Reply to Moving from Arlington to Bethesda(ish) for job--best school clusters?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi Everyone,

We're going to be moving from Arlington to Bethesda sometime in the next year, and I'm trying to get a handle on MCPS so we can direct our house search. We will have a rising PK and 3rd grader. It seems hard to distinguish one ES from another based on their websites, though I understand that &quot;W&quot; school clusters are supposed to be the best. We're still a long way from HS! Our 3rd grader is quite bright and accelerated, but am I right in my sense that MCPS doesn't have the same stratified &quot;gifted center&quot; structure that FCPS does? How high stakes is it to test in? I expect we'll be interested in either Blair or IB magnet programs eventually--are there unofficial &quot;feeder&quot; schools to these, or is the student population pretty well spread out across different MS?

I would love for them to be in an immersion program, but not sure the likelihood of that (esp. for 3rd...maybe too late?), but otherwise just looking for very solid academics, rigor, and a nice neighborhood where people have young kids and are friendly. Walkability is a big plus--it would be great if they could just walk down the street to see friends, etc. I realize that COVID will impact things next year, and am not too concerned--we're homeschooling this year to avoid DL, and may continue to do that for another year depending on how things go. We're thinking more long-term.

Thanks for answering my questions. I feel like I've gotten a good sense of APS and FCPS over the years just through talking with friends and neighbors, but none have direct experience with MD.

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My kids went from TPES-&gt;Blair and were in magnets the entire way through HS.

* TPES had the only elementary magnet when my kids were there. Also still is the only ES with enriched math. Also because it's a focus school class sizes range from 16-20.

* PBES, these days, has a local CES which was also wonderful. Also smaller class sizes than most schools.

* Living in the boundary for TPMS greatly improves your chances for MS magnet. It's similar to Jefferson but a lot more competitive.

* TPMS feeds into Blair which also has one of the two STEM magnet programs. Again it's similar to Jefferson but much smaller and more selective. It does beat them out in every category from It's Academic, to SAT averages, to Intel scholarships even had several US math and physics Olympians when my kids went through the program.
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