Moving to MoCo from out of state — W schools are not an option

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Avoid MCPS if you can…seriously suboptimal. I would pick the cheapest house and go private.

More backdoor recruiting from the privates?

I don't see any backdoors here. I would avoid MCPS if I could do it all over again....

Yep more backdoor recruiting.

People, people I am going through the front door. MCPS is a dumpster fire right now.

And yet none (be it privates or other jurisdictions) seems to be able to beat MCPS in anything remotely competitive.

By any objective measure yes, MCPS beats all these other counties by a wide margin. Even VA's vaunted TJ, America's No #1 HS, loses consistently to Blair in every academic contest. The issue here is that MCPS is great if you value education and take some personal responsibility. If you want a school system to raise your kids, Howard is probably a good bet.

5th in the state of Maryland is vaunted? Okay….I’ll have what you are having.. try half of MCPS third graders struggle to read at grade level.

Try 32% of the State third graders and 28% of the nation third graders struggle to read at grade level.

So your standard of how well we're doing is how poorly everyone else is doing ?

No, the point is reading at grade level is poor all over the country but MCPS is way above average

I hear people say that but looking at the evidence at our school that seems unlikely. Most kids are far above grade level.

[Anonymous]

Grade inflation is absolutely out of control. It’s disgusting. And by that I mean that students get 50% for not even attempting to complete an assignment. It’s embarrassing and higher education institutes need to be aware because it has seriously exponentially decreased the value of an MCPS diploma. Yes, students who would earn As will still earn As, but I have students who don’t turn in any part of final essays (this is like 10 assignments cumulative per quarter) who squeak out with a B or high C.

It should make the parents of the students who work hard for As and high Bs infuriated. I know I am on behalf of my students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Avoid MCPS if you can…seriously suboptimal. I would pick the cheapest house and go private.

More backdoor recruiting from the privates?

I don't see any backdoors here. I would avoid MCPS if I could do it all over again....

Yep more backdoor recruiting.

People, people I am going through the front door. MCPS is a dumpster fire right now.

And yet none (be it privates or other jurisdictions) seems to be able to beat MCPS in anything remotely competitive.

By any objective measure yes, MCPS beats all these other counties by a wide margin. Even VA's vaunted TJ, America's No #1 HS, loses consistently to Blair in every academic contest. The issue here is that MCPS is great if you value education and take some personal responsibility. If you want a school system to raise your kids, Howard is probably a good bet.

5th in the state of Maryland is vaunted? Okay….I’ll have what you are having.. try half of MCPS third graders struggle to read at grade level.

Try 32% of the State third graders and 28% of the nation third graders struggle to read at grade level.

So your standard of how well we're doing is how poorly everyone else is doing ?

No, the point is reading at grade level is poor all over the country but MCPS is way above average

I hear people say that but looking at the evidence at our school that seems unlikely. Most kids are far above grade level.

Yes, the MAP-R district scores are far above the national average, but the complainers hate it when facts get in their schools are failing narrative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Avoid MCPS if you can…seriously suboptimal. I would pick the cheapest house and go private.

Bad advice. We left mcps to go one of the top privates in DC and has been a waste of money.

Agree. Bad advice.
You won’t get into if the good privates now anyway.
Maybe check out no. VA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is absolutely out of control. It’s disgusting. And by that I mean that students get 50% for not even attempting to complete an assignment. It’s embarrassing and higher education institutes need to be aware because it has seriously exponentially decreased the value of an MCPS diploma. Yes, students who would earn As will still earn As, but I have students who don’t turn in any part of final essays (this is like 10 assignments cumulative per quarter) who squeak out with a B or high C.

It should make the parents of the students who work hard for As and high Bs infuriated. I know I am on behalf of my students.

I agree as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Avoid MCPS if you can…seriously suboptimal. I would pick the cheapest house and go private.

Bad advice. We left mcps to go one of the top privates in DC and has been a waste of money.

Agree. Bad advice.
You won’t get into if the good privates now anyway.
Maybe check out no. VA?

would would NoVa be any better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is absolutely out of control. It’s disgusting. And by that I mean that students get 50% for not even attempting to complete an assignment. It’s embarrassing and higher education institutes need to be aware because it has seriously exponentially decreased the value of an MCPS diploma. Yes, students who would earn As will still earn As, but I have students who don’t turn in any part of final essays (this is like 10 assignments cumulative per quarter) who squeak out with a B or high C.

It should make the parents of the students who work hard for As and high Bs infuriated. I know I am on behalf of my students.

I know the "50 percent rule" makes folks really mad, but PP is also misrepresenting what it means. It means that a student has until end of quarter to submit the assignment with only the regular "late fee" in terms of grading. If the end of the quarter comes and the assignment never appears, THEN the teacher can issue a 0.

It doesn't hurt A/B students because they remain A/B students and kids getting 50% or 0% remain F students. But it does help the F students become C students or whatever because it means that one late assignment doesn't tank their entire quarter grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is absolutely out of control. It’s disgusting. And by that I mean that students get 50% for not even attempting to complete an assignment. It’s embarrassing and higher education institutes need to be aware because it has seriously exponentially decreased the value of an MCPS diploma. Yes, students who would earn As will still earn As, but I have students who don’t turn in any part of final essays (this is like 10 assignments cumulative per quarter) who squeak out with a B or high C.

It should make the parents of the students who work hard for As and high Bs infuriated. I know I am on behalf of my students.

I know the "50 percent rule" makes folks really mad, but PP is also misrepresenting what it means. It means that a student has until end of quarter to submit the assignment with only the regular "late fee" in terms of grading. If the end of the quarter comes and the assignment never appears, THEN the teacher can issue a 0.

It doesn't hurt A/B students because they remain A/B students and kids getting 50% or 0% remain F students. But it does help the F students become C students or whatever because it means that one late assignment doesn't tank their entire quarter grade.

This is exactly what I said. If you have a kid who is a good student, don't worry about it and if this policy does concern you, it is not permanent.

[Anonymous]

To the OP. You should not be reading this forum to get useful information about schools in MCPS. This forum is full of white women who think anything not in their Bethesda neighborhood is gang related. I can afford to move to Bethesda, but I don't want these people as neighbors. They are racist and think anyone who doesn't make $250K a year is poor.

If I were you, I would rent in a place you like that has down-to-earth neighbors and then spend a year exploring different neighborhoods and schools.

[Anonymous]

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OP,

We moved to Bethesda years ago specifically for two things:
1. Short commute.
2. The school had a great reputation for taking care of its special needs population.

The two above criteria are the most important! Wealthy neighborhoods don't always have the best IEP teams. You have to create a thread specifically for that. It depends on the Principal of each school. As a rule of thumb, if the school houses a special program, then you can have some reassurance that they take special needs seriously, even if your child is not necessarily in that program. Walter Johnson is a north Bethesda cluster that houses the GT/LD and Asperger's programs. You need to look at each website, see what programs they have in each school.

It doesn't sound like OP can afford Bethesda

PP you replied to. Right. I just meant it as an example of how we went about looking for a house and school. OP doesn't need to worry about commute right now, and she has price restrictions, but it doesn't change the fact that IEP services will vary wildly depending on the Principal of each school, and W schools aren't necessarily better. The previous principal of Somerset ES (wealthy Chevy Chase) was notorious for not being helpful at all... So it's going to be grunt work. And as I said, start with the schools that house special programs already.

Just for the record, the notoriously unhelpful Somerset principal is not "previous"--she was on leave, and she's back. We are there now and wish we were anywhere else. She has run that school into the ground. I feel terribly for the staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which of the other high schools are the best? I recently heard about gang problems at some of them, which is alarming. We obviously want to avoid those. Which ones are experiencing gang violence? Are any of the ones that are not W schools and not filled with gangs better or worse for kids on an IEP?

There are gangs in the DC Metro area- whether it's DC, Northern VA, MoCo, etc. just as there are in other major metropolitan areas of the U.S. There may be some gangs in some schools, I'm sure of it- but just because a school doesn't have a gang problem today, doesn't mean that it will remain gang-free year after year. What I do know is that high schools in MCPS have around 2,000 kids and for every single one of them, majority of the kids don't associate with gangs. If you've raised your kid right, then they'll be in the majority. Also, the kids who are in gangs are not bothering the "good" students who don't associate with them. Their beef is with rival gang members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is absolutely out of control. It’s disgusting. And by that I mean that students get 50% for not even attempting to complete an assignment. It’s embarrassing and higher education institutes need to be aware because it has seriously exponentially decreased the value of an MCPS diploma. Yes, students who would earn As will still earn As, but I have students who don’t turn in any part of final essays (this is like 10 assignments cumulative per quarter) who squeak out with a B or high C.

It should make the parents of the students who work hard for As and high Bs infuriated. I know I am on behalf of my students.

I agree as a parent.

I disagree and think this is a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which of the other high schools are the best? I recently heard about gang problems at some of them, which is alarming. We obviously want to avoid those. Which ones are experiencing gang violence? Are any of the ones that are not W schools and not filled with gangs better or worse for kids on an IEP?

Where did you hear this? I have a HS child in a non-W and this has not been an issue.

OP probably heard it from W parents who insist that anything outside of W cluster is considered "ganglandia", ie, too many colored people.

I feel like us using "colored" like it's 1962 again is not the progressive leap forward so many are thinking it is.