Share your experience with Beall?

[Anonymous]

We are considering moving to a home zoned for Beall (then JW, then RM). I looked through the archives, but didn't find much about Beall and was wondering if anyone could share more. Overcrowding was mentioned in prior threads (class size as a county-wide problem and specifically too many kids for the school at Beall). How much does physical space impact your kid?

Also, what is the school atmosphere like? The Ritchie Park thread really alarmed me as it has the kind of information you can't get from Great Schools. I would like a warm, welcoming school with good parent involvement. My oldest is 4 and on the sensitive side. He will not do well under in a critical or punitive environment (though what child would?).

We don't live in MoCo now, so please be detailed and don't assume I know anything in your answer, because I don't! I feel like figuring out schools and neighborhoods is a full time job right now, and I already have 2 others of those (mom and real job).

[Anonymous]

Hopefully a Beall parent will chime in. My child is at another ES in the RM cluster. We have a friend with kids at Beall. Beall is over capacity, as are all ESs in the RM cluster. My friend hasn't complained specifically about any one thing (principal, size of school, class size, etc.)

My kid's school has portables and it doesn't affect him at all. One year he had a class in the portables, but I think this year they are all being used as classrooms for 5th graders.

However, if there are school assemblies, they must be done twice (morning and afternoon) to accommodate the capacity of the auditorium. We also have 6 lunch periods (one for each grade). These are the only ways I can think of that the size of the school impacts our child.

Will the 4-year-old be in K next year?

[Anonymous]

We are considering moving to a home zoned for Beall (then JW, then RM). I looked through the archives, but didn't find much about Beall and was wondering if anyone could share more. Overcrowding was mentioned in prior threads (class size as a county-wide problem and specifically too many kids for the school at Beall). How much does physical space impact your kid?

Just to be clear, overcrowding and individual class size are two different things, unless you're speaking of an entire grade as a "class." The class sizes are set county-wide for a specific range of students per class, and the school will be assigned as many classes as appropriate for the enrollment, no matter how overcrowded the school is. As PP stated, overcrowding means more kids at the school and portable classrooms. But your child's homeroom class should be roughly the same number of students as any (non-Title I) other elementary school in the county.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the replies! Hopefully there is a Beall parent or two out there still...

To PP -- my DS will enter K in 2014.

[Anonymous]

My daughter is just finishingkindergarten at Beall. We have been very happy with the school. The teacher is great, the PTA is very active and the school communicated VERY well with the parents, almost to the point of being annoying. I am consistently blown away at the exciting and engaging activities they do during the day. Another thing I like about Beall is that it is incredibly diverse. My daughter's class represents so many different cultures and socio-economic classes. I think this will be such a benefit to her throughout her life.

Over the course of the year, I have begun to realize that any gripes I have are more with the county than the individual school. I do not like the grading system at all, but that is standard across the county now.

And I know you did not ask, but the community that feeds into Beall is also wonderful. There is a real community feeling, and a great deal to do in walkable downtown Rockville.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

[Anonymous]

We came from another RM cluster school. My daughter is in JW and it is a horrible experience. The kids are unruly, there is tons of bullying, overcrowded and lackluster teachers.

[Anonymous]

It is overcrowded, but otherwise that hasn't been my family's experience at JW at all.

To get back on the topic at hand, we're not at Beall (at another cluster school), but my friends with children at Beall seem quite happy with the school.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to the PP who is at Beall now -- very helpful.

And also thanks for the JW feedback. The school seems to get mixed reviews on this board. Some happy, some not. I wonder how much you can expect any school to be perfect, especially middle schools (this is an honest question -- not snark). I think it is sad but that you are going to find bullying at that age everywhere and the question is how pervasive it is and how the school, students, and parents deal with it. Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I've heard from many people who love Beall but I believe overcrowding is a huge issue and will get worse before the county does anything about it. A 5th elementary school for that cluster will not be built until 2017. And then, I'm told by school officials, that will only pull about 150 kids out of Beall, and it will still be overcrowded.

But the problem here is not Beall. It's the county which is throwing money where it's needed least. For example, before Beall and other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster get any kind of relief, two new schools will be built that were under 100% and projected to be so for a long time: Beverly Farms and Waverly. Granted those buildings are old but so are a lot of places that are old AND overcrowded. If you're a Beall parent--or a parent at any overcrowded school in Montgomery County--you should be outraged by this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from many people who love Beall but I believe overcrowding is a huge issue and will get worse before the county does anything about it. A 5th elementary school for that cluster will not be built until 2017. And then, I'm told by school officials, that will only pull about 150 kids out of Beall, and it will still be overcrowded.

But the problem here is not Beall. It's the county which is throwing money where it's needed least. For example, before Beall and other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster get any kind of relief, two new schools will be built that were under 100% and projected to be so for a long time: Beverly Farms and Waverly. Granted those buildings are old but so are a lot of places that are old AND overcrowded. If you're a Beall parent--or a parent at any overcrowded school in Montgomery County--you should be outraged by this.

Beverly Farms isn't getting built; it's getting modernized. And what is Waverly?

Here's the modernization schedule:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/PDF/MP14AppendixE.pdf

How would you change it?

[Anonymous]

Beverly Farms was torn down to the ground, and a new school built from the ground up. That's not exactly "modernization." (I don't think they had any portables before they were torn down, though).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from many people who love Beall but I believe overcrowding is a huge issue and will get worse before the county does anything about it. A 5th elementary school for that cluster will not be built until 2017. And then, I'm told by school officials, that will only pull about 150 kids out of Beall, and it will still be overcrowded.

But the problem here is not Beall. It's the county which is throwing money where it's needed least. For example, before Beall and other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster get any kind of relief, two new schools will be built that were under 100% and projected to be so for a long time: Beverly Farms and Waverly. Granted those buildings are old but so are a lot of places that are old AND overcrowded. If you're a Beall parent--or a parent at any overcrowded school in Montgomery County--you should be outraged by this.

Beverly Farms isn't getting built; it's getting modernized. And what is Waverly?

Here's the modernization schedule:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/PDF/MP14AppendixE.pdf

How would you change it?

I assume the poster meant Wayside? That is getting modernized shortly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from many people who love Beall but I believe overcrowding is a huge issue and will get worse before the county does anything about it. A 5th elementary school for that cluster will not be built until 2017. And then, I'm told by school officials, that will only pull about 150 kids out of Beall, and it will still be overcrowded.

But the problem here is not Beall. It's the county which is throwing money where it's needed least. For example, before Beall and other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster get any kind of relief, two new schools will be built that were under 100% and projected to be so for a long time: Beverly Farms and Waverly. Granted those buildings are old but so are a lot of places that are old AND overcrowded. If you're a Beall parent--or a parent at any overcrowded school in Montgomery County--you should be outraged by this.

Beverly Farms isn't getting built; it's getting modernized. And what is Waverly?

Here's the modernization schedule:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/PDF/MP14AppendixE.pdf

How would you change it?

Sorry meant to say Wayside. How would I change it? Put the money where it's needed most. Schools that are overcrowded and have so many portables they look like a trailer park. In the Washington Post the head of the County's long-range planning division said dealing with overcrowding is like doing triage and going after the worst problems first. That's fine if that's what's actually happening but clearly it's not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from many people who love Beall but I believe overcrowding is a huge issue and will get worse before the county does anything about it. A 5th elementary school for that cluster will not be built until 2017. And then, I'm told by school officials, that will only pull about 150 kids out of Beall, and it will still be overcrowded.

But the problem here is not Beall. It's the county which is throwing money where it's needed least. For example, before Beall and other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster get any kind of relief, two new schools will be built that were under 100% and projected to be so for a long time: Beverly Farms and Waverly. Granted those buildings are old but so are a lot of places that are old AND overcrowded. If you're a Beall parent--or a parent at any overcrowded school in Montgomery County--you should be outraged by this.

Beverly Farms isn't getting built; it's getting modernized. And what is Waverly?

Here's the modernization schedule:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/PDF/MP14AppendixE.pdf

How would you change it?

Sorry meant to say Wayside. How would I change it? Put the money where it's needed most. Schools that are overcrowded and have so many portables they look like a trailer park. In the Washington Post the head of the County's long-range planning division said dealing with overcrowding is like doing triage and going after the worst problems first. That's fine if that's what's actually happening but clearly it's not.

Actually, I meant, how SPECIFICALLY would you change it? Given that you have a bunch of schools that are overcrowded, and a bunch of schools that need to be modernized before they completely fall apart, and you only have a fixed sum of money. "I would do it better than they do" is not much of an answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from many people who love Beall but I believe overcrowding is a huge issue and will get worse before the county does anything about it. A 5th elementary school for that cluster will not be built until 2017. And then, I'm told by school officials, that will only pull about 150 kids out of Beall, and it will still be overcrowded.

But the problem here is not Beall. It's the county which is throwing money where it's needed least. For example, before Beall and other schools in the Richard Montgomery cluster get any kind of relief, two new schools will be built that were under 100% and projected to be so for a long time: Beverly Farms and Waverly. Granted those buildings are old but so are a lot of places that are old AND overcrowded. If you're a Beall parent--or a parent at any overcrowded school in Montgomery County--you should be outraged by this.

Beverly Farms isn't getting built; it's getting modernized. And what is Waverly?

Here's the modernization schedule:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/PDF/MP14AppendixE.pdf

How would you change it?

Sorry meant to say Wayside. How would I change it? Put the money where it's needed most. Schools that are overcrowded and have so many portables they look like a trailer park. In the Washington Post the head of the County's long-range planning division said dealing with overcrowding is like doing triage and going after the worst problems first. That's fine if that's what's actually happening but clearly it's not.

Actually, I meant, how SPECIFICALLY would you change it? Given that you have a bunch of schools that are overcrowded, and a bunch of schools that need to be modernized before they completely fall apart, and you only have a fixed sum of money. "I would do it better than they do" is not much of an answer.

Reprioritize what gets fixed up (which happens in all schools every year so they don't "fall apart") and which ones get actual relief from overcrowding. This can mean new schools or bussing kids out of one overcrowded school to one that is under capacity (granted there are logistical problems with this idea). If a school's projected capacity exceeds a certain percentage, say 130%, then it gets the priority. Those are some ideas and experts in this can come up with better ones but the main point is the current system is not working correctly or fairly. And one would expect a school system that claims to be among the best in the country to come up with a better way of doing things.