Weller Road?

[Anonymous]

I'm currently looking to move to the Bethesda/Kensington area, specifically for houses in the Whitman, Walter Johnson, B-CC cluster. A house came on the market today in North Bethesda that is two streets away from Weller Road ES, but is districted for Ashburton ES. I'm well aware that Weller Road does not perform as highly as Ashburton and it raises some concerns. First, how is it that an elementary school in Bethesda is not performing well, is in the Einstein cluster, and doesn't draw from the neighborhood around it? Second, what are the odds that at some point in the near future, the eastern section of north Bethesda (east of Old GT Rd) will be districted for Weller Road?

Since we're on the topic, does anyone think it likely that the outskirts of Kensington (currently districted for Kensington-Parkhill) will get redistricted for Rock View ES?

Thanks for your insight.

[Anonymous]

Is this a typo? Weller Road elem is in wheaton/aspen hill. It's currently being renovated. It's nearly 100% Hispanic.

[Anonymous]

The housing school may be two streets away from where you are looking...but the school in that building changes every year based on who is being renovated. That building has zero to do with where your kids will go to school.

[Anonymous]

Weller Road is being renovated--the students that attend it live in Aspen Hill, as PP said, and are going to the holding school in the mean time. The "real" school building is on... surprise... Weller Rd.

[Anonymous]

OP here. That explains a lot. I'm not from the area, so it wasn't intuitive to me that the school was in a temporary location. From Google Maps, the school is simply labeled "Weller Rd ES." Thanks for the input and my daily dose of DCUM snark

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm currently looking to move to the Bethesda/Kensington area, specifically for houses in the Whitman, Walter Johnson, B-CC cluster. A house came on the market today in North Bethesda that is two streets away from Weller Road ES, but is districted for Ashburton ES. I'm well aware that Weller Road does not perform as highly as Ashburton and it raises some concerns. First, how is it that an elementary school in Bethesda is not performing well, is in the Einstein cluster, and doesn't draw from the neighborhood around it? Second, what are the odds that at some point in the near future, the eastern section of north Bethesda (east of Old GT Rd) will be districted for Weller Road?

Since we're on the topic, does anyone think it likely that the outskirts of Kensington (currently districted for Kensington-Parkhill) will get redistricted for Rock View ES?

Thanks for your insight.

Sounds like a real estate agent is lying. Weller Road is no where near North Bethesda. If you buy the house brush up on your Spanish.

[Anonymous]

I'm my elementary school's delegate to the county PTA. The big issue every other year is the Capital Improvement Plan. So last year's discussion was full of which school's they're going to add to/which new schools are being built. The question always comes around to redistricting when they talk about overcrowding.

Know that redistricting is political dynamite (especially on the border of Bethesda and Silver Spring and the border of Potomac and Gaithersburg). It has happened but it's really rare and if it were to happen, there would be a LOT of build up to it.

If you're asking about a kid who is alive already, you don't have to worry about ending up in a different school than the MCPS school locators says you're in now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm my elementary school's delegate to the county PTA. The big issue every other year is the Capital Improvement Plan. So last year's discussion was full of which school's they're going to add to/which new schools are being built. The question always comes around to redistricting when they talk about overcrowding.

Know that redistricting is political dynamite (especially on the border of Bethesda and Silver Spring and the border of Potomac and Gaithersburg). It has happened but it's really rare and if it were to happen, there would be a LOT of build up to it.

If you're asking about a kid who is alive already, you don't have to worry about ending up in a different school than the MCPS school locators says you're in now.

+ 1000 - I have participated in a Boundary Study which recommended redistricting. The Boundary Study group were parents that then gave a recommendation to the Superintendent. No one wants to upset the apple cart. Boundary adjustments are rare and tend to be as limited as possible. We focused on changing elementary school boundaries to alleviate overcrowding but avoided any changes in middle school and high school assignments. Current students and their siblings were grandfathered in so they could opt out of the change in school if they chose.

In general, you child will get the same educational opportunities no matter which school your child goes to. Reputations are often fictional and the choice schools have their issues that just aren't as advertised as some of the lesser income schools.

[Anonymous]

op, I live in the neighborhood right near the school. on some maps, i've seen it called 'grosvenor education center' or the like. as someone else said, it is a 'swing' site for school who are renovating. In the last few years, it has been bells mill school and takmoa park I think too.

There used to be a regular elementary school at grosvenor, but the demographics on 'our' side of old georgetown road got a lot older. some neighbors have speculated that perhaps son there would be a critical mass of younger kids that would move into the neighborhood (there is a good amount of this transition happening now), and that maybe grosvenor would go back to being a regular ES. however, we have no idea how the logistics of that work.