Schools by county versus town

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this has been discussed before, but I am originally from an area where each town has its own school district. So unless you choose to do private, your kids go to that towns public schools. Theres really no comparisons and connection between one district and another because theres no option to bus your child elsewhere etc, so everyone just cares about their own town and district cersus focusing on what other towns are doing etc. You just live in the town where you want your kids to go to school or at least where youre ok with your kids going to school. Ovbiously in DC area each county is its own school district and therefore all the towns are constantly being compared and discussed, etc. What is the better system? I wonder if county-wide district is better bc ur kids will have more options if they need something thats not offered in their home school? But town districts seems easier to maneuver and more community-ish. I still only have preschool age kids but am starting to wonder about this as I explore school options.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in New England in a small town so moving to MD and now VA, the school set up took some getting used to. I talk to my sister a lot who still lives in our home town and their school budget is so much more than ours for much less. There is something to be said for the savings found with running a larger system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in New England in a small town so moving to MD and now VA, the school set up took some getting used to. I talk to my sister a lot who still lives in our home town and their school budget is so much more than ours for much less. There is something to be said for the savings found with running a larger system.

So you mean since its more costly to run a countywide district, the individual school budgets are less?

[Anonymous]

I meant the exact opposite. The larger county wide system provides more services for less money.

[Anonymous]

OP, where I'm from, each town has its own school district, and we all compared them to each other. This one is better than that one, ours is better than theirs for this reason or that reason... I would be surprised if there were no comparisons where you were from. Parents are concerned about the quality of their child's education.

[Anonymous]

Yup, from new England and some towns had great schools because that's what the residents focused in, some had crappy schools. Fwiw the facilities and staff where I grew up (Newton MA) put ffx and MoCo to shame. Yes even at Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, where I'm from, each town has its own school district, and we all compared them to each other. This one is better than that one, ours is better than theirs for this reason or that reason... I would be surprised if there were no comparisons where you were from. Parents are concerned about the quality of their child's education.

I get what youre saying, but I feel like it happens more when every town in the county is one district. But that wasnt really the point of the post. I guess im just wondering from people who have experienced both, which system do you think works better and why? This is purely just me being curious since Im new to the county district thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup, from new England and some towns had great schools because that's what the residents focused in, some had crappy schools. Fwiw the facilities and staff where I grew up (Newton MA) put ffx and MoCo to shame. Yes even at Whitman.

Newton is like Chevy Chase wealthy, not surprising

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. Our district was known as one of the best in the state (high income resort area with surrounding agriculture and commuting distance to larger urban area--so a mix of professionals and blue collar, but very little unemployment). It was much more homogenous than the districts here and that probably made it easier to manage. Children came to school prepared and the work ethic among families was very high. There were virtually no "working poor" at that time.

I later moved to Rochester, New York and worked in a suburban school district (based on towns there as well). It was affluent and the schools were well funded and excellent. In NY districts band together for special programs so that money is pooled and those programs are very good also.

My own child grew up here in the huge county district. OP, you are right that the town districting system in the North is more "community-ish". I find that here the schools are fine, but vary quite a bit within the "district/county". The county is too big to be one "community" so communities are built more around the pyramid that your school is in (the high school and its feeder schools). So there are differences based on the communities. I would say that financing is less important than the general demographics of an area. If an area has parents who can prepare and help their children (and those are usually higher income areas), the schools will be able to do more once the children enter them. When you look for schools in these bigger districts, you are looking for areas with strong high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup, from new England and some towns had great schools because that's what the residents focused in, some had crappy schools. Fwiw the facilities and staff where I grew up (Newton MA) put ffx and MoCo to shame. Yes even at Whitman.

How many high schools were there at that time in Newton MA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup, from new England and some towns had great schools because that's what the residents focused in, some had crappy schools. Fwiw the facilities and staff where I grew up (Newton MA) put ffx and MoCo to shame. Yes even at Whitman.

Newton is like Chevy Chase wealthy, not surprising

Yes, so the schools are like those Chevy Chase and McLean would have if the parents there weren't also subsiding the education for the kids in Wheaton and Annandale.

It's kind of bizarre how the liberals from New England seem to think that system is admirable.

[Anonymous]

I'm from a small towns in New England of under 30,000 residents and now live in MoCo. I think that the town environment helps provide a great sense of community, which I think is lacking in MoCo. However, for special needs services, the MoCo system is far superior to what I saw growing up. Towns in New England cannot provide specialized special needs programs, so in one town where I lived all children who were pre-k through elementary age with multiple, major special needs shared one classroom in a building that was primarily a kindergarten. In a different town all special needs students in the entire high school shared one classroom all day long, no matter what their needs were. Here, there's specialized programs for almost everything (and I know of 9 different specialized preschool programs for special needs children in preschool alone in MoCo).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm from a small towns in New England of under 30,000 residents and now live in MoCo. I think that the town environment helps provide a great sense of community, which I think is lacking in MoCo. However, for special needs services, the MoCo system is far superior to what I saw growing up. Towns in New England cannot provide specialized special needs programs, so in one town where I lived all children who were pre-k through elementary age with multiple, major special needs shared one classroom in a building that was primarily a kindergarten. In a different town all special needs students in the entire high school shared one classroom all day long, no matter what their needs were. Here, there's specialized programs for almost everything (and I know of 9 different specialized preschool programs for special needs children in preschool alone in MoCo).

Very good to know. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup, from new England and some towns had great schools because that's what the residents focused in, some had crappy schools. Fwiw the facilities and staff where I grew up (Newton MA) put ffx and MoCo to shame. Yes even at Whitman.

Newton is like Chevy Chase wealthy, not surprising

Yes, so the schools are like those Chevy Chase and McLean would have if the parents there weren't also subsiding the education for the kids in Wheaton and Annandale.

It's kind of bizarre how the liberals from New England seem to think that system is admirable.

Yes, I second this. The town system seems fantastic if you're in a rich town, but many more kids live in middling or poor towns. With a county system, the rich subsidize the poor so you get less of a vicious circle where the poor stay poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup, from new England and some towns had great schools because that's what the residents focused in, some had crappy schools. Fwiw the facilities and staff where I grew up (Newton MA) put ffx and MoCo to shame. Yes even at Whitman.

How many high schools were there at that time in Newton MA?

2 public high schools of just under 2K kids. A quick search says Newton has about 85K population to Bethesda's 65K. Bethesda has 3 high schools of just under 2K.