Best elementary school for a STEM gifted child?

[Anonymous]

We are planning to move to MoCo from the district and are doing some research. I have 5 sons, and one is quite gifted in math and science. Which elementary school has the strongest stem program?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Many kids are gifted here. Its very hard to get into gifted programs as there are only a few. No public elementary school has a strong stem program. You need to go private.

[Anonymous]

I would go with Piney Branch ES, which has a local CES. Even though CES is mostly humanities-based. Also living in Takoma Park MS zone you'll have a better chance of getting a seat in the magnet program.

[Anonymous]

Sligo Creek ES is the only elementary I know of which has an academy program with at least a nominal science focus.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/sligocreekes/academy/

[Anonymous]

As far as I know elementary schools have the same curriculum. You might want to think ahead for MS and live in the takoma park area. Until the magnets in grade 4 (now since been ruined/replaced by local watered down programs) MCPS was disappointing for my gifted son.

[Anonymous]

You need private for that. Your kid is just a number in public and science is ma6be 1 hour a week in public.

[Anonymous]

We had very good luck in HoCo for an older child fitting a similar profile.

MoCo offera a great STEM countywide magnet program, but it requires a combination of scores + geographical location (recent add-on) to attend. They have started to actively avoid kids who would otherwise attend middle schools with high-scoring peers. These tend to be middle school nestled along hwy 270.

Regular ES do not, I believe, offer any accommodation since their mission is not to enrich the top students, but to pull up the middle/rear towards meeting the state standard.

[Anonymous]

OP here. See I’m glad I asked! I have no idea about all this magnet stuff. Good thing my husband grew up in MiCo. He’ll have a better idea. But great to know the regular schools aren’t going to cut it. And when I mentioned he was gifted,
I’m just saying it’s his strong point. Very strong. But not trying to suggest there aren’t plenty of gifted children out there!

[Anonymous]

Check out Feynman. It's a private school for gifted kids that offers differentiation and acceleration in math.

[Anonymous]

if your child is still early elementary, Takoma Park ES (K-2) has a program for gifted children that affects the whole school - your child would have like peers. My friend’s extremely bright son is regularly learning more advanced math than my son in same grade.

[Anonymous]

Oh boy. OP - you are coming into this discussion at a really hot point in the conversation, and folks are going to try to "educate" you according to their own biases.

See above about how the CES program has been ruined by the existence of local centers - we are literally one year into the experiment of opening up more "gifted" spots for Grades 4 & 5, and there is no way of knowing whether the decision to increase the number of available spots ruined the program. I'm guessing it did not.

PP is correct that the district has moved away from a "first past the post" system for middle school magnet admissions and toward a "outliers from every school" model. This means that you can be admitted to the middle school magnet with a lower score if you are an outlier in your home school.

At any rate, with a 7 person household, you are going to need to make some choices around where you live totally separate from which elementary school can meet your son's math/science needs. You will also want to be looking at middle and high school feeders, obviously.

If you share a budget, and a general geographic preference, folks can give you some suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had very good luck in HoCo for an older child fitting a similar profile.

MoCo offera a great STEM countywide magnet program, but it requires a combination of scores + geographical location (recent add-on) to attend. They have started to actively avoid kids who would otherwise attend middle schools with high-scoring peers. These tend to be middle school nestled along hwy 270.

Regular ES do not, I believe, offer any accommodation since their mission is not to enrich the top students, but to pull up the middle/rear towards meeting the state standard.

The only thing regular ES has in this is compacted math. To OP, compacted math is a more advanced math track that starts in 4th grade. It puts the student on track to take Algebra in 7th, and Calc AB in 11th grade. If your DC is super duper smart in math, they may let him advance even a bit more.

[Anonymous]

If you have the budget, get a place in Takoma Park - in addition to excellent STEM focus in the schools, the community is very kid-friendly and warm. Houses run small, though!
If you need a big place on a lower budget, consider Sparks Mantsanuga ES out in Germantown. They have a local CES and a lot of STEM focused kids, as well as lots of STEM after school activities and the like. Ronald McNair ES is also in Germantown and a solid choice. Both have plenty of middle class families who support education.

[Anonymous]

Different angle here OP.

Assess you budget, then look at best cluster you can afford to buy into for the other 4 boys in your household.

If your 1 boy is truly gifted, he may place into a county program and get busing. As for the other 4, you might not want them to be in the non-magnet rest of school in a lesser performing school and/or peer group.

[Anonymous]

Takoma Park ES has the only primary magnet program (with enrichment in science and social studies) for 1st and 2nd grades: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/elementary/primary-magnet.aspx