Best private schools in Montgomery county

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I truly appreciate all the responses, thanks a lot to you all. Will call around today. We picked MoCO because both of us will work in ROckville/bethesda area. In Dallas, we had pretty diverse community, that created a kind of richness in our kid's perspective of world, so i'd pick some thing that has diverse population. If we had a choice,we'd never move from our area, but........
thanks again.

Being from Texas, I can tell you that this area and its choices of public and private schools are so very, very different from what you would have experienced in Dallas area. The magnets in the public schools are comparable to the best magnets in the Dallas area. The non-magnets on the west side (the 'W's)are generally comparable to Highland Park area, and the schools "East of the Pike" are generally the quality of the middle class/UMC in Dallas area. There is no UIL in Maryland. There really is no comparison to Landon/Georgetown Prep/Holton etc. in Dallas, but those are $40K a year (I think the Dallas families that afford this type of tuition may just send their children to boarding school). Prep is a Jesuit school and offers a rigorous (boys-only) education. Holton-Arms and Landon are brother/sister schools that also offer outstanding rigorous educations. Georgetown Day may offer the kind of diversity and worldview you are looking for. Green Acres is a more experiential (crunchy) school. St. Andrews and Gonzaga both offer rigorous Catholic school educations. Sidwell (the private school of choice for many a president's child) is, as you would imagine, top-notch.

Hockaday = Holton or NCS
St Marks = St Albans
Cistercian = Georgetown Prep, or maybe St Anselms.
Greenhill = probably GDS, but not as easy of a match.

GDS, NCS, St Albans and St Anselms are in NW DC, not Montgomery County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[Post New]07/31/2018 22:19 Subject: Best private schools in Montgomery county [Up]
Anonymous

we will be moving to montgomery county in the fall from Texas - want to enroll kids in the private schools here - are there any back to school events that we should be looking at?

OP, do you realize that MoCo has excellent public schools? You might consider them.

As a recent moco resident who moved from out of state and landed in Bethesda due to commute and the so-called amazing public schools - we are actually sending our daughter to private next year in 5th grade. My experience has been that the moco “great schools” reputation is a hold over from years passed. The elementary we were in is a mess, teachers have no control over the kids and experience was much lower level than the public schools we came from in CT. We made our decision on where to live largely on schools and regret that. Would have bought a cheaper house in a cheaper neighborhood and sent both of our kids to private from the beginning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As a recent moco resident who moved from out of state and landed in Bethesda due to commute and the so-called amazing public schools - we are actually sending our daughter to private next year in 5th grade. My experience has been that the moco “great schools” reputation is a hold over from years passed. The elementary we were in is a mess, teachers have no control over the kids and experience was much lower level than the public schools we came from in CT. We made our decision on where to live largely on schools and regret that. Would have bought a cheaper house in a cheaper neighborhood and sent both of our kids to private from the beginning.

Badly-behaved children in elementary schools in Bethesda? Surely not! DCUM regularly assures me that only in Bethesda schools can one's children have a peer group of high-achieving, hard-working, well-behaving students. In Ganglandia they're all gang members, obviously, and nobody lives in the Siberian Hinterlands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[Post New]07/31/2018 22:19 Subject: Best private schools in Montgomery county [Up]
Anonymous

we will be moving to montgomery county in the fall from Texas - want to enroll kids in the private schools here - are there any back to school events that we should be looking at?

OP, do you realize that MoCo has excellent public schools? You might consider them.

As a recent moco resident who moved from out of state and landed in Bethesda due to commute and the so-called amazing public schools - we are actually sending our daughter to private next year in 5th grade. My experience has been that the moco “great schools” reputation is a hold over from years passed. The elementary we were in is a mess, teachers have no control over the kids and experience was much lower level than the public schools we came from in CT. We made our decision on where to live largely on schools and regret that. Would have bought a cheaper house in a cheaper neighborhood and sent both of our kids to private from the beginning.

CT has some of the biggest learning gaps in the country. The town based systems make it easy for wealthy towns to spend tons of $$ on low need kids and ignore the struggling cities (Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a recent moco resident who moved from out of state and landed in Bethesda due to commute and the so-called amazing public schools - we are actually sending our daughter to private next year in 5th grade. My experience has been that the moco “great schools” reputation is a hold over from years passed. The elementary we were in is a mess, teachers have no control over the kids and experience was much lower level than the public schools we came from in CT. We made our decision on where to live largely on schools and regret that. Would have bought a cheaper house in a cheaper neighborhood and sent both of our kids to private from the beginning.

Badly-behaved children in elementary schools in Bethesda? Surely not! DCUM regularly assures me that only in Bethesda schools can one's children have a peer group of high-achieving, hard-working, well-behaving students. In Ganglandia they're all gang members, obviously, and nobody lives in the Siberian Hinterlands.

I’m not sure I understand your response...but I do expect kids not to be running wild in the elementary school cafeterias (literally running in circles around the cafeteria yelling both times I volunteered for cafeteria duty) and kids not being overly disruptive in classes to the extent it affects the kids trying to focus. I went to public school (and not in a wealthy CT town) and my children did until this coming year as well. I have never seen anything like what we have experienced in our public school here in MD the last two years. I am surprised the schools are so highly regarded but like I said, I think it’s a reputation hold over from years ago or maybe only stems from the high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a recent moco resident who moved from out of state and landed in Bethesda due to commute and the so-called amazing public schools - we are actually sending our daughter to private next year in 5th grade. My experience has been that the moco “great schools” reputation is a hold over from years passed. The elementary we were in is a mess, teachers have no control over the kids and experience was much lower level than the public schools we came from in CT. We made our decision on where to live largely on schools and regret that. Would have bought a cheaper house in a cheaper neighborhood and sent both of our kids to private from the beginning.

Badly-behaved children in elementary schools in Bethesda? Surely not! DCUM regularly assures me that only in Bethesda schools can one's children have a peer group of high-achieving, hard-working, well-behaving students. In Ganglandia they're all gang members, obviously, and nobody lives in the Siberian Hinterlands.

I’m not sure I understand your response...but I do expect kids not to be running wild in the elementary school cafeterias (literally running in circles around the cafeteria yelling both times I volunteered for cafeteria duty) and kids not being overly disruptive in classes to the extent it affects the kids trying to focus. I went to public school (and not in a wealthy CT town) and my children did until this coming year as well. I have never seen anything like what we have experienced in our public school here in MD the last two years. I am surprised the schools are so highly regarded but like I said, I think it’s a reputation hold over from years ago or maybe only stems from the high schools.

Read this site often enough and you’ll understand why Bethesda kids are running amok in ES.

[Anonymous]

St Andrew's in Potomac (preschool to 12th) might work for your rising 5th grader. The middle and upper schools are fully enrolled. You mentioned diversity as something you're looking for -- it has 39% students of color plus the most amazing, inspiring diversity officer. It's Episcopal but embraces all faith traditions. Incredible teachers, rigorous, lack of pretension, nice facilities, friendly students. Regular season MAC champions for boys lacrosse and soccer this year plus girls excel in cross country and equestrian competitions. We have two kids there, very different but somehow the school has been a great fit for both of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a recent moco resident who moved from out of state and landed in Bethesda due to commute and the so-called amazing public schools - we are actually sending our daughter to private next year in 5th grade. My experience has been that the moco “great schools” reputation is a hold over from years passed. The elementary we were in is a mess, teachers have no control over the kids and experience was much lower level than the public schools we came from in CT. We made our decision on where to live largely on schools and regret that. Would have bought a cheaper house in a cheaper neighborhood and sent both of our kids to private from the beginning.

Badly-behaved children in elementary schools in Bethesda? Surely not! DCUM regularly assures me that only in Bethesda schools can one's children have a peer group of high-achieving, hard-working, well-behaving students. In Ganglandia they're all gang members, obviously, and nobody lives in the Siberian Hinterlands.

I’m not sure I understand your response...but I do expect kids not to be running wild in the elementary school cafeterias (literally running in circles around the cafeteria yelling both times I volunteered for cafeteria duty) and kids not being overly disruptive in classes to the extent it affects the kids trying to focus. I went to public school (and not in a wealthy CT town) and my children did until this coming year as well. I have never seen anything like what we have experienced in our public school here in MD the last two years. I am surprised the schools are so highly regarded but like I said, I think it’s a reputation hold over from years ago or maybe only stems from the high schools.

Read this site often enough and you’ll understand why Bethesda kids are running amok in ES.

Can I hear an amen?!

[Anonymous]

Regarding Bullis, I am a current parent. There are many things I don’t like about the school and the culture. However, there is a significant contingent of very strong students. My DD came out of MoCo public schools and still has many friends in MoCo high schools. I can say with confidence that she has far more homework than they do, and they are all taking mostly AP courses. This has been the case since middle school. My DD has also performed very well on the SAT and AP tests so far, as have her friends at Bullis.