MoCo question

[Anonymous]

We have decided that it is time to move our elementary school children to public schools--likely in the Bethesda area. Many reasons, but mainly more house and financial reasons.

What schools are seen as nurturing and teaching a live of learning versus schools that are essentially institutional and homogenous? Also, when do the schools start tracking kids as far as academic achievement levels? Thank you

[Anonymous]

Public schools are supposed to have the same curriculum. Many in Bethesda are seriously overcrowded and you'll have 28 kids in the class hard to be nurturing with that many kids.

[Anonymous]

I am asking for actual schools and experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am asking for actual schools and experiences.

Our child is at Bradley Hills. 4th grade with 24 kids in her homeroom- the classes rotate for different subjects but most if the 4th grade rooms have 24 kids. Of the three teachers she encounters for academic subjects, two are very nuturing, encouraging, kind and enthusiastic. The third is ok but still a bit green. He art, music and PE teachers are all great.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP - there are a lot of ESes in the Bethesda area. 3 High Schools - BCC, Whitman and WJ. I think you will get better answers from DCUM if you first take a look at the cluster maps and narrow down where in Bethesda you want to be.

That said, we love Ashburton in the WJ Cluster, our children have mostly been nurtured there (one teacher was a little less nurturing than the others), but it is the most crowded school in the Bethesda area, and that alone might be reason to pick somewhere else. Ashburton is very diverse and very nurturing. You can find data about the diversity of the elementary schools in the at-a-glance sheets available on the district web site.

True academic accelleration begins in 4th Grade.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for these answers. Very helpful. Comments on Somerset and West(forgot full name derf) also of interest.

[Anonymous]

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/471281.page

[Anonymous]

I think it's important to realize that on the one hand MCPS is a large school system which limits the differences in curriculum/testing etc from school to school. On the other hand, your child's experience will be influenced by the specific teachers he or she gets, but that's not a basis for picking a school-- you can't be dure your kid will grt any specific teacher or even that the teacher will be there years from now.

My advice to people is generally not to worry about picking a specific ES, but one thing you could consider is the Rosemary Hills/NCC/CCES split. Some people dislike it but I actually found having a school focused entirely on K-2 made for a very supportive environment for younger kids. The downside is that the grades are big, so lunch/recess is a little crazy (and the kids get reshuffled in classes from year to year and eventually split for 3-5)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these answers. Very helpful. Comments on Somerset and West(forgot full name derf) also of interest.

You probably mean Westbook. Both great schools with high test scores and very involved families. Both very homogenous (white, wealthy) and very "Bethesda" where many of the kids and parents dress in the same brands. Lots of lawyers, lobbyists, higher-ranking gov. types in these schools. Of the Bethesda schools the ones that are more diverse are closer to Rockville like Ashburton and Wyngate. Lots of NIH families in these.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these answers. Very helpful. Comments on Somerset and West(forgot full name derf) also of interest.

You probably mean Westbook. Both great schools with high test scores and very involved families. Both very homogenous (white, wealthy) and very "Bethesda" where many of the kids and parents dress in the same brands. Lots of lawyers, lobbyists, higher-ranking gov. types in these schools. Of the Bethesda schools the ones that are more diverse are closer to Rockville like Ashburton and Wyngate. Lots of NIH families in these.

Or NCC/CCES. Maybe BE too.

[Anonymous]

It's a giant public school system, none of the schools are nurturing--you might get a teacher who is once in a while, but a whole school, nope.

[Anonymous]

OP,

We have kids in the Walter Johnson and BCC cluster and have friends in other Bethesda MCPS schools.

You have to realize that there are structural limitations in MCPS due to rapid demographic changes which bring overcrowding and, in some schools, many children who do not speak English as a first language, but this is not a pressing issue in the Bethesda-area schools. Certain Bethesda schools which are not in the immediate downtown have very affluent families with children who for the most part have always lived a very comfortable lifestyle and thus may have a skewed perception of reality.

Every teacher is supposed to follow the same curriculum HOWEVER some schools or teacher teams in certain grades implement extra add-ons, for example the Lucy Calkins writing program, which could be considered an enrichment. We have found that each teacher has a lot of leeway in what he or she does in the class.

So your question is really too large. By the time your child hits certain grades at a certain school, that teacher might not be teaching there anymore and her approach might not be implemented by the current teacher!

As a European who studied at various private schools in the UK, France and Germany, and who did a stint in a Japanese school, here's what I've noticed:
1. The MCPS curriculum, as well as many private school curriculae, are "a mile wide and an inch thick", meaning that the students are introduced to a wide variety of concepts without having the time to go in-depth and develop critical thinking skills to answer complex problems in each. This is particularly problematic in writing development and math thinking.
2. There are no textbooks so review and reading ahead are difficult.
3. Certain MCPS schools are excellent at caring for special needs, particularly the Bethesda Elementary School, some of them are terrible, it depends on the attitude of each school administration, but none except selective magnets are adept at challenging advanced students. Magnets at the elementary school level (Highly Gifted Centers) will be close to you, but in middle and high school have been deliberately chosen to be far away from Bethesda, to revive other downtowns such as Silver Spring, Takoma Park or Wheaton. This poses a transportation issue for Bethesda-area students.

[Anonymous]

It sometimes seems that what people are saying. Is that everything sucks. Ugh

[Anonymous]

But again, I am looking for specific info about specific schools and not overal views of mcps.

[Anonymous]

It's not that "everything sucks". It's that MCPS is one of the largest school districts in the country so if you are looking for your platonic ideal of a school-- whatever it might be-- MCPS is unlikely to meet it-- and that goes for any particular school as well as MCPS as a whole.