Somerset Elementary School v. Bethesda Elementary?

[Anonymous]

We have two children at Somerset Elementary, and have been with the school for three years now.

While some individual teachers have been just fine, others have been disasters.

Since the school does not have a permanent principal right now (and the previous principal was not very good), there doesn't seem to be anyone around with the authority to solve problems when they arise, or hold the bad teachers accountable for their performance. This is a big deal in this school system (I just discovered, from talking to the current temporary principal) because MCPS leaves all pedagogy decisions -- how to teach -- entirely up to the schools and individual teachers. Therefore, if a particular teacher doesn't know what she's doing, or has any other problem, there doesn't appear to be anything in place for her to fall back on.

Our kindergartener comes home with worksheets where she's required to label shapes as "cylinder" or (I swear to God) "rectangular prism" -- yet the kids in that class have never yet been systematically taught to read, write, or even draw their numbers and letters correctly. Our daughter at times comes home with other children's classwork, so we can see that multiple kids in the class need to be taught these fundamentals, which is just not happening.

We would love to get out of this school, but are stuck until we can sell our house to get out of the area. While we are grateful for the few positive experiences our daughters have had here, we are overall very disappointed with the school.

[Anonymous]

Go to Somerset, one less new kid at BE

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I urgently need to talk to the person who posted the 18:49 message about her personal bad experience with Somerset Elementary School. We are about purchasing a house in this cluster to specifically send our kids to Somerset Eleemtanry School (one will be in grade 3, one in grade 4 and an other one will start kindergarten in sept 2012). I really start freaking out and I'm wondering if we are about making a big mistake.

18:49 please get back to me personnally at the following email address: [e-mail]

Many many thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The boundaries for Somerset ES aren't really near the Metro, unless you're fortunate enough to snag one of the 20 houses right near Wisconsin (which never go on the market). something to keep in mind.

This really depends on where you are and how much of a "walk" you can tolerate. Many apartment buildings on the MD side of Friendship Heights are in boundary for Somerset, as well as houses on the south side of the Somerset boundary in between Wisconsin and River (there's a cut thru path on the east of this area that routes sort of near Willard & the apartment buildings. Plus some of the Chevy Chase houses west of Cedar Parkway go to Somerset. All these are walking distance to Friendship Heights metro.

Also, the townhouses on Bradley are in the Somerset school area, and these are also walking distance to the Bethesda metro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe East Bethesda kids go to Rosemary Hills for K-2, then either Bethesda ES or NCC ES for, respectively, 4-5 or 4-6; they don't go to CCES. Town of CC does go to CCES.

This is incorrect. CCES is a 3-6 school and Rosemary Hills is the K-2 school that feeds it. I think RHPS/CCES is a wonderful option but if OP is fixated on small classes, then she should know that RHPS tends to have classes on the larger end of the spectrum.

Basically all schools -- Somerset, Chevy Chase, Bradley and Rosemary Hills -- will have similar class sizes. If some kids end up in a "smaller" class it will only be by one or two students and it will just be a quirk of how many kids are enrolled in a given grade and year. These class size numbers are set by the county and teachers are apportioned to schools on the basis of the standard class size (within a certain range, again, given the quirks of enrollment). One exception might be how these schools choose individually to use their "allotment" of teachers. At Rosemary Hills, kids are regrouped from their "homerooms" for reading and math. The school uses other teachers in the school to help lower the number of kids during instructional time in the class. I help in my son's reading class weekly. His class has about 20 kids during the reading block. The choice to do this lies at the discretion of the principal only.

The only schools which have significantly smaller class sizes are schools which have high poverty rates -- they get extra Title I funds and may have classes more like 17 for most of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

all CCES kids go to Rosemary Hills

yes, but more like "all CCES kids come from Rosemary Hills"

some Rosemary Hills kids go to CCES

yes

(including some East Bethesda kids)
no - all kids in East Bethesda, as defined by homes east of Wisconsin, south of Jones Bridge, west of Columbia Country Club and north of East-West, go to RHPS, then Bethesda ES.

Still not quite right. All children who go to Rosemary Hills and graduate from 2nd grade have the choice to go to any of the 3 paired upper schools -- Bethesda, North Chevy Chase, or Chevy Chase. Your child is "scheduled" (for lack of a better word) for one of these schools based on where you live. East Bethesda kids are "scheduled" to attend Bethesda ES for 3-5. However, if an East Bethesda child finishes 2nd grade at Rosemary Hills, they can choose to attend either Chevy Chase or North Chevy Chase instead. This transfer request will be granted regardless of capacity at the desired receiving school, i.e. MCPS does not have any discretion to refuse the transfer. SO, some East Bethesda children attend Rosemary Hills, and then their parents choose to send them to CCES or NCES.

Please note this transfer right at the upper elementary level is non-discretionary and is DIFFERENT than the discretionary transfers that East Bethesda parents have sought to gain entry for their kids to Bethesda K-2 instead of Rosemary Hills K-2. The latter transfer ability has been rescinded (or at least the county has tried to rescind it, but parents have sued to enforce the right, successfully I believe), but the former transfer right still exists and will not be taken away as long as the pairing exists.

[Anonymous]

There are single family homes in Somerset within a 1 mile walk to the Friendship Heights metro via Willard Ave, through the Whole Foods parking lot. It takes me 14 minutes wearing sneakers.
Somerset elementary is a terrific school because most of the families have children well prepared and interested in learning. The school is very proactive in encouraging behaviors that help create community: respect, care, civility, etc. and intervenes readily with disruptive behavior. The PTA offers various programs to build community (Rock and Roll fundraiser, Welcome back to school picnic, fall race, etc.), provide enriching cultural arts programs, etc. The afterschool Wonders program, ably directed by Ebony Ellis is great. It is onsite, offers free enrichment programs, as well as classes for a fee (Spanish, French, hip hop dancing, etc.), and enrolls a wide ethnic and economic diversity of children. The experienced Wonders counselors are fantastic, but they lost two of their best at the end of 2011, and the newcomers are competent but not nearly as attentive, inspiring and engaging with the children. Nonetheless, the program is excellent and reasonably priced.

One special benefit of the Town of Somerset that indirectly affects going to school at Somerset Elementary: there's a community pool three blocks from the school. It offers an excellent venue for making friends, among the kids and grownups, as well as a swim team that takes all comers. Somerset Elementary's Camp Summerset uses the pool daily.

[Anonymous]

I know it's been awhile, but for the poster from 03/28/2011 21:11 and 03/15/2010 11:02, that's some pretty amazing wealth of knowledge you have there. Do you work for the county?

Regardless of the above, where exactly do you learn this information about discretionary and non-discretionary transfer rights in the Rosemary Hills cluster? If anyone else knows the answer that would be helpful too.