MCPS family considering DCPS
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
| It was 10 years ago, but I visited a number of NWDC and close-in Montgomery county public elementary schools during the school day, along with talking with families there, before choosing where to buy a house. The MCPS schools had too many kids in the classroom and the teachers seemed lower quality (including heavier reliance on student teachers). The DCPS school we ended up choosing had real teachers as assistants/partner teachers, a more thoughtful daily schedule (multiple recesses), better resources, and more dynamic teaching. We were happy with our choice. I would go ahead and visit before the school year ends and make your own decision about it (if you are nice about it, they will often let you visit outside of formal open houses). |
Anonymous
| OP here. The last reply (“10 years ago..:”)was helpful. Thank you. Which elementary school did you end up enrolling your children in? |
Anonymous
We did the opposite - moved from WOTP to near CCES. We probably live near one another. My kids have has good experiences at RHES, CCES, and now Silver Creek. For us it has been better than DCPS. I would suggest not listening to neighbors who chose private and didn't even try out Rosemary Hills. |
Anonymous
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OP, I would just visit the schools you're interested in and ask to be connected with parents from those PTOs.
Fwiw, DCPS teachers are overall better paid and tend to be better credentialed than those MCPS. In ES, class sizes are smaller and often have classroom aides and more specials as well. Many DCPS ES across the city are great. And there's a ton of wealthy families attending DCPS schools, esp. in Wards 2, 3, and 4. OP might not decide it's worth it for whatever trade-offs between individual schools, but the blanket generalizations about the entire district on this thread are silly. |
Anonymous
Holy crap. Yes it is. There are years when there are actual classes without teachers at JR. My one kid didn't learn any physics in high school because although he "took" AP Physics, he literally didn't have a teacher. Got an A for doing NOTHING. The same thing happened for my 11th grade in AP Environmental Science. This totally insanity does not happen at BCC. |
Anonymous
Kids at BCC roll in late just like JR, no consequences, don’t turn in their work. They switch teachers halfway through the year for no reason at BCC because these are year long courses. So some teachers just do nothing in December because their colleagues are so far behind in thr curriculum. That is total insanity to me. |
Anonymous
You had bad luck…but I had two kids go through JR and neither of the above happened. My kids had a physics teacher who used to be a college professor and was excellent. What you are also describing is a situation where a teacher leaves right before the school year starts. It sucks, but doesn’t happen that frequently, but they can’t produce a physics teacher magically. As PP said, these exact issues happen all the time at BCC as well. If you look at demographics, AP pass rates, etc. (and yes discipline issues which aren’t bad at either but happen), these schools look remarkably similar. |
Anonymous
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FWIW, next year class sizes at Rosemary Hills will be 19 because it's becoming a focus school, now that the FARMs rate has gone up to over 30 percent. CCES does not have that, as the CES kids who come in pull it under 30 percent (the regular program has similar demographics to RHES) -- class sizes at CCES will be higher just like in DCPS upper NW schools.
What you will find until B-CC is that all the schools--RHES, CCES, and SCMS--are diverse with about 1/3 of the school Black, Hispanic, and white each. Your kids will definitely interact with many kids who get FARMs. That was achieved by bussing. It's something that those of us in the neighborhood who send their kids to public schools generally find to be a benefit. Our family prefers this to what we experienced in DCPS, which is very segregated by race and income. |
Anonymous
My kid is at BCC. Teachers are assigned per semester, which is why sometimes the teacher changes from semester A to semester B. My kid's English, math and computer science teachers did not switch out, so she's had those three for the entire year. She's had two teachers for each of her other subjects. Every teacher ensures that they teach their portion of the curriculum, so this does not affect learning. This happens in every MCPS high school. My oldest attended Walter Johnson, further north in Bethesda, and had the same experience. As to your comment about teens tardiness... they're teens and high schools start too early for their temporarily changed circadian rhythm. They will ALWAYS want to sleep in. Furthermore, DCPS high schools in general have a reduced number of advanced courses compared to MCPS and a less accelerated general track. In MCPS, the normal track for students is to take AP US Gov in 9th, AP US History in 10th, AP World History in 11th, and then go on to take others. At JR, the recommended track leads to AP US History in 11th and AP US Gov in 12th. At BCC and some other high schools, students can take post-AP math classes in their own building. At JR, there is nothing after AP Calculus and AP Stats, except possibly one year of dual enrollment. I could go on. But it's an accepted fact, over decades and decades of third party testing and individual comparisons, that DCPS is not a good public school system overall. I do not disagree that some DCPS elementaries are really nice! I have friends who are really happy with some of them, and some charters. But then the problem is moving kids away from their cohort in middle school to go private or move to MCPS or FCPS. Many NW DC families do this. For OP's situation specifically, she already lives in one of the most luxurious corners of the entire DC region. It's a little weird to move her children twice! One of my kids attended Chevy Chase ES and we loved it. It's one of the best elementary schools in MCPS, houses the elementary magnet (CES) for 4th and 5th grade, which my kid attended, and has the wealthiest parent-run educational foundation of the entire MCPS system. The school property itself is VERY NICE. I cannot comment on Rosemary Hills. To be entirely frank, I think it's just a case of OP not having enough perspective and knowledge on the MCPS/DCPS situation, and getting overly anxious for nothing. Her kids will thrive, unless they have undiagnosed special needs. One of my kids had special needs, and an IEP throughout nearly all his K-12 MCPS career. He received great services and accommodations, but we did have to do our due diligence and hover to make sure they were put in place and enforced. If OP is not happy with the best of what MCPS has to offer, she will not be happy with the best of DCPS, and should look into private schools. Private schools: only the top privates in the region will rival the instruction of MCPS, with one glaring exception: English. English is the Achille's heel of MCPS, and other public schools. The classes are too large for reading and writing to be taught to what I would consider to be a good level. I supplemented, like many educated parents do. But no privates can rival MCPS' focus on math and science, by a long way!!! So OP, there is no perfect school situation. Pick what you think is the best fit for your kids and supplement the rest. We chose to stay in MCPS, because supplementing a private education means throwing a lot more money out of the window. That way I have enough money to pay for any private university and grad school. Oldest is currently in an 85K a year university. |
Anonymous
JR has 29 AP options to 23 at BCC. It’s not advanced or not advanced as to when you can take various AP history classes. It just is a different philosophy on it. Sophomores are free to enroll in any number of other AP classes such as Computer Science or Psych or Economics et al. BCC average SAT scores are higher but ACT identical. It’s neither here or there on math past AP calc other than I guarantee multivariable or linear algebra or differential or basically any college class at Georgetown or GW will be more rigorous than BCC. Nobody is saying it’s bad…but in fact JR and BCC are the most similar high schools in the DMV. |
Anonymous
You are forgetting two important things: 1. BCC has the International Baccalaureate programme, which doubles the number of advanced classes kids can take. They have slightly fewer APs than Walter Johnson or Walt Whitman high schools (or other so-called W schools in MCPS), because they offer the full IB courses. 2. It does matter what the "normal" track is, because it creates a cohort of studious kids in the school. If most kids are taking AP US Gov in 9th, and stay on that track (and most do), that's a wholly different level of writing, reading and discussion than regular history. IB classes are more writing and research-heavy than APs, and kids need to be really good writers to do well. So all in all, you are wrong. BCC has much higher-level studies than JR, and a cohort of kids who are spread out in APs and IBs are doing more advanced work, on average, than the JR population. But this is moot for OP, since she wants to move her kids back at some point. OP needs to think more about this, because leaving MCPS only to come back to it might potentially create hassle if she's looking for continuity and wants her kids to be placed on advanced tracks. For math, this starts in 3rd, when kids are tested to go into compacted math in 4th (or the CES, the elementary magnet). OP can send her kids elsewhere and make sure they end up back at BCC on accelerated tracks, but it's going to take a lot more double-checking at critical points. And given OP's current lack of understanding of the system, it might be easier for her to just stick to MCPS. |
Anonymous
| English is much better in MCPS for ES now that they have adopted CKLA. And they will have CKLA for MS starting next year. The HS English 9/10 curriculum, however, was written in-house and is bad. We supplemented through that with an enrichment tutor. Not ideal but cheaper than private. |
Anonymous
| I live in Montgomery County in a not great elementary school boundary and teach in a top DCPS school. I would definitely put my kids in the DCPS school if it were possible. But only because our home school is not great. I wouldn’t leave a really good MCPS for DCPS. And I’m not sure I would switch if I was staying for middle school. |
Anonymous
Nobody gives a shit about taking history classes earlier…nobody. So, you take other AP classes if you want. IB is just duplicating APs in most instances…so who cares? Nobody will take AP Environmental Science and IB Environmental Science as just one example? As much as you want to keep spewing nonsense…sorry, but the two schools are very similar. Let’s face it…if OP is moving back they would be much better served in the Whitman and Churchill and those schools than BCC. |