Considering moving to PG County from LI

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm considering moving into the PG County from LI. Other possible areas would be Montgomery County and NOVA. What I would like to know is what are the concerns of parents who send their kids to public school in PG County? What are the issues within the schools? Do you feel your children is getting the best education for your tax dollars? Are there some school district doing better than others and if so why? I have elementary school age children.

These are just a few questions I have and would appreciate a honest discussion and/or replies.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

LI =Long Island, Ny?

[Anonymous]

If you are looking for best public schools, then go for montgomery county. Diversity in schools, as well as in the community, go for montgomery county. I live in PG county and the public schools are fine for my elementary school aged child. He isn't a genius but he isn't below his grade level either, and I'm happy with that. There is zero diversity, being that the school is 93 percent black. We went from montgomery county to pg county and not only was I uncomfortable, but my child was too. We are black by the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking for best public schools, then go for montgomery county. Diversity in schools, as well as in the community, go for montgomery county. I live in PG county and the public schools are fine for my elementary school aged child. He isn't a genius but he isn't below his grade level either, and I'm happy with that. There is zero diversity, being that the school is 93 percent black. We went from montgomery county to pg county and not only was I uncomfortable, but my child was too. We are black by the way.

This really depends by school though. There are many schools in MoCo that are not diverse at all, just as there are some in PG that are diverse - my DD's K class at a PG school is almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic. It depends on the neighborhood and that breakdown reflects our street pretty well.

Issues with the PG schools:
- overcrowding in some of the schools, there are schools that have about as many classes in trailers/portables as in the brick and mortar building
- lack of resources at non-Title 1 schools - DD's kinder class has 30 kids, no aide; the teacher is good, but DD gets very little attention because she is quiet and could already read and do math
- a really competitive lottery system for the desired specialty programs (which do have good reputations) like Montessori, French Immersion, TAG centers; we have lost out on the lottery 6 years running for our eldest so she remains in private, we'll likely move the one in K to private if she gets unlucky in the TAG lottery for 2nd
- poor facilities at some schools; this varies a lot as there are some beautiful new schools, but many of the older schools are in bad shape and are pretty depressing facilities
- TAG centers based on lottery and entrance standards for lottery are comparatively very low
- drug/gang problems at some of the middle schools and high schools (again, varies a lot by school)
- culture of nepotism within the system administration that has led to some pretty messy incompetence at the HR and admin levels - Maxwell seems to really be trying to fix this though
- a historically dysfunctional and incompetent school board; the student rep on the board called them out in her departing speech and a couple of very young men and women have run for school board due to this, some successfully
- lots of teaching to the test at many schools because the scores have been very poor and that has been prioritized (again, this varies by school)

We know many families in PG schools. Some love their schools, some are unhappy, some are working really hard to make changes in their neighborhood schools and are committed to sticking through the rough spots. I think there is more optimism about the new superintendent/CEO than there has been in the past.

I think much depends on your expectations and which school you are zoned to. If you're moving the lottery is pretty much not an option for you unless your child is not school aged yet, so you'd really want to look at the specific school zoned to your target neighborhood. We've been ok with K for DD. Her school is safe and the building is nice. Her teacher is good. She likes going to school. The lack of communication from the school is frustrating. The report card system with no comments and the P/T conferences that last less than 5 minutes have also been disappointing. As a teacher, I get it, but as a parent, it's not great. But then again, our eldest has been in private throughout and so we have that as our frame of reference. I try to keep that in mind because I don't think we'd feel our neighborhood school was kind of disappointing if it wasn't being compared to a private school. We supplement heavily with hands-on stuff like trips to museum, music, art, and science experiments because those things just aren't happening regularly at our neighborhood school. Again, focus is on reading and math proficiency and specials and field trips are just really infrequent. All that being said, I don't think PG schools are as bad as the non-PG county boards on this site make them sound. And I think things might be improving with Maxwell.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous

This really depends by school though. There are many schools in MoCo that are not diverse at all, just as there are some in PG that are diverse - my DD's K class at a PG school is almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic. It depends on the neighborhood and that breakdown reflects our street pretty well.



My DD's K class is similar in diversity. In a class of 21 there are 6 white , 9 black and 6 hispanic children.
The biggest bonus of PG is that you can live close in to the city and not pay over $400K for a house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LI =Long Island, Ny?

Yes---Long Island NY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

This really depends by school though. There are many schools in MoCo that are not diverse at all, just as there are some in PG that are diverse - my DD's K class at a PG school is almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic. It depends on the neighborhood and that breakdown reflects our street pretty well.

My DD's K class is similar in diversity. In a class of 21 there are 6 white , 9 black and 6 hispanic children.
The biggest bonus of PG is that you can live close in to the city and not pay over $400K for a house.

Thanks for the response. Housing seemed very affordable which prompt me to ask the questions. Your breakdown along with the previous poster is something I'm looking for. The question I have is does it stay the same as you progress through to the high school level. Class size is very reasonable, but again does it stay the same through to the high school range.

[Anonymous]

Where on Long Island are you moving from? Culturally, many LI residents find themselves migrating to Rockville/Bethesda area.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, I live in PG. The accepted knowledge around here is that most of the elementary schools are acceptable, but when you get into middle and high school, it's a lot more tricky. I live here on the assumption that we will try to work with the elementary schools and probably choose private for middle and high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking for best public schools, then go for montgomery county. Diversity in schools, as well as in the community, go for montgomery county. I live in PG county and the public schools are fine for my elementary school aged child. He isn't a genius but he isn't below his grade level either, and I'm happy with that. There is zero diversity, being that the school is 93 percent black. We went from montgomery county to pg county and not only was I uncomfortable, but my child was too. We are black by the way.

Thank you for the feedback. Curious about what made you and your child uncomfortable? If you do not wish to elaborate, I understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking for best public schools, then go for montgomery county. Diversity in schools, as well as in the community, go for montgomery county. I live in PG county and the public schools are fine for my elementary school aged child. He isn't a genius but he isn't below his grade level either, and I'm happy with that. There is zero diversity, being that the school is 93 percent black. We went from montgomery county to pg county and not only was I uncomfortable, but my child was too. We are black by the way.

Thank you for the feedback. Curious about what made you and your child uncomfortable? If you do not wish to elaborate, I understand.

Culture or shall I say, lack of diversity shocked. My child had a friend of every nationality and kept asking why all his classmates and everyone in the neighborhood was black.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where on Long Island are you moving from? Culturally, many LI residents find themselves migrating to Rockville/Bethesda area.

Elmont NY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are looking for best public schools, then go for montgomery county. Diversity in schools, as well as in the community, go for montgomery county. I live in PG county and the public schools are fine for my elementary school aged child. He isn't a genius but he isn't below his grade level either, and I'm happy with that. There is zero diversity, being that the school is 93 percent black. We went from montgomery county to pg county and not only was I uncomfortable, but my child was too. We are black by the way.

Thank you for the feedback. Curious about what made you and your child uncomfortable? If you do not wish to elaborate, I understand.

Culture or shall I say, lack of diversity shocked. My child had a friend of every nationality and kept asking why all his classmates and everyone in the neighborhood was black.

I see. Unfortunately from my experience on this website and others along with looking at greatschools and schooldigger, most schools that are mostly black do not have good ratings. It makes me wonder why. And thats for any neighborhood or school district not only in the DC area. I also find the lack of culture or diversity hinders the learning experience at an early age only to be confronted with issues later in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP, I live in PG. The accepted knowledge around here is that most of the elementary schools are acceptable, but when you get into middle and high school, it's a lot more tricky. I live here on the assumption that we will try to work with the elementary schools and probably choose private for middle and high school.

OP here. While that is your choice and I respect it, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of you paying taxes to support public education only to pay additional monies for private school? Again I'm not criticizing you. That is like parents who live in Garden City NY ( a very wealthy place on LI with very good schools) sending their kids to private school. Why?

Why is there such a disconnect (the best I can describe it) between the elementary/middle schools and high schools? I know everything is test driven (which I'm not a huge fan of) but if you come from a good elementary/middle school why and how does the performance at the high school level drop?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP, I live in PG. The accepted knowledge around here is that most of the elementary schools are acceptable, but when you get into middle and high school, it's a lot more tricky. I live here on the assumption that we will try to work with the elementary schools and probably choose private for middle and high school.

OP here. While that is your choice and I respect it, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of you paying taxes to support public education only to pay additional monies for private school? Again I'm not criticizing you. That is like parents who live in Garden City NY ( a very wealthy place on LI with very good schools) sending their kids to private school. Why?

Why is there such a disconnect (the best I can describe it) between the elementary/middle schools and high schools? I know everything is test driven (which I'm not a huge fan of) but if you come from a good elementary/middle school why and how does the performance at the high school level drop?

This is because of the wider "feeder" area for all of the high schools....for example, one high school could have four middle school feeder schools. Two of them could have stellar scores, the other two have terrible scores, (and yes, that is geographically possible for schools feeding into one high school, it can cover quite a large area in some parts of the county), so when you have everyone in the same high school then that's what you get. I personally chose where I bought my home based on middle school because I do not want to pay for private until high school. There are many fewer high performing middle schools in the county than elementary schools, so that could help you narrow your search. I do not think there are any proposed boundary changes soon (correct me if I'm wrong), so you could be pretty secure in your choice for now, and if there were proposed boundary changes could be part of the process to ensure where you live does not get written out of the boundary for the school you want. Good luck!