Reply to “Fleeing” to the burbs

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "“Fleeing” to the burbs "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP, I don't know about DC, but I'll give you my 2cents from someone who moved from the Bay Area to MCPS.

1. MCPS offers a lot of different programs at the HS level; each HS has some kind of program.  That's one of the things MCPS does decently at
2. You don't have to be in a magnet program per se to be challenged. Most MCPS HS have a ton of AP classes, and some of them have IB classes that any student in that cluster can take. They can even join the IB diploma program in 11th grade if they want to.  BCC, RM and a few other clusters have this option. RM has the county wide IB magnet, as well.    There is no gatekeeping requirement to take AP/IB classes in MCPS. They really encourage everyone to take AP courses, which sometimes is not a good thing.
3. grade inflation in MCPS is an issue, but I think that's true for many other school districts.
4. schools with high poverty have too many issues, but schools with a lot of wealth also have their share of issues related to too much wealth
5. there are school clusters that are not extremes -- too much poverty, too much wealth, and where the racial diversity is also decent.  Schools like Northwest HS, RM, QO, BCC to some degree.
6. having just gone through the college admissions process, I think being in a too high performing HS can work against you as you are competing with a lot of other high achievers from  your school for the same T30 spots.
7. There are school clusters in MCPS that also have a lot of parents who work at nonprofits and such. They tend to live around the Silver Spring/Kensington area, which is also a really diverse area.
8. larger schools have the inertia and economies of scale to offer a lot of different programs and clubs.  The Bay Area school district we moved from is wealthy, but tiny, so they didn't have a lot of different programs or clubs.

Having stated all that, obviously, kids in the DCPS can have excellent outcomes, too.  What you get out of it is what you make of it.  The only reason I'd move is for the space. We also moved out of the Bay Area because we needed more space, and we aren't uber wealthy, nor did we  want a $1.5 ram shackle house.

GL[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics