What are W schools?
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Anonymous
What makes BCC a W school since it has no "w" on its names? |
Anonymous
Ha, ha, ha, ha. . Do you even live in MD, much less MoCo? |
Anonymous
Of course they are. Watkins Mill, Wheaton, Whitman, WJ, Wootton. There's no W in Churchill or B-CC, though. |
Anonymous
You think you are so clever but apparently aren’t clever enough to know that Churchill is short for Winston Churchill. |
Anonymous
The official name for Churchill is Winston Churchill HS |
Anonymous
No, it's not. Look, here it is, filed in the A-J section, along with Johnson HS, which is also not a W school: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/#tabs Bethesda-Chevy Chase Montgomery Blair James Hubert Blake Winston Churchill Clarksburg Damascus Thomas Edison HS of Technology Albert Einstein Gaithersburg Walter Johnson |
Anonymous
| The W's are a group of schools in western Montgomery county that have an unusually low FARMs rate. This translates to an overall higher average on standardized tests since performance is tied to affluence. That means overall kids score average like most places but there are few low achievers bringing down the school's average. For a high-achiever, they're pretty much the same as any other MCPS high-school in that the top 10% taking rigorous classes it's mostly interchangeable with other high schools. |
Anonymous
It had never occurred to me, until you just posted that, that I have never in 39 years in this county ever heard anyone call WJ "Johnson HS." It's actually kind of weird and surprising. Maybe it's because of the common-ness of Johnson as a name that WJ is always WJ or Walter Johnson but Churchill, Whitman, Blair, etc get referred to by last name only. Same for Richard Montgomery though. I have never heard RM referred to as "Montgomery HS" - only RM or Richard Montgomery. |
Anonymous
BCC is not a W. It is a GS7 for academics. It was originally part of the DCC until the parents were able to change that. |
Anonymous
It is odd since BCC is located the furthest down in the county of any HS whereas the DCC schools are all outside the beltway. |
Anonymous
Do you always suffer from literal thinking? The W in the name is a nemonic device, the W within the school is what people are being cute about. |
Anonymous
| I think of them as Wooton, Whitman and Winston Churchill only. |
Anonymous
PP obviously did not attend a W high school 
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Anonymous
This would be an appropriate response to people who say that Churchill is a W school because Winston! |
Anonymous
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I can back about 25 years for Montgomery County history. The "W school" name came about when the Washingtonian and other magazines used to publish the top schools. This followed the US News and World report rankings. This is before you had zillow and other sites easily providing rankings. The pattern of the top schools having a W in their names created the nick name W school. The "W schools" referred to Churchill. Whitman, WJ and Wootton. WJ and Wootton were originally "provisional members" of the club due to their high test scores. I suspect that if either's scores ever dropped they would have been booted out quickly. Churchill and Whitman had prestige beyond just their ratings, college placements, notable alumni, and desirable areas. Back then MCPS was 60+% white as opposed to 30% white so there were plenty of other white majority white schools in MCPS that just didn't score as well on the various tests.
The 4 W schools have consistently stayed in the top even as MCPS has fallen over all in rankings. Whitman fell out one year because students boycotted PARCC and another year Whitman didn't bother to submit scores. Whitman continued to reign as the most desirable school in the system based on prestige etc. In recent years , Poolesville has consistently been ranked the #1 school in MD and dominates all the charts. Poolesville must lack a PR department though because you never hear anything about its top performance. In actual W school areas you don't hear anyone using this name or giving a hoot. People moving in now just look at the scores which stand on their own. You only hear the term W school from people who do not live in the W school areas. |