Moving into Bethesda and we like BCC - and trying to asses Middle Schools

[Anonymous]

Can anyone give me the breakdown of the various feeders into BCC? How do they compare?
We are considering Silver Creek, Pyle and Westland and will be renting for our first year(s) so have some time to explore.

[Anonymous]

Pyle goes to Whitman, not B-CC.

[Anonymous]

thank you!

[Anonymous]

They’re all good. The larger issues are:

1. overcrowding at the elementary and high school level (BCC not currently overcrowded but projected to be).

2. Boundary changes in the next few years. This is causing great angst because people are worried their property values might decrease if their street is reassigned to a lower performing school. The Silver Spring and Wheaton area are considered less performing than Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac areas.

Buy west of downtown. You’ll be in the BCC cluster (or Whitman) and won’t be at risk of being reassigned to a Silver Spring school.

[Anonymous]

To elaborate on overcrowding/boundaries, MCPS is building a new high school (Woodward, on Old G. Rd) and opening it to Bethesda students in 2025. Boundaries will change right before to accommodate the new cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re all good. The larger issues are:

1. overcrowding at the elementary and high school level (BCC not currently overcrowded but projected to be).

2. Boundary changes in the next few years. This is causing great angst because people are worried their property values might decrease if their street is reassigned to a lower performing school. The Silver Spring and Wheaton area are considered less performing than Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac areas.

Buy west of downtown. You’ll be in the BCC cluster (or Whitman) and won’t be at risk of being reassigned to a Silver Spring school.

PP is advising you to pay even more for your property now, to reduce the possibility of your property value declining at some future time.

I'm sure that the economists have a word for this phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re all good. The larger issues are:

1. overcrowding at the elementary and high school level (BCC not currently overcrowded but projected to be).

2. Boundary changes in the next few years. This is causing great angst because people are worried their property values might decrease if their street is reassigned to a lower performing school. The Silver Spring and Wheaton area are considered less performing than Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac areas.

Buy west of downtown. You’ll be in the BCC cluster (or Whitman) and won’t be at risk of being reassigned to a Silver Spring school.

PP is advising you to pay even more for your property now, to reduce the possibility of your property value declining at some future time.

I'm sure that the economists have a word for this phenomenon.

Or OP could rent until then, and buy after the boundary change. Or never buy. Point is, when your priority is a certain school, you do what it takes to stay there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone give me the breakdown of the various feeders into BCC? How do they compare?
We are considering Silver Creek, Pyle and Westland and will be renting for our first year(s) so have some time to explore.

Please remember that the school does not convey with the property. School boundaries can change.

[Anonymous]

The schools are similar enough. Worry about minimizing your commute instead.

[Anonymous]

BCC just got an addition. There is no overcrowding issue. Future population increases in/around Bethesda will be offset at least in part by the reopening of Woodward HS.

I had a kid at Westland before they opened Silver Creek. It was a hellish commute and the school was wildly overcrowded. Not a great experience, although all the teachers we got to know seemed very good. There was some initial grumbling as the teaching staff shrunk after Silver Creek opened and Westland became a smaller school.

Silver Creek has a good reputation among the families in our neighborhood with kids there. I went to the orientation for incoming parents and was impressed by the atmosphere. But both schools have had disciplinary issues - latest I heard from SC is swastikas that keep reappearing in the boys' bathrooms.

Personally I don't expect BCC to be significantly impacted by redistricting. It's already reasonably diverse, both in terms of race/ethnicity and SES, esp by Bethesda standards. I don't think buying in the west part of the BCC zone is any "safer" than the eastern part. But the reality is that rezoning can happen anywhere, at any time in the future so if you want ironclad certainty about your kid's HS, you probably would need to find a K-12 private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BCC just got an addition. There is no overcrowding issue. Future population increases in/around Bethesda will be offset at least in part by the reopening of Woodward HS.

I had a kid at Westland before they opened Silver Creek. It was a hellish commute and the school was wildly overcrowded. Not a great experience, although all the teachers we got to know seemed very good. There was some initial grumbling as the teaching staff shrunk after Silver Creek opened and Westland became a smaller school.

Silver Creek has a good reputation among the families in our neighborhood with kids there. I went to the orientation for incoming parents and was impressed by the atmosphere. But both schools have had disciplinary issues - latest I heard from SC is swastikas that keep reappearing in the boys' bathrooms.

Personally I don't expect BCC to be significantly impacted by redistricting. It's already reasonably diverse, both in terms of race/ethnicity and SES, esp by Bethesda standards. I don't think buying in the west part of the BCC zone is any "safer" than the eastern part. But the reality is that rezoning can happen anywhere, at any time in the future so if you want ironclad certainty about your kid's HS, you probably would need to find a K-12 private.

There's also an addition being built at Whitman now, to relieve its overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

I don't think the schools are similar. Silver Creek is much more diverse in terms of race (whites are the minority--22% black, 18% hispanic) and socioeconomics (nearly 25% FARMS.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the schools are similar. Silver Creek is much more diverse in terms of race (whites are the minority--22% black, 18% hispanic) and socioeconomics (nearly 25% FARMS.)

Whites are the minority at 48.5% (in 2017-2018, because MCPS still hasn't updated the at-a-glance information).

[Anonymous]

Are whites no longer the minority at Silver Creek?

[Anonymous]

I think Silver Creek is great for the diversity. There are country club kids and kids who come from very poor families and everything in between. The one disappointment is that they don't mix that much.