Experience with Oak View Elementary

[Anonymous]

Are all the kids in the CES doing 4/5 math? Are there any kids not in compacted?

[Anonymous]

In this year's 4th grade I believe they are all in Compacted Math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child went through Oak View CES. Had a mixed experience. The 4th grade teachers were great. The 5th grade teacher was also really good and we had some issues with the teacher that left, although he was a good teacher he was very sarcastic and not a great fit for my kid but he's gone anyway.

Admin was not great in my experience. The old VP was not good, but he is gone. The current principal is responsive to parents, in my experience. He is very strict. The school is not run like your average middle class school and we came from a focus school but one that had a more diverse make-up then Oak View. Outside the center Oak View is not diverse (mostly Hispanic). That's okay, but the center kids are generally not well-integrated into the rest of the school and there are a lot of behavior problems in the rest of the student body.

The PTA is small. This influences the outside opportunities. There was no St. Mary's trip the year my child was in 4th grade. There were free after school clubs led by teachers. Sometimes the two center classes get very small socially for the kids because there is limited social interaction outside the center. My child became friends with a few kids outside the center but there was resentment from kids outside the program on the playground and in the lunchroom. The paras are not friendly to the kids and the whole system of discipline is not what you'd expect at a school with fewer discipline issues. If you are coming from Flora Singer or Woodlin or the like this school is different in those ways. The IM teacher was only there once a week and that impacted his ability to help run any extra help for instrumental music and there was only one concert a school year.

Just a couple points of clarification based on more recent experiences:

1) The St. Mary's trip isn't a function of the PTA size, but rather an administrative-level decision that the trip is cost prohibitive for many students, and that "just" having the CES kids go would be inequitable.

2) Instrumental music is happening twice a week now.

[Anonymous]

The principal spoke at the open house about finding more ways to integrate the students, for instance over lunchtime. Perhaps this will make it seem less like a school within a school once the kids have a chance to meet others outside the program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the administration like? Are they easy to work with? What about non-CES classes? Are they engaging? Do the kids participate in programs like Odessy of the Mind?

The principal is very friendly and down-to-earth. We had a principal intern as AP this year, who'll be leaving this summer to become principal at Farmland, so there'll be a new AP at Oak View.

The principal has caused pretty much all of the teachers to leave since he took over. He may seem friendly but is obviously not a good leader.

This is not accurate at all. There are many long-term teachers at Oak View.

Actually, it is completely accurate. But believe whatever you want to believe.

~Mom to three, has seen Oak View turnover since Mr. C. took over and who misses the excellent previous principal

I'm a parent of a 5th grader in CES at OVES. So I cannot speak to the longer history of admin and teacher turnover at Oak View. I have been impressed with Mr Cline, based on attending school-wide meetings, PTA, etc. He is leading a school with many poor families, many latino and immigrant families, and he seems very committed to serving this community well and helping kids get what they need. He talked about the afterschool clubs, and intentionally structuring them as free so that everyone can participate, and framing that as an equity issue, which I agree is important and I appreciate.

The PTA is smaller, less active, and has less money than our home school's PTA did -- which is understandable given that Oak View's families probably have less money and time to give to the school. But it is still active and doing things, just with a smaller number of parents doing the work.

[Anonymous]

Just to respond to several misunderstandings I've seen in this post, as well as answer some other questions. And full disclosure, I'm a staff member at the school:

- There has been some turnover since Mr. Cline took over; if you look at any school that gets a new principal, that is not unusual as a new principal means new policies and ways of running the school. Mr. Cline is a good leader and has HIGH expectations for staff and students. Mrs. Salazar was much more lax. So some teachers who got used to not being as accountable left.
- The 4th grade center teachers are both amazing! They understand the gifted population, and are both working together in the same Master's program for Gifted and Talented certification. They have different styles that compliment each other, and they build in a lot of work time in class, as well as strategies to further support students organization and executive functioning needs as they adjust to the increased workload.
- Regarding math, the center students are all in the compacted 4/5 math, with a few in 5/6 math. There are also some non-CES students in the compacted math, including an additional compacted math class for non-center students.
- The health staff are excellent, and have experience with diabetic students. There are also some staff members with diabetes (Type 1) who have been trained to support students if the health tech or nurse happened to be out and the substitute tech was not as experienced.
- As another poster mentioned, the St. Mary's trip was due to the cost of it. The PTA is amazing and words hard for our students, but they are very small and limited funds are available. The funds they have are used to help supplement field trip costs for students, put on assemblies at both schools (The PTA is a joint PTA between Oak View and our K-2 sister school New Hampshire Estates ES), and provide after-school club stipends.
- Clubs were available in the fall to students, and they serve a mixed group of students, but there is no transportation for the CES kids to Pinecrest or any of their other homeschools. The bus only goes along the neighborhood routes, and many CES parents were unable to pick them up.
- Mr. Cline is working on integrating the CES students with the rest of the school, but it is challenging as the only times are lunch and recess. They are mixed in more during some of the PBIS (Positive Behavior management system) rewards. Also, the 4th grade teachers (center and non-center) were working on a way to integrate students for some activities and team-building.

[Anonymous]

With regard to Mr. Cline, I just wanted to share that a couple of weeks ago my child was feeling a little bit down (like probably many Center kids, he can be hard on himself sometimes), and Mr. Cline not only took the time to sit and chat with him on the playground, but also to give me a call to tell me about it. OVES is not perfect by any means, but I am so grateful that my child (as well his older sibling a few years back) had the opportunity to attend the CES. We have found the program to be excellent and the administration, including Mr. Cline, to be very committed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just to respond to several misunderstandings I've seen in this post, as well as answer some other questions. And full disclosure, I'm a staff member at the school:

- There has been some turnover since Mr. Cline took over; if you look at any school that gets a new principal, that is not unusual as a new principal means new policies and ways of running the school. Mr. Cline is a good leader and has HIGH expectations for staff and students. Mrs. Salazar was much more lax. So some teachers who got used to not being as accountable left.
- The 4th grade center teachers are both amazing! They understand the gifted population, and are both working together in the same Master's program for Gifted and Talented certification. They have different styles that compliment each other, and they build in a lot of work time in class, as well as strategies to further support students organization and executive functioning needs as they adjust to the increased workload.
- Regarding math, the center students are all in the compacted 4/5 math, with a few in 5/6 math. There are also some non-CES students in the compacted math, including an additional compacted math class for non-center students.
- The health staff are excellent, and have experience with diabetic students. There are also some staff members with diabetes (Type 1) who have been trained to support students if the health tech or nurse happened to be out and the substitute tech was not as experienced.
- As another poster mentioned, the St. Mary's trip was due to the cost of it. The PTA is amazing and words hard for our students, but they are very small and limited funds are available. The funds they have are used to help supplement field trip costs for students, put on assemblies at both schools (The PTA is a joint PTA between Oak View and our K-2 sister school New Hampshire Estates ES), and provide after-school club stipends.
- Clubs were available in the fall to students, and they serve a mixed group of students, but there is no transportation for the CES kids to Pinecrest or any of their other homeschools. The bus only goes along the neighborhood routes, and many CES parents were unable to pick them up.
- Mr. Cline is working on integrating the CES students with the rest of the school, but it is challenging as the only times are lunch and recess. They are mixed in more during some of the PBIS (Positive Behavior management system) rewards. Also, the 4th grade teachers (center and non-center) were working on a way to integrate students for some activities and team-building.

Thanks, Staff Member! And thanks for all the work you and your colleagues do for the kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What did you think of the open house today? I’m out of town and wasn’t able to attend, so I’d love to hear feedback.

The thing I liked the most was that the current CES students had clearly been involved in planning the open house, and played a really active role in presenting (and just generally seemed comfortable with each other and the teachers). There was a cute presentation from two boys from different home schools explaining about how they became best friends at the CES. So the presentation seemed like kind of an example of how they get the kids more involved in their own learning process, instead of giving them worksheets to fill out.

And I guess to their credit, they did not soft-pedal some of the logistical challenges with the buses and the transition from home schools in wealthier neighborhoods, where parents can afford to pay for afterschool clubs and the PTA raises a lot of money for enrichment.

[Anonymous]

Its a weird CES. Many parents and students complain about the amount of work but from what I can tell the workload is on par or even less than other CES programs in other clusters. The kids don't all seem CES material and I'm not talking about poor AA or hispanic families but the run of the mill type white families. I get the impression that kids in other CES programs are better because they are much more competitive with so many high fliers in the areas and are better fits for an actual high flier. Oak View has more basic above average type kids but not really the gifted type students. There seem to be plenty of kids at Oak View whose parents don't want them with the general population at their school. These kids don't really want to do the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its a weird CES. Many parents and students complain about the amount of work but from what I can tell the workload is on par or even less than other CES programs in other clusters. The kids don't all seem CES material and I'm not talking about poor AA or hispanic families but the run of the mill type white families. I get the impression that kids in other CES programs are better because they are much more competitive with so many high fliers in the areas and are better fits for an actual high flier. Oak View has more basic above average type kids but not really the gifted type students. There seem to be plenty of kids at Oak View whose parents don't want them with the general population at their school. These kids don't really want to do the work.

There are a lot of pretty bold statements in this post, suggesting someone who claims to have intimate knowledge not only of Oak View, but of "other" CES programs. While it is possible that one family would have kids in separate CES programs, maybe Pine Crest and Oak View back when both had kids from the same cluster, I'm wondering why PP seems so confident in his/her assertions.

As a parent who has sent two kids through the CES program, none of what PP says rings true for me. I've never heard any parent or student complain about the workload. I've heard people acknowledge that it is a step up from 3rd grade, but haven't heard complaints. I don't have the impression the work load is LESS, just that folks aren't complaining. I also have never heard an Oak View CES parent complain about the home school. Kids come from a pretty broad mix of elementary schools, with widely varying demographics, but in my multiple years in the school have not heard anyone even hint about "those kids" at the home school.

For what it is worth, Oak View kids do well in magnet middle school placements and seem well-adjusted and hard working in my experience. I won't say that every single kid appears to be a super genius, but it seems to have a pretty normal mix of off-the-charts bright kids on one hand, and super motivated and hard-working kids on the other. I doubt this is much different than any other program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its a weird CES. Many parents and students complain about the amount of work but from what I can tell the workload is on par or even less than other CES programs in other clusters. The kids don't all seem CES material and I'm not talking about poor AA or hispanic families but the run of the mill type white families. I get the impression that kids in other CES programs are better because they are much more competitive with so many high fliers in the areas and are better fits for an actual high flier. Oak View has more basic above average type kids but not really the gifted type students. There seem to be plenty of kids at Oak View whose parents don't want them with the general population at their school. These kids don't really want to do the work.

I call troll. How could you possibly know how the kids at Oak View compare to other CES’.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its a weird CES. Many parents and students complain about the amount of work but from what I can tell the workload is on par or even less than other CES programs in other clusters. The kids don't all seem CES material and I'm not talking about poor AA or hispanic families but the run of the mill type white families. I get the impression that kids in other CES programs are better because they are much more competitive with so many high fliers in the areas and are better fits for an actual high flier. Oak View has more basic above average type kids but not really the gifted type students. There seem to be plenty of kids at Oak View whose parents don't want them with the general population at their school. These kids don't really want to do the work.

LOL, this has been the case since the HGC program expanded ten years ago. Keep up.

[Anonymous]

The principal spoke at the open house about finding more ways to integrate the students, for instance over lunchtime. Perhaps this will make it seem less like a school within a school once the kids have a chance to meet others outside the program

Aren't New Hampshire Estates and Oak View two of the schools with the highest concentration of in-bound poverty with roughest crowds? Even by DCC standards, there is a wide gap in experience between the CES students and the regular students who are dealing with far more serious issues -homelessness, parental incarceration, fear of deportation, food insecurity, older siblings or teenage cousins with pregnancy, gangs, or drug problems, or simple just extreme poverty where new clothes, school supplies and ample food aren't available. These aren't groups that will become peers or have playdates. I wouldn't fault the school for not having an active enough PTSA if the parents are dealing with more serious issues.

[Anonymous]

I can see how the parent was frustrated. MCPS goes out of their way to ty to orchestrate any public engagement so that they can shut down what MCPS doesn't want to hear. Its often patronizing and makes parents feel like fools for ever attending in the first place.

A few years ago, the big thing was "listen and learn sessions" which normally would mean that the officials attending were there to listen to and learn about the community. In MCPS, no way. It meant that the community was expected to sit there, stay quiet and listen to them. If the community didn't agree, well then the community just hadn't learned enough yet. It was ridiculous.

If you have ever been part of MCCPTA then you'd know who controlled and unrepresentative it is for the parents and students. I agreed to do BOE testimony and was shocked that the cluster coordinators expected to give me all the points and script and that there was an expectation that the principal would approve the script. I suggested that we poll the parents and ask what they think and then speak based on that feedback. They looked at me like I had 3 heads and went into full swing pressure mode. I declined and told them to find someone else to be a community spokesperson for MCPS under the guise of being a parent representative.

I think its great to involve students in public engagement activities but they are being used and manipulated by MCPS and MCCPTA who have different agendas. Its very guided by selection and encouragement.