Bannockburn vs. Wood Acres

[Anonymous]

We are likely moving to the WW Cluster, and love the neighborhoods for both Bannockburn and Wood Acres. Can folks share their views of these schools? Our children will be entering fourth and second grade, respectively.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

Wood Acres is a much bigger school (3-5 classes per grade), is recently renovated and has the county's only ES planetarium. Bannockburn is much smaller 2-3 classes per grade and the building is aging but the community is wonderful. Both are great schools. Which you pick really depends I think a) on the house and b) whether you prefer a bigger or smaller school. The kids will all meet up at Pyle.

[Anonymous]

The size of Woodacres surged a few years ago when they became known as incorporating special needs well. The same thing happened to Bethesda Elementary School, before it.

Results were overcrowding and high proportion of SN kids in regular classrooms, not always with the correct proportion of additional support from teachers. Kids fell through gaps.

Bannockburn doesn't have this going on yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The size of Woodacres surged a few years ago when they became known as incorporating special needs well. The same thing happened to Bethesda Elementary School, before it.

Results were overcrowding and high proportion of SN kids in regular classrooms, not always with the correct proportion of additional support from teachers. Kids fell through gaps.

Bannockburn doesn't have this going on yet.

You don't know what you are talking about. Wood Acres has a LAD program. It was overcrowded no matter how you looked at it. SN students didn't do it and sticking 30 kids in a classroom means some will fall through the cracks, SN or not. Bannockburn will never have this program (which is actually being phased out by MCPS) because it is not set up with the right staffing (e.g. no OT and no place to put one and related equipment).

OP, your choice is big vs small. Bannockburn gives tours. You could call and ask the same of Woodacres.

[Anonymous]

How many kids per class on average in each school?

[Anonymous]

Wood acres is hundreds of students under capacity in a newly renovated building. K this year was about 22-23 per class. It has a strong PTA and a nice double playground and park. It also has a standalone gymnasium/auditorium , cafeteria, art room, computer room, planetarium, atrium and music room. Smaller isn't always better

[Anonymous]

Class size depends on how many kids total in the grade. I heard one year Bannockburn K was close to 30 kids in two classes, but one more kid registering might have allowed for 3 classes of 20 instead of two of 30. So it really depends. WA is the same, current 3 grade has 5 classes (@24 each) but in 2nd there were a handful fewer kids so there were only 4 sections at @28 per class.