Tell me about Garrett Park Elementary ...

[Anonymous]

How is Kindergarten? How big are the classes? Are the teachers and principals good? What about before and afterschool programs? Any particularly good or bad ones? Any guidance is appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Bump.
I'm also considering moving to Garrett Park, but was startled to learn that the kids are in a temporary facility while there's construction going on. They won't be in their permanent building until January 2012.
For someone seeking stability from the turmoil of the DC School system, this doesn't sound promising.
But if it's a good school, and the construction really will finish on schedule, then it might be worth it.
My child might consider it interesting rather than disruptive.
I'd welcome thoughts on the quality of the school and aftercare, as the OP requested.

[Anonymous]

It will definitely be January 2012. It's a "temp" facility - but it's a real school, with a real playground and real fields. The facility is aging, but it's serviceable for a year and a half - especially to get a beautiful brand new facility.

My KS is very happy at GPES. He's progressed quite nicely through K. The teachers are great. The PTA is very involved. The principal is outstanding and extremely responsive if you have an issue. That said, you need to be an involved parent - if you feel like your kid needs more attention - take it to the administration if you think the teacher's not being responsive. The principal will respond.

MY KS does before and aftercare on site - and we have nothing but good things to say about them. It can look a little chaotic and unstructured - but after so much structure during the day, it's nice that the kids can have downtime that's supervised and get out on the playground for more than the 30 minutes after lunch. They also give them snack - so that's good too. And they escort them to and from afterschool activities - like Hands on Science, Foreign Language Instruction, Socccer, Baseball, Fine Arts.

The issues I have I would have at any public school these days - not enough time spent on stuff other than reading or math (although I would have preferred actually more time on advanced math, but that won't happen until next year I am told), not enough outdoor time, large class sizes (26+). All in all, though, I think GPES does an admirable job of doing alot within the confines of what it needs to do be considered a really good public school.

Hope that helps - come to the Kindergarten orientation in May if you want more info - if you think you are going to be enrolling, please enroll as soon as you can so the school can make the appropriate appropriations requests.