African American parents - which schools in MoCo?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whitman pyramid. And private tutoring.

Wasn't Whitman was the school with the N*word cards or was it the one with the blackface incident?

Yes. But Becky was very pleased with the principal's response.

[Anonymous]

Westover ES. Very small school, tight knit community, economically and racially diverse, teachers know all the families. Demographics are about 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic, 1/6 white, 1/6 Asian. Lots of high-achieving AA students and families. Middle school is not great, White Oak, but that can be said of most middle schools. High school is the Northeast Consortium, so several options.

[Anonymous]

OP here and wow! Thank you all for your responses and insight!

To answer a few questions - no I’m not a single mother and the budget would be around $800K. For my own personal experience having been raised in a MoCo suburb I was often the only AA child in my classrooms as I took honors level courses but the general population was pretty diverse. The “wealthy” HS that often get praised on here make me hesitate because I remember kids from those high schools with a lot more access to drugs and other activities that were far more severe then my friends in the more “urban” area - this is ages ago so things could have changed. Either way thank you all again and please keep the recommendations coming!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

I am Asian and my kids go to a very diverse school. The expectation from AA students and the education they get...is frankly, below standard, and parents are pretty complicit in tjis. I cannot understand how they will succeed in life because there is very little going on in their lives that will help them in succeeding.

So, maybe you don’t want her kids to be friends with the kids of this person.

OP is an AA who is posting on this board due to her deep interest in the education of her children, so this is an inappropriate response.

Exactly.

+2. PP's post wasn't relevant to the OP at all. It seems she just wanted to bash the black families at her kid's school, smh.

+3 I have some specific warnings to AA families at our local school, but they are very specifically about being a Black American in a school where most of the Black kids identify strongly as African. Across the board, though, the Black families are involved and care deeply about their children's educations.

This is also why Whitman is a horrible choice. This line of thinking is prevalent, who cares if a principal holds a conference about black face. How about being around people that never needed that conference.

Hmm. I'd rather be in a community where people are outraged about racial incidents like these (and people absolutely were at Whitman) than one where they are blase. There is racism almost everywhere, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am Asian and my kids go to a very diverse school. The expectation from AA students and the education they get...is frankly, below standard, and parents are pretty complicit in tjis. I cannot understand how they will succeed in life because there is very little going on in their lives that will help them in succeeding.

So, maybe you don’t want her kids to be friends with the kids of this person.

OP is an AA who is posting on this board due to her deep interest in the education of her children, so this is an inappropriate response.

Exactly.

+2. PP's post wasn't relevant to the OP at all. It seems she just wanted to bash the black families at her kid's school, smh.

+3 I have some specific warnings to AA families at our local school, but they are very specifically about being a Black American in a school where most of the Black kids identify strongly as African. Across the board, though, the Black families are involved and care deeply about their children's educations.

What would be the warning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am Asian and my kids go to a very diverse school. The expectation from AA students and the education they get...is frankly, below standard, and parents are pretty complicit in tjis. I cannot understand how they will succeed in life because there is very little going on in their lives that will help them in succeeding.

So, maybe you don’t want her kids to be friends with the kids of this person.

OP is an AA who is posting on this board due to her deep interest in the education of her children, so this is an inappropriate response.

Exactly.

+2. PP's post wasn't relevant to the OP at all. It seems she just wanted to bash the black families at her kid's school, smh.

+3 I have some specific warnings to AA families at our local school, but they are very specifically about being a Black American in a school where most of the Black kids identify strongly as African. Across the board, though, the Black families are involved and care deeply about their children's educations.

This is also why Whitman is a horrible choice. This line of thinking is prevalent, who cares if a principal holds a conference about black face. How about being around people that never needed that conference.

Hmm. I'd rather be in a community where people are outraged about racial incidents like these (and people absolutely were at Whitman) than one where they are blase. There is racism almost everywhere, unfortunately.

You misunderstood. Nobody is blase, they also don't need instruction on how to act and not act in a diverse community .... Whitman obviously needs multiple interventions.

[Anonymous]

I'm not going to tell anyone that Whitman has great diversity (unless you value international diversity), but it does have a lot of very high achieving AA students, and they tend to do very well in the college admissions process. Just something to keep in mind if that's a priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to tell anyone that Whitman has great diversity (unless you value international diversity), but it does have a lot of very high achieving AA students, and they tend to do very well in the college admissions process. Just something to keep in mind if that's a priority.

No, it doesn't, because it doesn't have a lot of African-American/black students, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to tell anyone that Whitman has great diversity (unless you value international diversity), but it does have a lot of very high achieving AA students, and they tend to do very well in the college admissions process. Just something to keep in mind if that's a priority.

Less than 5% of Whitman students are black. That’s not “a lot”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to tell anyone that Whitman has great diversity (unless you value international diversity), but it does have a lot of very high achieving AA students, and they tend to do very well in the college admissions process. Just something to keep in mind if that's a priority.

Not sure if you can make many generalizations given the tiny sample size (< 4% of the school is AA).

Also, I listened to a WAMU event earlier this year in which some AA students emotionally described their negative experiences at Whitman. For example:


"Breanna McDonald, a senior at Walt Whitman High School and a leader in the countywide student-run Minority Scholars Program, puts her support for the boundary study in the context of her own experiences, as one of the few students of color in most of her classes at Whitman. She’s seen the school community fractured by a number of hateful incidents — a student calling another student the n-word, a Black History Month assembly mocked online, a racist Snapchat post, a teacher who she says made her feel “less than”– and she hopes that increased diversity at the school could improve the climate and make her feel less isolated.

McDonald didn’t sugarcoat her experiences in comments at the town hall.

“If I had known what I know now, I would’ve transferred from Whitman,” she told the room. “There’s no amount of equity and wealth that that school can provide me,” to make up for the “trauma” that she experienced there.

https://wamu.org/story/19/04/02/how-students-in-montgomery-county-are-leading-the-push-for-school-redistricting/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to tell anyone that Whitman has great diversity (unless you value international diversity), but it does have a lot of very high achieving AA students, and they tend to do very well in the college admissions process. Just something to keep in mind if that's a priority.

Less than 5% of Whitman students are black. That’s not “a lot”.

Let me rephrase then, and say that a significant percentage of the black students at Whitman are high achieving. I was responding to OP's follow up where she indicated she was one of the only AA kids in honors courses when she grew up in MoCo. That would not be the case at all today at Whitman or other wealthy MoCo schools. The access to drugs is a different matter, though I assume that's a problem at all schools.

[Anonymous]

I honestly thought the first response of "Whitman, and private tutoring" was meant to be sarcastic! I would not think of Whitman for the OP at all. Silver Spring/TP schools are much more diverse. Good luck, OP

[Anonymous]

BCC or Walter Johnson Pyramid has strong, involved black families and students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to tell anyone that Whitman has great diversity (unless you value international diversity), but it does have a lot of very high achieving AA students, and they tend to do very well in the college admissions process. Just something to keep in mind if that's a priority.

Not sure if you can make many generalizations given the tiny sample size (< 4% of the school is AA).

Also, I listened to a WAMU event earlier this year in which some AA students emotionally described their negative experiences at Whitman. For example:


"Breanna McDonald, a senior at Walt Whitman High School and a leader in the countywide student-run Minority Scholars Program, puts her support for the boundary study in the context of her own experiences, as one of the few students of color in most of her classes at Whitman. She’s seen the school community fractured by a number of hateful incidents — a student calling another student the n-word, a Black History Month assembly mocked online, a racist Snapchat post, a teacher who she says made her feel “less than”– and she hopes that increased diversity at the school could improve the climate and make her feel less isolated.

McDonald didn’t sugarcoat her experiences in comments at the town hall.

“If I had known what I know now, I would’ve transferred from Whitman,” she told the room. “There’s no amount of equity and wealth that that school can provide me,” to make up for the “trauma” that she experienced there.

https://wamu.org/story/19/04/02/how-students-in-montgomery-county-are-leading-the-push-for-school-redistricting/

Really strong post. I couldn't sympathize more with her.

[Anonymous]

Please make sure you're getting answers from AA. Some of these suggestions are absurd.