Daughter hates her middle school

[Anonymous]

The Simpsons movie (rates pg13) has the F word in it. I can't imagine people honestly believe their children aren't going to encounter bosses, professors, roommates, etc who curse. We had a neighbor who was an executive with one of the biggest, oldest, pharmaceutical companies. His language on the tennis court was infamous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about home schooling for a year and a half?

Is this an option for you? You could use an online school as others have suggested if you don't want to take on actual homeschooling. If you're on FB, I highly recommend the group "Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers" and then within it the MS & HS subgroup. They have lots of conversations around situations where people are pulling their kids out of unfortunate public school situations to homeschool.

Wouldn't that just reinforce her issues? Seems more like psychiatric help is in order.

Psychiatric help for who? What makes you think the OP’s daughter needs psychiatric help? It’s a bit unclear.

Hi, OP here. Yes, my daughter doesn't need psychiatric help and honestly, home-schooling is not going to be the way to go for her as she's a very social person and needs a group of friends around her. Homeschooling is going to be worse, unfortunately.

What happened to friends from elementary??

We were part of a boundary reassignment and her friend group basically got split up, with most of her friends going to the previous middle school. Those assigned to her current middle school either got COSAs, did home schooling, went to private, moved, or borrowed an address. Some of them tried the middle school but the parents pulled them out. We were invested in trying it and proving everyone wrong but seeing my child miserable has changed this. Truthfully, I wouldn't say that all public middle schools are like this. We know families in neighboring middle schools who are fairly happy with their experience there and don't have the same issues that are facing ours. Ours is a combination of a high population of troubled kids, overburdened staff, and I hate to say it, a culture of low expectations.

It sounds like you gave it a respectable try but it’s time to walk back and use one of the other solutions that the other parents have gone with. You really want to avoid letting your kid linger in that bad environment, as she will start to hate school/learning, associate it with misery/stress, or even fall in with a bad peer group. It seems you’ve done your best but it’s time to figure something else out.

Also my condolences in your being redistricted. I’m going to guess Clarksburg? It’s really frustrating how MCPS has screwed over parents trying to buy in the good school districts - a big issue since there is a significant disparity between the good and bad schools here.

I'm curious what the ES/MS combo is as well.

This sounds a lot like where our kids went. Laytonsville, that would go to Damascus/Gaithersburg, and a small few to Rosa Parks.

It was tough on the kids and then most of the families zoned for GMS would COSA or go private or move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As other suggested, you could try an independent school for the middle school years. Pre-k/K through 8th grade programs are an intentional antidote to the issues you're seeing. This is just one example: https://www.sheridanschool.org/discover/benefits-of-a-k-8-school/

That school is $42K per year. What are normal earning people supposed to do?

+1 some people are so f*n clueless.

[Anonymous]

Can you rent for a year in an area zoned for a different middle school/same high school? Maybe even just a studio? You just need a legit lease.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you rent for a year in an area zoned for a different middle school/same high school? Maybe even just a studio? You just need a legit lease.

+1 this is what I would do, or use a friend's address.

I'm normally a rule follower, and a "diverse" student body doesn't worry me. However, if my child was truly miserable, couldn't find any friends even though they gave it a shot for a year, I'd move my kid using any method I could. Having a friend in school is so important for a kid's emotional/mental well being.

[Anonymous]

^also, the culture of low expectations would worry me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All MCPS middles have this. I’m a teacher in one. Most kids are desensitized to it by 7th grade. 2/3 of my own children went to a MCPS middle. One was shocked to her core as she came from private ES. A year later, she barely noticed. The high schools are not much better. The only real difference is that most HS students who don’t want to be there skip the whole day while MS students attend some classes and disrupt them. Still, my son entered MCPS as a freshman and was appalled. A Junior today, he barely notices things like cursing.

However, it is getting worse. The last two years are pandemic fallout. If the adults don’t reseize control, it will be impossible to learn in our MS.

Cursing? What kind of delicate snowflake did you raise?? I would be absolutely ashamed and embarrassed of myself as a parent if words could take my child down. Wow.

I'm seeing that you're focusing on cursing. As I said, it's a combination of many things. Cursing- yes, I've raised my kids to use sentences that are not filled with curse words. The kids at school curse out teachers, often say the N word, and on top of that, do drugs, vape, and fight. At work, this would not be tolerated. If my kid is a snowflake because she doesn't want to be in that environment day in and day out, then be it. I'm not embarrassed by that at all. We all should have higher expectations for students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about home schooling for a year and a half?

Is this an option for you? You could use an online school as others have suggested if you don't want to take on actual homeschooling. If you're on FB, I highly recommend the group "Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers" and then within it the MS & HS subgroup. They have lots of conversations around situations where people are pulling their kids out of unfortunate public school situations to homeschool.

Wouldn't that just reinforce her issues? Seems more like psychiatric help is in order.

Psychiatric help for who? What makes you think the OP’s daughter needs psychiatric help? It’s a bit unclear.

Hi, OP here. Yes, my daughter doesn't need psychiatric help and honestly, home-schooling is not going to be the way to go for her as she's a very social person and needs a group of friends around her. Homeschooling is going to be worse, unfortunately.

What happened to friends from elementary??

We were part of a boundary reassignment and her friend group basically got split up, with most of her friends going to the previous middle school. Those assigned to her current middle school either got COSAs, did home schooling, went to private, moved, or borrowed an address. Some of them tried the middle school but the parents pulled them out. We were invested in trying it and proving everyone wrong but seeing my child miserable has changed this. Truthfully, I wouldn't say that all public middle schools are like this. We know families in neighboring middle schools who are fairly happy with their experience there and don't have the same issues that are facing ours. Ours is a combination of a high population of troubled kids, overburdened staff, and I hate to say it, a culture of low expectations.

It sounds like you gave it a respectable try but it’s time to walk back and use one of the other solutions that the other parents have gone with. You really want to avoid letting your kid linger in that bad environment, as she will start to hate school/learning, associate it with misery/stress, or even fall in with a bad peer group. It seems you’ve done your best but it’s time to figure something else out.

Also my condolences in your being redistricted. I’m going to guess Clarksburg? It’s really frustrating how MCPS has screwed over parents trying to buy in the good school districts - a big issue since there is a significant disparity between the good and bad schools here.

What, do you expect MCPS to decide which schools are "good" or "bad" and only rezone kids to other "good" schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about home schooling for a year and a half?

Is this an option for you? You could use an online school as others have suggested if you don't want to take on actual homeschooling. If you're on FB, I highly recommend the group "Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers" and then within it the MS & HS subgroup. They have lots of conversations around situations where people are pulling their kids out of unfortunate public school situations to homeschool.

Wouldn't that just reinforce her issues? Seems more like psychiatric help is in order.

Psychiatric help for who? What makes you think the OP’s daughter needs psychiatric help? It’s a bit unclear.

Hi, OP here. Yes, my daughter doesn't need psychiatric help and honestly, home-schooling is not going to be the way to go for her as she's a very social person and needs a group of friends around her. Homeschooling is going to be worse, unfortunately.

What happened to friends from elementary??

We were part of a boundary reassignment and her friend group basically got split up, with most of her friends going to the previous middle school. Those assigned to her current middle school either got COSAs, did home schooling, went to private, moved, or borrowed an address. Some of them tried the middle school but the parents pulled them out. We were invested in trying it and proving everyone wrong but seeing my child miserable has changed this. Truthfully, I wouldn't say that all public middle schools are like this. We know families in neighboring middle schools who are fairly happy with their experience there and don't have the same issues that are facing ours. Ours is a combination of a high population of troubled kids, overburdened staff, and I hate to say it, a culture of low expectations.

It sounds like you gave it a respectable try but it’s time to walk back and use one of the other solutions that the other parents have gone with. You really want to avoid letting your kid linger in that bad environment, as she will start to hate school/learning, associate it with misery/stress, or even fall in with a bad peer group. It seems you’ve done your best but it’s time to figure something else out.

Also my condolences in your being redistricted. I’m going to guess Clarksburg? It’s really frustrating how MCPS has screwed over parents trying to buy in the good school districts - a big issue since there is a significant disparity between the good and bad schools here.

What, do you expect MCPS to decide which schools are "good" or "bad" and only rezone kids to other "good" schools?

DP. Just no. For starters, MCPS should require that all schools have some level of behavior expectation from their students and implement repercussions for not following them. Some schools do a much better job at doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not in Montgomery county, but would you be open to a parochial school to finish out middle school? At a minimum it would be a calmer environment.

Thanks. We've looked into this but many have a wait list or are not accepting anyone mid-year. Also, many of the private schools that serve middle-schoolers end in 8th-grade and do not accept rising 8th graders.

I don't know where you are in MoCo but this has not been my experience. Absolutely they take kids mid-year and would definitely accept just for one year too. How many did you talk to?

-private school employee

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about home schooling for a year and a half?

Is this an option for you? You could use an online school as others have suggested if you don't want to take on actual homeschooling. If you're on FB, I highly recommend the group "Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers" and then within it the MS & HS subgroup. They have lots of conversations around situations where people are pulling their kids out of unfortunate public school situations to homeschool.

Wouldn't that just reinforce her issues? Seems more like psychiatric help is in order.

Psychiatric help for who? What makes you think the OP’s daughter needs psychiatric help? It’s a bit unclear.

Hi, OP here. Yes, my daughter doesn't need psychiatric help and honestly, home-schooling is not going to be the way to go for her as she's a very social person and needs a group of friends around her. Homeschooling is going to be worse, unfortunately.

What happened to friends from elementary??

We were part of a boundary reassignment and her friend group basically got split up, with most of her friends going to the previous middle school. Those assigned to her current middle school either got COSAs, did home schooling, went to private, moved, or borrowed an address. Some of them tried the middle school but the parents pulled them out. We were invested in trying it and proving everyone wrong but seeing my child miserable has changed this. Truthfully, I wouldn't say that all public middle schools are like this. We know families in neighboring middle schools who are fairly happy with their experience there and don't have the same issues that are facing ours. Ours is a combination of a high population of troubled kids, overburdened staff, and I hate to say it, a culture of low expectations.

It sounds like you gave it a respectable try but it’s time to walk back and use one of the other solutions that the other parents have gone with. You really want to avoid letting your kid linger in that bad environment, as she will start to hate school/learning, associate it with misery/stress, or even fall in with a bad peer group. It seems you’ve done your best but it’s time to figure something else out.

Also my condolences in your being redistricted. I’m going to guess Clarksburg? It’s really frustrating how MCPS has screwed over parents trying to buy in the good school districts - a big issue since there is a significant disparity between the good and bad schools here.

What, do you expect MCPS to decide which schools are "good" or "bad" and only rezone kids to other "good" schools?

DP. Just no. For starters, MCPS should require that all schools have some level of behavior expectation from their students and implement repercussions for not following them. Some schools do a much better job at doing that.

+1. Expect more of the students and stop allowing dangerous behavior to be commonplace!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All MCPS middles have this. I’m a teacher in one. Most kids are desensitized to it by 7th grade. 2/3 of my own children went to a MCPS middle. One was shocked to her core as she came from private ES. A year later, she barely noticed. The high schools are not much better. The only real difference is that most HS students who don’t want to be there skip the whole day while MS students attend some classes and disrupt them. Still, my son entered MCPS as a freshman and was appalled. A Junior today, he barely notices things like cursing.

However, it is getting worse. The last two years are pandemic fallout. If the adults don’t reseize control, it will be impossible to learn in our MS.

Cursing? What kind of delicate snowflake did you raise?? I would be absolutely ashamed and embarrassed of myself as a parent if words could take my child down. Wow.

I'm seeing that you're focusing on cursing. As I said, it's a combination of many things. Cursing- yes, I've raised my kids to use sentences that are not filled with curse words. The kids at school curse out teachers, often say the N word, and on top of that, do drugs, vape, and fight. At work, this would not be tolerated. If my kid is a snowflake because she doesn't want to be in that environment day in and day out, then be it. I'm not embarrassed by that at all. We all should have higher expectations for students.

Cursing was the only detail you gave. Weird you would focus on cursing as opposed to vaping, fighting or drugs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^also, the culture of low expectations would worry me.

Definitely a problem at our ‘diverse’ non-W middle school. The expectations are just SO low. For all kids. Even the kids (of various races) who are capable of doing better. They simply skate by. And lots of teacher time (especially in Science and English) is spent on the lower-performing kids. Math and History are the only classes where MCPS offers differentiation in MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about home schooling for a year and a half?

Is this an option for you? You could use an online school as others have suggested if you don't want to take on actual homeschooling. If you're on FB, I highly recommend the group "Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers" and then within it the MS & HS subgroup. They have lots of conversations around situations where people are pulling their kids out of unfortunate public school situations to homeschool.

Wouldn't that just reinforce her issues? Seems more like psychiatric help is in order.

Psychiatric help for who? What makes you think the OP’s daughter needs psychiatric help? It’s a bit unclear.

Hi, OP here. Yes, my daughter doesn't need psychiatric help and honestly, home-schooling is not going to be the way to go for her as she's a very social person and needs a group of friends around her. Homeschooling is going to be worse, unfortunately.

What happened to friends from elementary??

We were part of a boundary reassignment and her friend group basically got split up, with most of her friends going to the previous middle school. Those assigned to her current middle school either got COSAs, did home schooling, went to private, moved, or borrowed an address. Some of them tried the middle school but the parents pulled them out. We were invested in trying it and proving everyone wrong but seeing my child miserable has changed this. Truthfully, I wouldn't say that all public middle schools are like this. We know families in neighboring middle schools who are fairly happy with their experience there and don't have the same issues that are facing ours. Ours is a combination of a high population of troubled kids, overburdened staff, and I hate to say it, a culture of low expectations. My kid by no means isn't traumatized hearing cursing and seeing fights from time to time; it's the daily and constant exposure to it and seeing that nothing gets done about it, that is troubling. I've told her many times to give it a try and to find kids who care about school like she does. There are kids like that there- but very few who like the same things that she does. It's really more about her not socially fitting in. I know a COSA would be very difficult.

So, I think you are really focused here on finding kids who "care about school like she does," but that's not something that's easy to select for. However, kids who care about school do congregate in certain classes and extracurriculars. Unfortunately, you are going to need to get involved, encourage her to try some new things, and pick classes strategically. Is she already in a language class? Most of the kids who are academically focused are taking a language starting in 6th, and the kids still doing the language in 8th are self-selected. How about after school or lunchtime activities. Is she doing Book Wars or some sort of similar club? Would she consider going out for the school play? There are kids like her, but she needs to put herself in their sphere to figure out who they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All MCPS middles have this. I’m a teacher in one. Most kids are desensitized to it by 7th grade. 2/3 of my own children went to a MCPS middle. One was shocked to her core as she came from private ES. A year later, she barely noticed. The high schools are not much better. The only real difference is that most HS students who don’t want to be there skip the whole day while MS students attend some classes and disrupt them. Still, my son entered MCPS as a freshman and was appalled. A Junior today, he barely notices things like cursing.

However, it is getting worse. The last two years are pandemic fallout. If the adults don’t reseize control, it will be impossible to learn in our MS.

Cursing? What kind of delicate snowflake did you raise?? I would be absolutely ashamed and embarrassed of myself as a parent if words could take my child down. Wow.

I'm seeing that you're focusing on cursing. As I said, it's a combination of many things. Cursing- yes, I've raised my kids to use sentences that are not filled with curse words. The kids at school curse out teachers, often say the N word, and on top of that, do drugs, vape, and fight. At work, this would not be tolerated. If my kid is a snowflake because she doesn't want to be in that environment day in and day out, then be it. I'm not embarrassed by that at all. We all should have higher expectations for students.

Cursing was the only detail you gave. Weird you would focus on cursing as opposed to vaping, fighting or drugs

Actually no.