Germantown schools

[Anonymous]

We are considering a new home that feeds Clopper Mill Elem., not sure about middle school, and into Northwest HS. Does anyone have kids in these schools and can say anything about their experience with performance, teachers, and community involvement?

[Anonymous]

Clopper Mill doesn't have the best reputation. I live and work in Germantown and send my kids to Germantown schools, so I'm not in any way anti-Germantown. Cinnamon Woods, where CM is located, is no joke.

[Anonymous]

Are you trying to say it's a bad neighborhood?

[Anonymous]

Clopper Mill has a lot of challenges. I have several friends who live there and they all send their kids to private school. The middle school, Roberto Clemente, is pretty good and has a magnet program in it. My friends with kids at Northwest have been happy too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you trying to say it's a bad neighborhood?

Yes, PP is trying to say that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Clopper Mill has a lot of challenges. I have several friends who live there and they all send their kids to private school. The middle school, Roberto Clemente, is pretty good and has a magnet program in it. My friends with kids at Northwest have been happy too.

Yes, elementary would be the weakest link in that cluster. Its located smack in the middle of a low income neighborhood known for crime. Otherwise you should be fine for middle and high unless they change the boundaries. They will change them once Seneca is revitalized but its not clear where the new lines will be drawn. I would assume Clopper mill would stay with Northwest though to balance demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Clopper Mill has a lot of challenges. I have several friends who live there and they all send their kids to private school. The middle school, Roberto Clemente, is pretty good and has a magnet program in it. My friends with kids at Northwest have been happy too.

So they actually know nothing first-hand about Clopper Mill, because their children don't go there? I knew somebody who lived in one of the non-poor areas that is zoned for Clopper Mill, and she refused out of hand to send her child there. She never even set foot in the place, and from what she said, none of her neighbors ever did either. Too many poor, brown kids.

OP, Clopper Mill is a Title I school. That means that

1. There are lots of poor kids who go there.
2. Class sizes for K-2 are small.

Here is the MCPS summary sheet for Clopper Mill: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02100.pdf

Are there high-poverty schools in MCPS that are well-run, with good teachers? There certainly are, just as there are badly-run schools with bad teachers in Bethesda and Potomac. Is Clopper Mill a well-run, good-teacher high-poverty school? I don't know, unfortunately. I hope that somebody with first-hand experience with Clopper Mill will post.

[Anonymous]

Not the elementary you were looking at but Ronald McNair in Germantown is a very good school, just a bit further down than Clopper Mills and has a similar feeder pattern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clopper Mill has a lot of challenges. I have several friends who live there and they all send their kids to private school. The middle school, Roberto Clemente, is pretty good and has a magnet program in it. My friends with kids at Northwest have been happy too.

So they actually know nothing first-hand about Clopper Mill, because their children don't go there? I knew somebody who lived in one of the non-poor areas that is zoned for Clopper Mill, and she refused out of hand to send her child there. She never even set foot in the place, and from what she said, none of her neighbors ever did either. Too many poor, brown kids.

OP, Clopper Mill is a Title I school. That means that

1. There are lots of poor kids who go there.
2. Class sizes for K-2 are small.

Here is the MCPS summary sheet for Clopper Mill: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02100.pdf

Are there high-poverty schools in MCPS that are well-run, with good teachers? There certainly are, just as there are badly-run schools with bad teachers in Bethesda and Potomac. Is Clopper Mill a well-run, good-teacher high-poverty school? I don't know, unfortunately. I hope that somebody with first-hand experience with Clopper Mill will post.

Not PP, you are replying to but I know many families whose kids go to Clopper Mill, I know families that have from the beginning gone private and I know those that initially sent their child there and pulled them out. I think its pretty well established that there are many issues with the school no matter which 3 of these groups is doing the talking. That being said I know a child who is doing great there. I have a close friend who pulled their kid out because the school had little parent involvement and a ton of discipline issues. It depends on the kid and the family but clearly its not going to be on the list of more desirable schools.

[Anonymous]

As PPs have said, Clopper Mill is a tough school. I have several friends who teach there (I'm a former teacher). The good news is that the staff are very dedicated to the students. They have a lot of extra curricular activities that receive funding based on the school's population, which could also benefit your child. I know one of my friends is active in the Girls on the Run program, and they have been preparing for a clothing drive and yard sale. Not that your child would need clothing from the clothing drive, but it's an activity to get kids involved with helping others. I don't know about parent involvement or discipline issues.

My spouse actually teaches at Clemente, the middle school, and loves it. Some "challenging" kids, but because of the magnet program, if your child ends up being focused on school and academics, he or she would likely be in a little bubble of like-minded kids. One negative is that there is some teacher turnover, mostly teachers who come in for a year or two and quickly bolt. There are also a lot of longtime teachers who are very committed to the students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the elementary you were looking at but Ronald McNair in Germantown is a very good school, just a bit further down than Clopper Mills and has a similar feeder pattern.

There's also Germantown ES, Matsunaga ES ( might be harder to move into this area) and Great Seneca Creek ES. All have the same feeder pattern as Clopper Mill (at the moment at least).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the elementary you were looking at but Ronald McNair in Germantown is a very good school, just a bit further down than Clopper Mills and has a similar feeder pattern.

There's also Germantown ES, Matsunaga ES ( might be harder to move into this area) and Great Seneca Creek ES. All have the same feeder pattern as Clopper Mill (at the moment at least).

Matsunaga goes to Kingsview MS. Some of Great Seneca Creek also goes to Kingsview.

There is supposed to be rezoning involving Seneca Valley HS after the renovation is complete (now scheduled for 2020, I think) that may involve Northwest HS as well as Clarksburg HS.

[Anonymous]

You are all bashing this ES school but saying the middle and high school are okay? Aren't all these problem kids going into the middle and high school. Doesn't sound very positive at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all bashing this ES school but saying the middle and high school are okay? Aren't all these problem kids going into the middle and high school. Doesn't sound very positive at all.

Clopper Mill ES enrollment per grade: 52-75
Roberto Clemente MS enrollment per grade: 374-450
Northwest HS enrollment per grade: 454-616

Also, I don't think that anybody has said anything about "problem kids", let alone "all these problem kids". Unless you assume that poor black and Hispanic kids are by definition problem kids? But you wouldn't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all bashing this ES school but saying the middle and high school are okay? Aren't all these problem kids going into the middle and high school. Doesn't sound very positive at all.

There are lower performing schools in virtually every cluster in the county. Its not hard to see that when three schools merge together in middle school the whole character of the school changes for better or for worse.