Where to get a primer on high schools

[Anonymous]

How do you think Woodward HS will be when it finally opens? Crown HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you think Woodward HS will be when it finally opens? Crown HS?

Both will be very good to start. They will start off with a balanced mix of students and the initial years will be very focused on creating a new community. A new school will get a pick of the best teachers in the county- it’s a great opportunity for enthusiastic folks who want to help establish a new school. Plus - brand new building is always really nice. There will be hiccups for a couple of years as they create processes for everything and figure out how to do things together as a staff (e.g. running testing in the spring). But by year 4 things will be humming along nicely.

- teacher who was on initial staff for a new school a decade ago.

[Anonymous]

What is your housing budget?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moving to the area. Don’t know where to start. 2 bright kids. One into sports. One a theater/ music / creative type. One on the spectrum. Both iffy at math. Where do we begin figuring out where to buy or rent?

For academics, the usual rule for MCPS is a “W” high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is a huge county so we need some context.. not just budget (though that is important to know) but also location (do you want to be near the city for commuting?), preference for urban/suburban/rural setting, importance to you of having so diversity in the school in terms of race/ethnicity/income level, etc. Provide that and we can be more helpful.

Helpful. OP here. Thank you. Commuting to DC. Multiracial Black children. Diversity important.

I'm an RM parent.

If you are commuting to DC pick something closer in, like BCC, Blair, or Einstein

We commute into DC and we are at WJ. We take metro in from medical center as do many of the other parents we see (although grosvenor might be better for some of the HS students). The red line metro is a U with both ends in MoCo so you can pick either end. If you like to drive, Whitman is a better choice but it’s the least racially diverse of all the schools.

I feel like maybe there was a thread about black families at BCC within the last year or two so you might want to search for that. BCC is a little unusual in that it’s the only HS in the country right now where they bus from two different areas as an integration effort. So that may be relevant for you in either a good way or a bad way — I just don’t know. Also you should know they are in the middle of a major HS redistricting process which won’t be complete for a couple of years but which may totally redraw boundaries.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, Churchill HS and Northwest HS have the best combination of academics and sports. Northwest is more diverse, which is a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is a huge county so we need some context.. not just budget (though that is important to know) but also location (do you want to be near the city for commuting?), preference for urban/suburban/rural setting, importance to you of having so diversity in the school in terms of race/ethnicity/income level, etc. Provide that and we can be more helpful.

Helpful. OP here. Thank you. Commuting to DC. Multiracial Black children. Diversity important.

I'm an RM parent.

If you are commuting to DC pick something closer in, like BCC, Blair, or Einstein

We commute into DC and we are at WJ. We take metro in from medical center as do many of the other parents we see (although grosvenor might be better for some of the HS students). The red line metro is a U with both ends in MoCo so you can pick either end. If you like to drive, Whitman is a better choice but it’s the least racially diverse of all the schools.

I feel like maybe there was a thread about black families at BCC within the last year or two so you might want to search for that. BCC is a little unusual in that it’s the only HS in the country right now where they bus from two different areas as an integration effort. So that may be relevant for you in either a good way or a bad way — I just don’t know. Also you should know they are in the middle of a major HS redistricting process which won’t be complete for a couple of years but which may totally redraw boundaries.

So, The bolded is interesting because it demonstrates a common misconception that also provides some insight into how BCC parents think about their school.

The school actually has a totally normal contiguous boundary that happens to contain both single family homes and multi-family dwellings. But if you look at the map, it's not that kids are being bussed from different parts, it's just that this is a place where there is a lot of socioeconomic diversity within about a three square mile radius. You can see the map below and note that it is nowhere near the most outrageous or gerrymandered in the district.

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/BCCHS.pdf