Your Thoughts on Montgomery County Schools

[Anonymous]

FCPS GT centers are a bigger joke..

[Anonymous]

MCPS HGC... except for ONE field trip to SERC , and some coke bottle terrariums virtually no science. Accelerated math is a joke under C2.0. The two assignments that come out of the main office of MCPS are not vetted, the kids can't find the answers, I even helped my son look through the REQUIRED web resources for answers, they were not there. MCPS has foisted a non existent curriculum on kids all the while ignoring the current research on how children actually learn, they don't learn via the web or looking at videos, real learning requires reading BOOKS and homework that is done in more than a 15 minute increment in a classroom.

I would imagine FCPS gifted would be at an advantage by virtue of using a real curriculum and not just throwing non researched educational theory around.

[Anonymous]

Which HGC? My kid had a lot of science.

[Anonymous]

WHich center is that? My child actually had a field trip to the public library where they were required to use at least two actual books as sources for a research paper.

The best thing about MCPS centers is that the group of kids are truely gifted or advanced. FCPS includes so many kids (about 25%) that the curriculum is not very different from the regular kids.

But hope it works out better for you!

[Anonymous]

Also lots of science here!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've lived in MCPS for eight years and the schools have steadily declined. My husband is up for a job transfer and when that happens we will move to NOVA. My son was in the highly sought after HGC program and it is a joke. There is no teaching going on and very little feedback.

Move to NOVA.

Honestly, I think that you are making a big mistake. I agree that MCPS has some issues. However, FCPS issues are bigger. My advice is to dig a little deeper about FCPS and what is going on at the state level in Viriginia in regards to public education. I just don't want you to find out the hard way. Do your research first!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also lots of science here!

+1

Exactly!

[Anonymous]

Thank you to the other posters who related their experiences. My son was at the CCES HGC.

At our teacher conferences, which were also useless, we were shown no samples of work but instead told of how lively their discussions were. I asked how much my son participated, since he is very shy, and was told that he did not speak much but seemed to enjoy listening to other children speak.

[Anonymous]

I realize this may be opening up another can of worms, but I'm curious if the kinds of problems articulated here extend to the high schools as well? We currently have a child in 5th grade in a K-8 private school, but given finances public high school is the most likely option for us (it will be a stretch even to finish through 8th but we're hopeful we can.) We're likely looking at moving to Quince Orchard or Richard Montgomery as the W districts are also out of our range (currently in Gaithersburg High district - also not out of the question to stay here depending on how it trends over the next 4 years).

Thanks for any insights!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I realize this may be opening up another can of worms, but I'm curious if the kinds of problems articulated here extend to the high schools as well? We currently have a child in 5th grade in a K-8 private school, but given finances public high school is the most likely option for us (it will be a stretch even to finish through 8th but we're hopeful we can.) We're likely looking at moving to Quince Orchard or Richard Montgomery as the W districts are also out of our range (currently in Gaithersburg High district - also not out of the question to stay here depending on how it trends over the next 4 years).

Thanks for any insights!

Personally I would be very happy with either RM or QO. We are in the area for Northwest HS and I'm not sure about it. We have a few years to decide though.

[Anonymous]

We moved to MoCo for the schools & were so unimpressed, we ended up doing private. There is a reason the majority of our neighbors send their kids to private & all the good privates in NWDC & MoCo have long waiting lists. The people who can afford to leave the MoCo schools for private do.

[Anonymous]

With a 2.28 BILLION dollar budget the schools should be much better. Lots of salaries with very little real education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realize this may be opening up another can of worms, but I'm curious if the kinds of problems articulated here extend to the high schools as well? We currently have a child in 5th grade in a K-8 private school, but given finances public high school is the most likely option for us (it will be a stretch even to finish through 8th but we're hopeful we can.) We're likely looking at moving to Quince Orchard or Richard Montgomery as the W districts are also out of our range (currently in Gaithersburg High district - also not out of the question to stay here depending on how it trends over the next 4 years).

Thanks for any insights!

Personally I would be very happy with either RM or QO. We are in the area for Northwest HS and I'm not sure about it. We have a few years to decide though.

We are happy in RM and I consider QO to be a similar school (minus RM's magnet).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With a 2.28 BILLION dollar budget the schools should be much better. Lots of salaries with very little real education.

That doesn't make sense. Yes, it's a lot of money. It's also a lot of students. And a lot of teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realize this may be opening up another can of worms, but I'm curious if the kinds of problems articulated here extend to the high schools as well? We currently have a child in 5th grade in a K-8 private school, but given finances public high school is the most likely option for us (it will be a stretch even to finish through 8th but we're hopeful we can.) We're likely looking at moving to Quince Orchard or Richard Montgomery as the W districts are also out of our range (currently in Gaithersburg High district - also not out of the question to stay here depending on how it trends over the next 4 years).

Thanks for any insights!

Personally I would be very happy with either RM or QO. We are in the area for Northwest HS and I'm not sure about it. We have a few years to decide though.

We are happy in RM and I consider QO to be a similar school (minus RM's magnet).

Good to know, thanks! Do any of the curricular issues described in posts above seem to impact the high school, or are they irrelevant once you have honors/AP/IB classes, etc.?