEM/Math kids is 3rd grade at Piney Branch. Currently, they do differentiation within the classroom, which means usually the top math kids get worksheets and hardly any time with the teacher. in 4th they can start 4/5 math, and be with their math loving peers in a classroom. Hopefully PBES will change their structure this year and offer enriched math classes based on math scores/ability for 3rd grade. Especially since TPES has done a good job this year of challenging their top 2nd grade math students. It would be hard for those students to go from exciting above grade level project based learning to just sitting and completing worksheets at PBES for all of 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

For ES, I would say the Wootton cluster hands on. STEM is largely ignored throughout the MCPS curriculum so you have to rely on cohort and outside activities. The Wootton area is much nerdier than the Blair area and lots of families do STEM oriented after school activities and camps just for fun. Your kid will easily have a large group of peers who enjoy STEM.

For MS, its a good point that with the TPMS magnet curriculum being "adjusted" to support a greater range of ability, the smart students staying back in the Ws and the additional GT/magnet classes at the MS that TPMS is no longer better than RF or CJ. To the extent that scheduling allows both CJ and RF try to group by cohort in the advanced classes. As there are more high performing students in these area, the high cohort class ends up have higher performing students now than the TPMS magnet.

+1 Another plus is that some of the ES schools are not overcrowded so the kids get a better overall experience with a strong STEM cohort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only glitch in the TPES to PBES for STEM/Math kids is 3rd grade at Piney Branch. Currently, they do differentiation within the classroom, which means usually the top math kids get worksheets and hardly any time with the teacher. in 4th they can start 4/5 math, and be with their math loving peers in a classroom. Hopefully PBES will change their structure this year and offer enriched math classes based on math scores/ability for 3rd grade. Especially since TPES has done a good job this year of challenging their top 2nd grade math students. It would be hard for those students to go from exciting above grade level project based learning to just sitting and completing worksheets at PBES for all of 3rd grade.

PBES also has a dedicated STEM teacher and the local CES includes enriched science accommodates a lot more kids than the regional.

My 3rd grader at PBES picked up where they left off at TPES. They've recently worked on mixed numbers and long division. My understanding is these are topics normally reserved for compacted math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

For ES, I would say the Wootton cluster hands on. STEM is largely ignored throughout the MCPS curriculum so you have to rely on cohort and outside activities. The Wootton area is much nerdier than the Blair area and lots of families do STEM oriented after school activities and camps just for fun. Your kid will easily have a large group of peers who enjoy STEM.

For MS, its a good point that with the TPMS magnet curriculum being "adjusted" to support a greater range of ability, the smart students staying back in the Ws and the additional GT/magnet classes at the MS that TPMS is no longer better than RF or CJ. To the extent that scheduling allows both CJ and RF try to group by cohort in the advanced classes. As there are more high performing students in these area, the high cohort class ends up have higher performing students now than the TPMS magnet.

+1 Another plus is that some of the ES schools are not overcrowded so the kids get a better overall experience with a strong STEM cohort.

Similarly TPES and PBES are focus schools. Class sizes at the former typically range from 16-18 kids.

[Anonymous]

On the MD report card, didn't PBES and TPMS score really low? How can there be a large cohort of top STEM kids when the scores are so low and they are focus schools?

[Anonymous]

The ES cohorts in the Wootton cluster are light years ahead of the cohorts at PBES and TPMS but they are mostly foreign born -Indian, Chinese, Korean, Russian. The white parents are somewhat more accomplished and smarter than their counterparts in Silver Spring but they are not very different than white parents in QO or any other MCPS that isn't low performing. The Wootton cluster is good for you if your kid doesn't want to be an outlier and is happy being friends with a mix of white smart but not brilliant kids and brilliant non-white kids then its a good fit.

No one moves to Silver Spring for the schools. They move there for the discount. The MC people that do live there tend to be in communications, local school system and government workers, feds at lower level positions, liberal arts degree, non-big law legal practices etc. The NASA scientists live in Greenbelt and go private or for the magnets in that county. NIH researchers live in WJ and Wootton. Doctors live in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton and WJ depending on their speciality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the MD report card, didn't PBES and TPMS score really low? How can there be a large cohort of top STEM kids when the scores are so low and they are focus schools?

There is more SES diversity at those schools but when you dig a bit deeper as a PP pointed out students with similar SES tend to perform a bit higher at the Takoma schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The ES cohorts in the Wootton cluster are light years ahead of the cohorts at PBES and TPMS but they are mostly foreign born -Indian, Chinese, Korean, Russian. The white parents are somewhat more accomplished and smarter than their counterparts in Silver Spring but they are not very different than white parents in QO or any other MCPS that isn't low performing. The Wootton cluster is good for you if your kid doesn't want to be an outlier and is happy being friends with a mix of white smart but not brilliant kids and brilliant non-white kids then its a good fit.

No one moves to Silver Spring for the schools. They move there for the discount. The MC people that do live there tend to be in communications, local school system and government workers, feds at lower level positions, liberal arts degree, non-big law legal practices etc. The NASA scientists live in Greenbelt and go private or for the magnets in that county. NIH researchers live in WJ and Wootton. Doctors live in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton and WJ depending on their speciality.

Haha, we have observed the same. What about Churchill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The ES cohorts in the Wootton cluster are light years ahead of the cohorts at PBES and TPMS but they are mostly foreign born -Indian, Chinese, Korean, Russian. The white parents are somewhat more accomplished and smarter than their counterparts in Silver Spring but they are not very different than white parents in QO or any other MCPS that isn't low performing. The Wootton cluster is good for you if your kid doesn't want to be an outlier and is happy being friends with a mix of white smart but not brilliant kids and brilliant non-white kids then its a good fit.

No one moves to Silver Spring for the schools. They move there for the discount. The MC people that do live there tend to be in communications, local school system and government workers, feds at lower level positions, liberal arts degree, non-big law legal practices etc. The NASA scientists live in Greenbelt and go private or for the magnets in that county. NIH researchers live in WJ and Wootton. Doctors live in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton and WJ depending on their speciality.

Except for the DCUM parents who are constantly complaining that their kids couldn't get into the schools there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the MD report card, didn't PBES and TPMS score really low? How can there be a large cohort of top STEM kids when the scores are so low and they are focus schools?

There is more SES diversity at those schools but when you dig a bit deeper as a PP pointed out students with similar SES tend to perform a bit higher at the Takoma schools.

Well...sort of. PBES gets dinged because kids of color do worse at Piney Branch than their peers at nearby schools. There was a whole thread about this a few months ago and people posted all sorts of statistics, but the takeaway was that white kids did well at all of the Silver Spring schools. But Black and Latino kids did worse at Piney Branch, which is both troubling and hurts them on the Maryland Report Card.

I still think Piney Branch is a great school, but there are specific ways in which some UMC white parents have hoarded resources in that school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ES cohorts in the Wootton cluster are light years ahead of the cohorts at PBES and TPMS but they are mostly foreign born -Indian, Chinese, Korean, Russian. The white parents are somewhat more accomplished and smarter than their counterparts in Silver Spring but they are not very different than white parents in QO or any other MCPS that isn't low performing. The Wootton cluster is good for you if your kid doesn't want to be an outlier and is happy being friends with a mix of white smart but not brilliant kids and brilliant non-white kids then its a good fit.

No one moves to Silver Spring for the schools. They move there for the discount. The MC people that do live there tend to be in communications, local school system and government workers, feds at lower level positions, liberal arts degree, non-big law legal practices etc. The NASA scientists live in Greenbelt and go private or for the magnets in that county. NIH researchers live in WJ and Wootton. Doctors live in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton and WJ depending on their speciality.

Haha, we have observed the same. What about Churchill?

Well, when comparing similar SES groups Churhill's SAT average was only 50 points below Blair and there's usually only one or two racist incidents there a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ES cohorts in the Wootton cluster are light years ahead of the cohorts at PBES and TPMS but they are mostly foreign born -Indian, Chinese, Korean, Russian. The white parents are somewhat more accomplished and smarter than their counterparts in Silver Spring but they are not very different than white parents in QO or any other MCPS that isn't low performing. The Wootton cluster is good for you if your kid doesn't want to be an outlier and is happy being friends with a mix of white smart but not brilliant kids and brilliant non-white kids then its a good fit.

No one moves to Silver Spring for the schools. They move there for the discount. The MC people that do live there tend to be in communications, local school system and government workers, feds at lower level positions, liberal arts degree, non-big law legal practices etc. The NASA scientists live in Greenbelt and go private or for the magnets in that county. NIH researchers live in WJ and Wootton. Doctors live in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton and WJ depending on their speciality.

Haha, we have observed the same. What about Churchill?

Well, when comparing similar SES groups Churhill's SAT average was only 50 points below Blair and there's usually only one or two racist incidents there a month.

You don't even have to compare similar groups to factor for the built-in segregation at the W's. Blair's SAT average for 2018 was 1318 which tops any W hands down. Things may have been different back in the 90s. Many of these notions are out of date. Don't expect this to go over well with people whose property values are affected by these trends.

[Anonymous]

Even if all these schools are great, the over crowding can not be ignore. It is so crowded, you might start off in one school and end up splitting up to another school after 2 years.

What do you do? Move further out where are schools are not yet crowded-good luck finding that in Mont Co. You have a higher chance of staying in the same school for multiple years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ES cohorts in the Wootton cluster are light years ahead of the cohorts at PBES and TPMS but they are mostly foreign born -Indian, Chinese, Korean, Russian. The white parents are somewhat more accomplished and smarter than their counterparts in Silver Spring but they are not very different than white parents in QO or any other MCPS that isn't low performing. The Wootton cluster is good for you if your kid doesn't want to be an outlier and is happy being friends with a mix of white smart but not brilliant kids and brilliant non-white kids then its a good fit.

No one moves to Silver Spring for the schools. They move there for the discount. The MC people that do live there tend to be in communications, local school system and government workers, feds at lower level positions, liberal arts degree, non-big law legal practices etc. The NASA scientists live in Greenbelt and go private or for the magnets in that county. NIH researchers live in WJ and Wootton. Doctors live in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton and WJ depending on their speciality.

Haha, we have observed the same. What about Churchill?

Well, when comparing similar SES groups Churhill's SAT average was only 50 points below Blair and there's usually only one or two racist incidents there a month.

You don't even have to compare similar groups to factor for the built-in segregation at the W's. Blair's SAT average for 2018 was 1318 which tops any W hands down. Things may have been different back in the 90s. Many of these notions are out of date. Don't expect this to go over well with people whose property values are affected by these trends.

As a few of PP mentioned, this number is published on a report by Blair, not MCPS. If you compare it with previous Blair SAT results on MCPS site, it is a clear outliner for no good reason (anyone really believe Blair 2018 is so much better than Blair 2016, 2017?)

So please stop comparing this number to SAT results from other schools we have from MCPS. It makes no sense.