How is Ritchie Park these days?

[Anonymous]

We are deciding between private K and our home school Ritchie Park for my DS. He will be leaving for private in 6th grade but we thought public elementary would be okay. We are not hearing great things about the school and principal. Is this just a few bad eggs or will we regret turning down private K?

Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

You will get different answers from so many diff. people. I guess it depends on what you're looking for. I've heard the Principle is not great, either, but I haven't had any reason to deal with the P, so I don't know. The Admin staff however, I have dealt with and they are soo nice.

Both my kids go there, and we moved from a diff. state. So far, it's been fine.

PROS:
1. From what I have heard, teachers are hit and miss, but so far, both my kids (one in K) have had good teachers. DC in K LOVES the teacher. One of the teachers in on maternity leave. Don't know if she is coming back next year.

2. My older DC got into HGC, after 2 years of attending RP. Granted DC is pretty bright, but I think the teaching had some to do with DC getting in.

3. Best thing about neighborhood school is that the kids have friends from school in the neighborhood.

CONS:
1. Don't like the playground. I hate woodchips; it gets into the kids shoes
2. Facility is older
3. It's a bigger school than private probably, and there are a few portables, but most of the public schools in MCPS seem to have portables now.

[Anonymous]

Can't speak to the quality of Richie Park but the Richard Montgomery cluster elementary schools are overcrowded. There are plans to build a fifth elementary school in the cluster to relieve overcrowding. That's scheduled for 2017 pending County Council approval of funding. They already delayed it once, despite the recommendation of the school board to build the new school by 2015.

Don't know how this affects the quality of the school. Others with experience at the school can speak to that better than I can. But it was one reason we chose private over public (another school, not Ritchie Park).

[Anonymous]

The principal is terrible. Really, truly, awful. If you don't have to deal with her, you will be fine. Some teachers are excellent, some are just fine, some are terrible. It is a luck of the draw.

The lunch and recess aides are not good. Some are mean, some are ambivalent, but they are a real problem.

The school has a negative feel to it over all. Instead of solving problems they just punish.

[Anonymous]

Here we go again with the prior poster and her patented tirade about how RP overly punishes people. He or she pops up on every RP thread to complain and bash.

I am an RP parent. Our kids have been very happy at RP, and we have really liked the teachers and the community. Child has made many friends.

The comment about some teachers being great and others mediocre is true, but you are kidding yourself if you don't think that applies to any school anywhere. The principal is ok - would not say she is great but it will not likely affect your experience.

PTA is strong and very involved. Is every family involved? No. But again, that is probably the case in lots of schools.

Bottom line - talk to some folks. Don't listen to the prior poster, who clearly has an axe to grind or is a troll.

[Anonymous]

RP is fine. It's not a great school. It's not a terrible school. It's fine. If you LOVE the private, and can afford it, I'd do that. You can always transfer to the private later.

I totally disagree with the poster who thinks person is bashing RP. That's their opinion. You don't have to agree.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I meant transfer to the public later.

[Anonymous]

Our DC was at RP for K - 3rd grade and is in a different school for 4th and now 5th. While we were not happy at RP, we really had no basis for comparison before we made the switch to a new school. We are extremely happy with the new school and truely wish that RP had been as good.

Agree with previous posters that some teachers at RP were good and others were truely awful (though the bad ones that our DC had are no longer at that school).

BTW ... our issues with RP had nothing at all to do with discipline. Our DC was never in trouble, and had perfect report cards each marking period for all 4 years there. I found that at RP, there was no spirit of cooperation between the parents and the school. The admin. and some teachers like to withhold information from parents. We were constantly told that they couldn't do this or that because it was "Mongtomery County Policy", only to find out after switching to another Montgomery County elementary school that the line about it being montgomery county policy was completely untrue.

Each principal has a lot of leeway in setting school policy. At RP, whenever they admin is questioned about anything, they take no responsibility and just point to central office inorder to deflect parent comment and involvement.

[Anonymous]

What is the new school?

[Anonymous]

14:16 makes good points. I am also an RP mom. Really happy at the school and my third-grader has loved em's teachers. Nice community and other parents - down to earth but very supportive.

15:34, you are a very bitter person. Where did you go that is better? Very curious. I have friends at many other schools around and all complain about different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The principal is terrible. Really, truly, awful. If you don't have to deal with her, you will be fine. Some teachers are excellent, some are just fine, some are terrible. It is a luck of the draw.

The lunch and recess aides are not good. Some are mean, some are ambivalent, but they are a real problem.

The school has a negative feel to it over all. Instead of solving problems they just punish.

Oh no. Are the lunch aides the same? Small, never smile. Completely rude?

[Anonymous]

Stay in private K. We have lots of friends at RP and they are not happy.

[Anonymous]

We live in the RP boundaries. Our oldest went to a small private school K-7th, and our second went to the same private K. After that, we decided we couldn't afford it any more and switched to public schools, so RP and JW. We've been there now for nearly 2 years. I would say RP is fine. It is not nearly the experience we were having in so many ways, and I have frequently felt overwhelmed at the sheer numbers of people. Parking at any time there is a school-wide event is very difficult, for example, and the couple of outside school hours social things we went to were not enjoyable from the crowded-ness.

I was really disappointed in the first teacher we had there, and I will illustrate this point specifically. She sent home notes about my child's behavior almost every day (negative notes, obviously), and when I was really concerned and asked for a conference, she made it so difficult to schedule that I just ended up having to wait till the normal parent-teacher conferences, at which time she basically had a speech to give to me about her philosophies and wouldn't make much time to talk about my child-specific issues. When we later pushed harder to try to address what we perceived to be serious behavior problems because we were getting so many negative nites, this teacher seemed confused--she said we were just seeing typical issues with my child and that he was doing really well. Huh? Then why did we only hear so much negative stuff? About midway through the year I just sort of gave us and told myself that she was ill-suited to teach 1st grade and that we just had to get through the year. Fortunately, my child had no academic issues, so it didn't seem to matter that way. Strangely, my child seemed to really like this teacher. Go figure.

This year has been better for us because the teacher seems to "get" our child much better and has overall been much more positive. No more negative notes every day!

So again, for me, the bottom line is that I find RP to be ok. My child seems happy enough there, and I feel like his education is progressing well enough. I am really looking forward to the new school that is supposedly being added to the cluster. I can see how much that is needed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in the RP boundaries. Our oldest went to a small private school K-7th, and our second went to the same private K. After that, we decided we couldn't afford it any more and switched to public schools, so RP and JW. We've been there now for nearly 2 years. I would say RP is fine. It is not nearly the experience we were having in so many ways, and I have frequently felt overwhelmed at the sheer numbers of people. Parking at any time there is a school-wide event is very difficult, for example, and the couple of outside school hours social things we went to were not enjoyable from the crowded-ness.

I was really disappointed in the first teacher we had there, and I will illustrate this point specifically. She sent home notes about my child's behavior almost every day (negative notes, obviously), and when I was really concerned and asked for a conference, she made it so difficult to schedule that I just ended up having to wait till the normal parent-teacher conferences, at which time she basically had a speech to give to me about her philosophies and wouldn't make much time to talk about my child-specific issues. When we later pushed harder to try to address what we perceived to be serious behavior problems because we were getting so many negative nites, this teacher seemed confused--she said we were just seeing typical issues with my child and that he was doing really well. Huh? Then why did we only hear so much negative stuff? About midway through the year I just sort of gave us and told myself that she was ill-suited to teach 1st grade and that we just had to get through the year. Fortunately, my child had no academic issues, so it didn't seem to matter that way. Strangely, my child seemed to really like this teacher. Go figure.

This year has been better for us because the teacher seems to "get" our child much better and has overall been much more positive. No more negative notes every day!

So again, for me, the bottom line is that I find RP to be ok. My child seems happy enough there, and I feel like his education is progressing well enough. I am really looking forward to the new school that is supposedly being added to the cluster. I can see how much that is needed!

Oh no, someone said something negative about rp. Where is the poster who comes in to say this person obviously has an angenda and is a troll?

[Anonymous]

My daughter went to Ritchie park for two years and I have to agree about the lunch and recess aides, they are really mean. They scream at the kids, when they bother to interact at all. And they are not nice to the parents either.