Beall Elementary/West End Park

[Anonymous]

I am looking at buying a house in the West End Park area which is zoned for Beall Elem. I have a DS in 1st grade. I have read through some of the threads on here about Beall but they are older. Can anyone give an update as to what it is like this year? I plan to visit the school but don't know anyone who has their kids there so any info would be appreciated.

Also, do the families in the West End Park neighborhood tend to send their kids to Beall or private?

Thanks so much!

[Anonymous]

My daughter is in K, so I do not havea ton of experience, but so far I am very pleased. I do have some issues with MCPS administration and testing system, but that is county-wide so you cannot escape it without going private. I find the school and the PTA to be EXTREMELY good at communication. A couple weeks ago, they had an unplanned fire drill b/c soembody pulled the alarm "by accident." Within an hour, we had an emailf romth e school explaining what happened. They even did a telephone balst later that night.

We live just northeast of West End Park. We are able to walk by daughter to school or let her take the bus. It seems to me that most of the students are from the immediate surrounds. For a decently-large school, they do a great job of creating a sense of community.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much - that is helpful to know!

[Anonymous]

I have a 1st grader at Beall. We've generally been happy, and most of our complaints are MCPS policy type issues, not specific to this school.
I agree with PP that it is a great community with quite a few active parents. I'd say most (60-70%?) of the elementary aged kids in the neighborhood attend Beall, but there are also quite a few in Catholic school or other MCPS schools ( language immersion, COSA, HGC, certain special ed).