Rosemary Hills parents

[Anonymous]

I would really love to hear from some Rosemary Hills parents about what the benefits and problems are at that school, with some special emphasis on how they deal with multiple levels in one large class with one teacher. I've searched the old forums and have actually seen minimal comments from RH parents themselves - usually people saying their neighbors love it but that their kids aren't there. With 200 kids per class, I'm betting there are a bunch of parents on DCUM that have their kids in the school or recently did. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

NP. Would be interested too...

[Anonymous]

me too!

[Anonymous]

Another NP, hoping the Rosemary Hills parents start sharing.

[Anonymous]

I don't know why there isn't more feedback here. You might try querying the RHPS PTA listserv which is very active (go to the school website, which will take you to the PTA website and info about the listserv.) I have a K student and am still feeling my way through. Mostly he enjoys school which is good and he does seem to be learning the fundamentals. The K students have small group reading sessions and daily electives (art/music/media/PE/etc). I read on this forum that all MoCo kids do is worksheets but I haven't seen one yet... maybe that comes in later years? The parent community is super active, and the administrators have been responsive and welcoming (remembered when my son was out sick and seem to know lots of the parents and kids by sight, which is impressive given the size). I prefer the K-2 approach since it limits their exposure to older kids - we haven't done aftercare yet but I know my friends in other MoCo systems have found their kids hanging out with much older children during the aftercare program, which can be problematic. So mostly we're happy, and we were skeptics at the beginning.

There are some negatives -- it's a big school as you already know, and that can be overwhelming (even for social kids, it's just a lot to take in.) The cafeteria and recess are run very well, but with 200 kids there is a lot of pandemonium. Also I think the size means you have to be a somewhat pushy parent to ensure your child is doing well. Maybe that's always true, or maybe this area just breeds pushy parents but it's been an adjustment for us... Hope some of that helps.

[Anonymous]

Regarding multiple levels in the same class at RHPS. Here's our experience in K and 1 (we just started 2nd grade). I am glad someone asked this, because I have only managed to learn this information by observation and bus stop gossip; the school is very tight-lipped about how they do homogenous grouping and acceleration.

K -- children are assigned to tables not desks and moved around as behavior and skill level merit. There is often independent work with teacher support, as students do their work, she moves around the classroom. Luckily, the large parent volunteer base means there is often an extra parent to help, because otherwise the teacher can't get to everyone.

1 -- Reading classes are heterogeneous, but within those there are formed reading groups that are homogeneous. The school has two reading specialists, so there are 8 regular classrooms but 12 reading classes (6 in the morning and 6 in the afternoon including the 4 regular teachers and two specialists), to allow for smaller reading classes. It's still a challenge to deal with ~4 homogeneous groups within each class that are each at very different levels, and again parental support in the classroom helps. For math, there are (I think) 3 levels of math classes formed so they are somewhat homogeneous -- roughly these are grade level, accelerated, and above grade level.