Do Rock Creek Forest parents know about potential changes to SP Immersion, middle school, etc. ?

[Anonymous]

It's a little maddening to watch this fight unfold. I live in what most would call an undesirable school zone and although our kids have yet to enter elementary, we can only dream that we would win the spanish immersion lottery (yes, for the benefit of the program itself, and also the related benefit of not having to send our kids to a sub-par school). Anyone whose kid is either in the BCC cluster by virtue of geography, or whose kids are getting the benefit of SI - wherever the program is administered - are getting so much more from the montgomery county school system than we can even dream of. Please keep things in perspective and remember that you are more fortunate than many. It's also discouraging to see how much animosity exists between the SI and non-SI families. I guess it's an inevitable by-product of Montgomery County not offering its "premium" services to everyone in the county, only those who beat the odds and win the lottery, and then housing the program, populated largely with kids from outside the immediate school zone, in a school filled with local kids who were denied the right to participate in the program. How could that possibly go well???

[Anonymous]

This debate has gotten off track. The county offers this program by a lottery that is open by all. The issue is whether the students in SI should continue in the cluster. It seems that a few parents object to that simply out of some strange resentment that their children did not get picked by the lottery. But please tell me how forcing the children to scatter after 5th grade is helpful to anyone? Why not let them stay with their friends and school community like everyone else in the cluster? It makes just as much sense to send the EA children to SSIMS to create a few empty seats in Westland. And I would be opposed to that too.

[Anonymous]

What the EA parent who keeps complaining about multiple reading levels doesn't seem to understand is that this is what ES is like in MCPS in a school with a population like RCF's. It has nothing to do with SI. MCPS won't acknowledge that it's really impossible to adequately differentiate in reading and language arts within one class if there are students who diverge more than a grade level or so.

It's not like -- if there were no SI -- RCF would group kids into classes according to ability level. That's tracking, and MCPS is adamantly against it.

Interestingly, MCPS isn't against this in math, which is why they allow kids to jump around from class to class. So for example, kids in 4th grade at RCF have three levels of math they can be assigned to -- and these are whole-class levels. Within those levels there's variation of ability and grasp of the concepts, of course, but everyone's pretty much on the same page.

Now the truth is, RCF is a Silver Spring school, in many respects. I don't think that's so bad -- our local Silver Spring school has a great reputation and lots of devoted parents. But it's a different experience than what RCF parents might have been expecting. They should have done more research or thought more critically about why their Chevy Chase houses are $150K - 300K less than those further west in the cluster for the same house. It's due to the proximity of apartments and lower-income residents and other demographic factors -- it has nothing to do with SI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the EA parent who keeps complaining about multiple reading levels doesn't seem to understand is that this is what ES is like in MCPS in a school with a population like RCF's. It has nothing to do with SI. MCPS won't acknowledge that it's really impossible to adequately differentiate in reading and language arts within one class if there are students who diverge more than a grade level or so.

It's not like -- if there were no SI -- RCF would group kids into classes according to ability level. That's tracking, and MCPS is adamantly against it.

Interestingly, MCPS isn't against this in math, which is why they allow kids to jump around from class to class. So for example, kids in 4th grade at RCF have three levels of math they can be assigned to -- and these are whole-class levels. Within those levels there's variation of ability and grasp of the concepts, of course, but everyone's pretty much on the same page.

Now the truth is, RCF is a Silver Spring school, in many respects. I don't think that's so bad -- our local Silver Spring school has a great reputation and lots of devoted parents. But it's a different experience than what RCF parents might have been expecting. They should have done more research or thought more critically about why their Chevy Chase houses are $150K - 300K less than those further west in the cluster for the same house. It's due to the proximity of apartments and lower-income residents and other demographic factors -- it has nothing to do with SI.

Thank you for this clear statement. SI is being blamed for problems that may or may not actually exist, but none of which would be solved by excluding a handful of students from Westland. At most this would impact 10 to 15 students per grade. This is not going to make any difference to overcrowding at Westland, particularly when compared to the hardship it would cause to children and families who now consider themselves part of the community even though they are from less fortunate parts of the county.

[Anonymous]

10:54 - The 79 out-of-boundary SI students currently enrolled at Westland works out to 26 per grade. That is about one class per content area across grades 6 to 8. That 79 is also about 8% of the 965 total enrollment projected this year which is more than "a handful of students."

So your child has been given an opportunity to have a sought-after space in immersion, and potentially continue it somewhere else. And you call that a hardship?

[Anonymous]

So much of this boils down to parents' disappointment at not being given a place in a magnet or other special program, combined with MCPS' myopic view of what a "quality education" means and its refusal to create additional spots or programs for parents who want different approaches or kids who need different types of instruction (whether this be GT, LD, or both).

Rather than beat each other up, we should work together to demand that MCPS listen to parents and stop teaching to the middle exclusively. These lottery programs have a 4:1 ratio of applicants to acceptances. In the test-in programs, the ratio is even higher. What message should MCPS get from this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much of this boils down to parents' disappointment at not being given a place in a magnet or other special program, combined with MCPS' myopic view of what a "quality education" means and its refusal to create additional spots or programs for parents who want different approaches or kids who need different types of instruction (whether this be GT, LD, or both).

Rather than beat each other up, we should work together to demand that MCPS listen to parents and stop teaching to the middle exclusively. These lottery programs have a 4:1 ratio of applicants to acceptances. In the test-in programs, the ratio is even higher. What message should MCPS get from this?

How do you figure 4:1? I understand the ratio for Spanish Immersion at RCF is much higher than that.

[Anonymous]

Can we all agree to stop posting on this forum? It is damaging to the school to have our dirty laundry aired in the such a public manner, and makes everyone look bad. Again, what so many people have said is true- this is a very challenging issue- for BOTH sides. We all know that, let's leave it at that and save the rest for in person discussions.

[Anonymous]

I wish some of the postings were not as pointed, but I am actually learning some issues for the first time. Yes, it is a hardship for children to be separated from their peers in the EA and SI (not all will go to SSIMS) after so many years. Most of the children are not even aware of this situation. How is this to be explained to them, that there is no room for them, and that we cannot afford to move, but that if we could afford to move there would be enough room at Westland? Does this make any sense?

And we have made many plans about where to live and pursue friendships and whether or not to pursue other programs, based on the continuation at Westland so our children can be with their peers. Trust me, if as many as one class per year is removed (a dubious assumption), you will not notice any difference in the education of your child and MCPS will simply supply fewer teachers and resources. This is about misplaced anger and resentment, not about the children. Have a heart, people.

[Anonymous]

I completely agree with the suggestion that these discussions take place face to face. For that reason I hadn't posted anything further.

However, my previous post about materials (library books, sets of books a particular grade) has been misinterpreted. My concern is over materials - not over the differentiation of reading instruction (or math instruction or instruction in any other subject). The teachers do a great job of differentiating their instruction. This would only be enhanced if they had the same variety of materials found in other schools.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a RCFEM parent, but I do live in a neighborhood that feeds into SSIMS. Just to clarify one point, has anyone looked at the number of RCF SI students who would naturally feed into SSIMS if they weren't at RCF?

The reason I ask is b/c I don't completely buy the argument that these kids would essentially be friendless coming over to SSIMS. MANY kids in my neighborhood are in the SI program at RCFEM. They know both the kids in our neighborhood and the kids at school. Some of the parents I know are weighing which middle school they'd want to go to b/c SSIMS would be more convenient.

The kids in our area know each other from so many different places. I suspect the move away from some friends and closer to others is a problem that parents are overestimating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a RCFEM parent, but I do live in a neighborhood that feeds into SSIMS. Just to clarify one point, has anyone looked at the number of RCF SI students who would naturally feed into SSIMS if they weren't at RCF?

The reason I ask is b/c I don't completely buy the argument that these kids would essentially be friendless coming over to SSIMS. MANY kids in my neighborhood are in the SI program at RCFEM. They know both the kids in our neighborhood and the kids at school. Some of the parents I know are weighing which middle school they'd want to go to b/c SSIMS would be more convenient.

The kids in our area know each other from so many different places. I suspect the move away from some friends and closer to others is a problem that parents are overestimating.

A few children (sometimes very few) do choose SSIMS. Nonetheless, if you are a parent at all, then I think you can agree that other parents are capable of estimating the extent to which separation from peers and community will weigh on their own child. The real issue is why make the change at all when it may have such an extreme cost to a group of children with very small potential for a programmatic benefit for a small number of other students. Forcing RCF students out makes as much sense as changing the cluster boundary. If Westland has too many students, the burden of any change must be shared, and not be imposed by an organized group of strangely embittered parents.

[Anonymous]

Oh, please. The superintendant made this recommendation to continue immersion at SSIMS, not a group of parents. When a large block of students (8% based ona prior post) is out-of-boundary and can be given the benefit of continuing their program at another location, it is a very reasonable proposal. If you as a parent value immersion, and you and some or many students continue at SSIMS, then both the program and cohort will be intact. Or, in the view of the board, you are always welcome to return to the home school if you choose not to continue in immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, please. The superintendant made this recommendation to continue immersion at SSIMS, not a group of parents. When a large block of students (8% based ona prior post) is out-of-boundary and can be given the benefit of continuing their program at another location, it is a very reasonable proposal. If you as a parent value immersion, and you and some or many students continue at SSIMS, then both the program and cohort will be intact. Or, in the view of the board, you are always welcome to return to the home school if you choose not to continue in immersion.

"Out of boundary" = "Please stay on your side of the county with your kind, I worry about my kids playing with yours." If your in-cluster privileged children can get the benefit of an allegedly underutilized school such as SSIMS, it is just as reasonable a proposal that they go there instead of just SI kids. But would you permit your kids to be torn away from their school and peers? As one post said, the class sizes at Westland will remain the same no matter what, and would the removal of one kid per classroom make any difference to your kid anyway?

[Anonymous]

Who exactly do you think made this recomendation? It was the superintendent, not a group of parents. The fact that you think a group of parents is sitting around coming up with ways to get SI kids out of rcf is one of the best conspiracy theories yet to come out of this wholediscussion