Norwood, Holton or WES?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, to answer your question:
MCPS K-4
Holton 5-8
MCPS 9-12

Personally, I'd rather send my child to any of these three schools than MCPS. It depends on what is important to you in a school. For us, we want small classes, personalized attention, frequent PE and sport opportunities, values instruction, frequent arts and emphasis on writing and public speaking vs. taking a multiple choice test among other things. These three private schools are all better at those than MCPS.

[Anonymous]

pp, I agree that the above mentioned privates are better at the etxras than MCPS. However, I have a lot of trouble saying that the above privates are better than MCPS wrt core academics. MCPS also has highly qualified teachers and administrators. One of the above mentioned privates has someone with a degree in a non academic subject making all the decisions about core academics and curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, to answer your question:
MCPS K-4
Holton 5-8
MCPS 9-12

Personally, I'd rather send my child to any of these three schools than MCPS. It depends on what is important to you in a school. For us, we want small classes, personalized attention, frequent PE and sport opportunities, values instruction, frequent arts and emphasis on writing and public speaking vs. taking a multiple choice test among other things. These three private schools are all better at those than MCPS.

We have been private for many years for exactly the reasons the person stated above. We switched into a MCPS middle school this year for 7th grade at one of the well regarded MS in Bethesda/Potomac. I have to say , we were quite fearful of what my DC would be missing and we have been really surprised how much is going on. My DC has PE every day, is in orchestra every day, has had more writing assignments in a week then he had at his private school, great choices for art electives that did not exist at his private, strong emphasis on organizational skills, guidance counselor that is dedicated to overseeing his success coming from a small private, better math curriculum and science, and some HW every day. There is more going on than multiple choice tests. We do miss the smaller classes but those can be a double edge sword socially. If your child does't connect with the group of kids in that class, it can be really hard. With so many kids, there is a better chance to find a group that you fit with.


Norwood and Holton are great schools. They do offer a lot. I am not sure WES is in the same category. However, to say that all these private schools are better than MCPS is pretty dismissive. We have been on both sides of the fence and truly believed private was better. I have to admit it is not at all what I thought. It has only been a week but at least from what I have seen so far, I have to admit I was wrong about my thoughts on public and what they offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, to answer your question:
M


We have been private for many years for exactly the reasons the person stated above. We switched into a MCPS middle school this year for 7th grade at one of the well regarded MS in Bethesda/Potomac. I have to say , we were quite fearful of what my DC would be missing and we have been really surprised how much is going on. My DC has PE every day, is in orchestra every day, has had more writing assignments in a week then he had at his private school, great choices for art electives that did not exist at his private, strong emphasis on organizational skills, guidance counselor that is dedicated to overseeing his success coming from a small private, better math curriculum and science, and some HW every day. There is more going on than multiple choice tests. We do miss the smaller classes but those can be a double edge sword socially. If your child does't connect with the group of kids in that class, it can be really hard. With so many kids, there is a better chance to find a group that you fit with.


Norwood and Holton are great schools. They do offer a lot. I am not sure WES is in the same category. However, to say that all these private schools are better than MCPS is pretty dismissive. We have been on both sides of the fence and truly believed private was better. I have to admit it is not at all what I thought. It has only been a week but at least from what I have seen so far, I have to admit I was wrong about my thoughts on public and what they offered.

ITA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Norwood changed the MS math curriculum, I understand. What did they do, and toward what end? I thought it was for more differentiation, but now I've also heard it was to make it hard to differentiate skill levels within a class.

The adoption of Core Curriculum seems to have meant the death of meaningful differentiation in math at Norwood, and current staff seem oblivious as to the benefits of acceleration for mathematical kids. WES is moving in the opposite direction and will be offering Geometry in 8th grade this year. In general, Norwood seems to be moving away from meaningful differentiation. As the only reason for parents of a bright child to pick Norwood over a top K-12 was their commitment to ability grouping differentiation, they are going to have to get used to a less academic population. That might work well for them in the short run, but when their exmissions tank, they are going to have even more admissions problems than they already have.

[Anonymous]

pp the curriculum was never meaningful, it was bad, but sadly, they are not doing the best job rolling this one out.

[Anonymous]

To the previous pps, are you a former Norwood disgruntled staff, posting the same drivel over and over again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pp the curriculum was never meaningful, it was bad, but sadly, they are not doing the best job rolling this one out.

Good point, lol. Other poster: I'm a parent, not staff or former staff. I like Norwood, but it has some problems, like all schools.

[Anonymous]

OP I still would look at public. As you see by reading these posts, all private schools have real issues. I would say that public schools have fewer outstanding great areas (specials are not abundant in early years), but fewer horrible areas. I don't think that my 6 year old will become better at picking colors if she is taught art by the master artist that one of these schools has. But she will benefit from solid teachers and ADMINISTRATION in public schools. Yes in public school, you are a number, not a name, but you get to keep your money. Also, anonymity can have its advantages, I call it privacy.

[nullnvoid]

re: the comment by 8-31-12, 19:05, who wrote "The adoption of Core Curriculum seems to have meant the death of meaningful differentiation in math at Norwood, and current staff seem oblivious as to the benefits of acceleration for mathematical kids. WES is moving in the opposite direction and will be offering Geometry in 8th grade this year"

just trying to correct an error in the above, not criticizing the pp for the error: WES is NOT moving in the opposite direction: WES is not planning to offer Geometry in 8th grade every year; it is offering Geometry only for this year, only for a small subset of the 8th grade students. Geometry is being offered as a one-off for this year because the kids' (admirably-determined) parents successfully lobbied/pressured the school into offering it for their kids. The school agreed to offer it just for this year, just for those kids.

[Anonymous]

I spoke to the principal (or whatever they are called) at one of the schools the OP asks about. They question was how the students at the school fared on standardized tests. The answer was that the average student performed 50% percentile when compared to other independent schools but top quartile when compared to MCPS. Just another data point.

[Anonymous]

Academically, Holton is the strongest school. Then WES. Then Norwood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to the principal (or whatever they are called) at one of the schools the OP asks about. They question was how the students at the school fared on standardized tests. The answer was that the average student performed 50% percentile when compared to other independent schools but top quartile when compared to MCPS. Just another data point.

That includes a different demographic
Lets compare apples to apples. Look at the MCPS scores from the Whitman Churchill cluster.

[Anonymous]

nullnvoid wrote:re: the comment by 8-31-12, 19:05, who wrote "The adoption of Core Curriculum seems to have meant the death of meaningful differentiation in math at Norwood, and current staff seem oblivious as to the benefits of acceleration for mathematical kids. WES is moving in the opposite direction and will be offering Geometry in 8th grade this year"

just trying to correct an error in the above, not criticizing the pp for the error: WES is NOT moving in the opposite direction: WES is not planning to offer Geometry in 8th grade every year; it is offering Geometry only for this year, only for a small subset of the 8th grade students. Geometry is being offered as a one-off for this year because the kids' (admirably-determined) parents successfully lobbied/pressured the school into offering it for their kids. The school agreed to offer it just for this year, just for those kids.

Look Norwood needed the core! The previous set up was a nightmare. The line that was repeated, "we are getttng to the same place, but in a different way" was old and lame. The basics are now being taken seriously. That said, the school still has challenges, namely staff issues, but hopefully, it will get there.

[Anonymous]

Maybe times have changed. But I went to a pretty good high school and we took algebra I in ninth grade and geometry in tenth grade. Am I just old? Can't recall what was taught in 8th grade. But geometry was my fav math class.