East Silver Spring Elementary

[ARR1983]

Hi, I know this topic has been touched on before, but nothing in recent years and we know things can change. We are considering a move into the area east of downtown SS. We have a 6 year old who would be going to East Silver Spring Elementary. I have little to no recent information on this school, other than greatschoolratings which I know may be a flawed metric. Our expectations for an elementary school are fairly basic - that they are safe, with a positive learning environment. Our main concern is if a good amount of the student body is not that academically inclined, it may not be a positive influence on our child. I'm not saying this is the case with East SS, we just have no idea. We did see that there is a small teacher to student ratio which is promising. We find the area itself very appealing including the level of diversity. Of course there can be challenges in any school environment, but given that we don't know much of anything about this school, any recent insights you all could hopefully provide would much appreciated, since we need to make a decision before next school year. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

My child goes to ESS and it is a good school overall. It has pluses and minuses like any school, and we are happy we sent our kid there. I'm happy to provide more details, but must ask why you are wondering if a lot of the students "are not that academically inclined?"

In any event, Jeff should probably move this to the MCPS forum.

[Anonymous]

Many of my neighbors have children in ESS. They seem happy. And my two youngest kids (HS) have friends in their AP and honors classes that attended ESS. Mostly hardworking African immigrant families.

[Anonymous]

I know several families who attend ESS and they are all really lovely with great kids. My kid attended TPES/PBES, but now they are all together at TPMS and even though the two schools get discussed as very different schools, really, it seems pretty even. I would be happy with the pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know several families who attend ESS and they are all really lovely with great kids. My kid attended TPES/PBES, but now they are all together at TPMS and even though the two schools get discussed as very different schools, really, it seems pretty even. I would be happy with the pyramid.

I've had kids at both ESS and TPES/PBES and they are genuinely pretty similar in every respect other than size, and kids enter TPMS equally prepared.

For me, the benefit of ESS over a lot of other schools in MCPS is the small size of the school overall. Fewer than 500 kids across six grades, so once you count siblings, probably fewer than 250 families total. That's actually a managable number for administration, specialists, and teachers to get to know. In that way it feels more like the ES that I grew up in, where it was reasonable for the principal to know your name, and know which kids were your siblings, etc.

It has also been a pilot for some cool initiatives, maybe also because of the size. They got the NSF science curriculum early, and were a pilot for the Enriched Literacy Curriculum.

The diversity is a plus - the biggest demographic group at the school is East African immigrants, and my white kids learned a lot about the culture of the Horn of Africa. They also learned not to confuse Ethiopians with Eritreans, and that not everyone speaks Amharic.

The biggest downside of the school is also related to the size. MCPS has a model for gifted programming where kids are sent to a "magnet" for 4th and 5th. So, out of a grade level of maybe 75 kids, somewhere between five and seven of the strongest test takers are pulled out of the school between third and fourth. Not only does that impact test scores (since GS looks at test scores from 3rd - 5th) but it also impacts the social dynamics, until the groups kind of recalibrate in 4th.

In general, it's a good school with happy families and I'm sure others on the thread will also be happy to answer questions.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Thank you all so much for the prompt and super helpful responses!! This has really given us a better picture of the school community.
Our family is of Indian origin, and we know that there is a lot of parallel with our culture and with East African cultures, so that seems very appealing that our child could have that exposure in addition to having friends from all other groups. To the question on why I asked about students at ESS being academically inclined or not, it was really a general question because the only info I had was test scores which I know can be misleading. The fact that many of the kids are from immigrant families where english is not their first language makes sense. Thank you all again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know several families who attend ESS and they are all really lovely with great kids. My kid attended TPES/PBES, but now they are all together at TPMS and even though the two schools get discussed as very different schools, really, it seems pretty even. I would be happy with the pyramid.

I've had kids at both ESS and TPES/PBES and they are genuinely pretty similar in every respect other than size, and kids enter TPMS equally prepared.

For me, the benefit of ESS over a lot of other schools in MCPS is the small size of the school overall. Fewer than 500 kids across six grades, so once you count siblings, probably fewer than 250 families total. That's actually a managable number for administration, specialists, and teachers to get to know. In that way it feels more like the ES that I grew up in, where it was reasonable for the principal to know your name, and know which kids were your siblings, etc.

It has also been a pilot for some cool initiatives, maybe also because of the size. They got the NSF science curriculum early, and were a pilot for the Enriched Literacy Curriculum.

The diversity is a plus - the biggest demographic group at the school is East African immigrants, and my white kids learned a lot about the culture of the Horn of Africa. They also learned not to confuse Ethiopians with Eritreans, and that not everyone speaks Amharic.

The biggest downside of the school is also related to the size. MCPS has a model for gifted programming where kids are sent to a "magnet" for 4th and 5th. So, out of a grade level of maybe 75 kids, somewhere between five and seven of the strongest test takers are pulled out of the school between third and fourth. Not only does that impact test scores (since GS looks at test scores from 3rd - 5th) but it also impacts the social dynamics, until the groups kind of recalibrate in 4th.

In general, it's a good school with happy families and I'm sure others on the thread will also be happy to answer questions.

I have 2 kids at ESS and most of our preschool friends who we have stayed close with at tkes/pbes. This post is my recent experience as well.

[Anonymous]

Administrators at ESS sat idly by while police harassed and tormented a five-year-old student in their care. I wouldn’t send my child there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Administrators at ESS sat idly by while police harassed and tormented a five-year-old student in their care. I wouldn’t send my child there.

That administrator is no longer there.

[Anonymous]

They moved her to another school. It's in bethesda beat today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Administrators at ESS sat idly by while police harassed and tormented a five-year-old student in their care. I wouldn’t send my child there.

That's an unfortunate event, but before this I'd heard nothing but good things about that school from its community.

[Anonymous]

That kid had a history of violence in the school. Of course media will not report it. The mother even stopped responding to the school's phone calls as she got so many of them.

[Anonymous]

Outside of school, are you aware of the significant expansion into the neighborhoods served by ESS Elementary and Sligo Creek Elementary of the zoning plan for Downtown Silver Spring? The idea is to allow greater density -- not huge buildings, but triplexes and quadriplexes -- where there are currently single family homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That kid had a history of violence in the school. Of course media will not report it. The mother even stopped responding to the school's phone calls as she got so many of them.

Ok, but that doesn’t excuse grown adults handcuffing and screaming in the face of a FIVE year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That kid had a history of violence in the school. Of course media will not report it. The mother even stopped responding to the school's phone calls as she got so many of them.

Ok, but that doesn’t excuse grown adults handcuffing and screaming in the face of a FIVE year old.

That was the police though I agree the school should have intervened.