Rosemary Hills vs Somerset

[Anonymous]

We are considering houses that would feed into either the Rosemary Hills or Somerset districts for our DS who is a rising second grader. Any current views on each school would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

One of the biggest differences between the schools is that RHPS is k-2 (kids go to either Chevy Chase or North Chevy Chase for 3-6) and Somerset is K-5.

RHPS has been great for two of our kids so far. (3rd kid isn't there yet.) The school is large, but the teachers and administrators do a great job of making it a comfortable place. They know everyone's name and teacher. The first time I arrived to pick up my then-first grader by car, the teacher who took my child's name knew right away that he usually took a bus and knew the bus number! Our teachers have been caring and creative. They're great at classroom management too, which was an initial concern of mine. Finally, I like the k-2 environment because the school really caters to kids that age -- the library collection is appropriate; all of them can relate to school assemblies; and the playground is the right level for those ages. Same can be said for CCES, which is where my oldest is now.

I have a few issues with the curriculum, especially the lack of differentiation and challenge in math, but that's more of a county issue that I expect we'd see at any MoCo school.

Happy to answer more specific questions if you have them.

[Anonymous]

Somerset

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the insights. We're particularly interested in how well "new kids" are integrated into a class at either school. Do the same classmates stay together through each grade, or are they shuffled each year?

[Anonymous]

I'm the RHPS poster above. Our oldest was new in first grade and he made friends very quickly. Got to know the kids in his class and their friends on the playground. I know that his teacher was watching out for him, but she said that she didn't need to get involved because the kids took care of it all themselves.

Classes do get shuffled around each year. Our child went into 2nd with about 3 other kids from his class, but they were all girls so he wasn't very excited. He had tons of new friends within a week! He knew a bunch of the boys from the playground, birthday parties and basketball and just took it from there.

When he transitioned to CCES, he knew a few boys in his class and had one good buddy. It wasn't an issue because the faces had gotten so familiar and he'd been through it all before. Now he has another whole pile of friends.

And my DS is easygoing and happy, but not a super social kid. I think the school environments just fosters an attitude that they can all get along and be friendly.

[Anonymous]

our son was new to RHPS in second grade, and the integration was fine. That's actually because the classes are shuffled every year. My daughter, started there in K and had none of the same classmates going with her into 1st grade. I found that surprising and I worried a little for her, but it turned out fine. She made new friends quickly. And with this much shuffling, kids are open to new friends each year. I still don't love that her friends change every year, but I'm used to it! And so is she. It's a different experience than I had with elementary school. The upside is that by High school, she'll know tons of kids.

[Anonymous]

I have to agree that I was a little unhappy to learn that RHPS shuffles the classes every year but 5 years later I think it's been good for my kid.

[Anonymous]

I'm also an RHES parent (my second child is in K) and the shuffle is great for new kids. And for kids who have been there from the start. I will say that when my oldest went onto NCC, it was a little hard - some of his best friends were in CCES neighborhoods - but he has found wonderful friends, some of whom he knew at RHES and some of whom he didn't, either because their paths never crossed or because they are new to the system. They really are wonderful schools. No knock on Somerset, which obviously has a great reputation.

[Anonymous]

Another nice thing about the shuffling is that these kids all come back together in middle school (currently Westland). When they get there, they already know a lot of kids that they remember from RHPS.

[Anonymous]

I honestly don't know of a public school that doesn't shuffle classes from year to year. I don't think RHPS is unique in doing this.

[Anonymous]

RHPS was not a good fit for our child who turned out to need an IEP. The split school structure allowed RHPS to drag its feet and just pass problems on to the upper school. If our child had been in a K-5 elementary, I think that the issues would have been dealt with 1-2 years earlier.

That said, if you think your child has a good chance of getting into the HGC at CCES, then it might be worth it to be in the RHPS/CCES neighborhood.

Otherwise, I would choose Somerset.

RHPS is big. Since students are shuffled across the 8-9 classes each year, most kids only know 2-4 students in each new class, which means that new students don't stand out too much because most students in a class seem new. RHPS is not unique in shuffling classes, but it is unique in that it has a very large number of classes per grade. If you shuffle students across 3-4 classes each year, students will see many of the same faces. If you shuffle students across 8-9 classes each year, not many faces are new. Some students are OK with this, for others it is hard.

[Anonymous]

How do CCES/Somerset stack up in the upper elementary grades (3-5)?

[Anonymous]

Most folks will say Somerset because the diversity at Rosemary Hills. Yes, as much as people say they want that, they would prefer not to send little johnnie to school with Juan or Tyrone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do CCES/Somerset stack up in the upper elementary grades (3-5)?

CCES parent. I think the upper grades are weak at CCES. The HGC students' MSA testing results are not separated from the non-HGC track and thus are likely inflating performance significantly. The one advantage of CCES right now is that if you think your child may have trouble transitioning to middle school, CCES kids stay at CCES for 6th grade. The quality of education suffers (not as many elective or foreign language choices) but the trade off might be that a kid learns to manage having 7 different classes before they get thrown in a school with 1300 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most folks will say Somerset because the diversity at Rosemary Hills. Yes, as much as people say they want that, they would prefer not to send little johnnie to school with Juan or Tyrone.

Some people's children are Juan and Tyrone.

(Tyrone? Really? It's not 1977.)