Reply to Any Viers Mill ES parents who would like to share their experience?

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Reply to "Any Viers Mill ES parents who would like to share their experience?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I wish people who do not have direct experience with a school would avoid posting their opinions on it.  If you have children at Oakland Terrace ES and like it, say that.  But saying you would choose OTES over VMES in a heartbeat... well, you don't know anything really about VMES unless you've been there.

Okay, sorry, end rant on THAT subject...  Here's my opinion: Viers Mill is great!  High ESOL population means team teaching, which means for part of the day, my kids' classroom has two teachers to work with 16-18 kids.  Other times, aides are there working with smaller groups, so my kids are either in a small group, or with their teacher whose attention is divided among fewer children.  If you look at the school's "at a glance" you will see the high ESOL and FARMs rates, but you will also see the ">95%" across the board passing rates for MSA, and the small class sizes, so whatever those students' needs are being addressed somehow.  The greatschools.org rating is 9 (not to make it a competition, but Oakland Terrace is 8).

My kids have loved their teachers, and it seems like the teacher turnover rate is very low.  The principal is excellent--very involved with parents and accessible is you have any questions or concerns.  The PTA is very small, and there is a core group that plans/coordinates most activities.  But those activities seem to be very well attended by all families, so the other parents do do their part to "show up."

The school is fairly overcrowded now, as PP mentioned, so lunch and recess is crazy, and the "playground" is a fenced off parking lot.  Don't love that, but the addition is supposed to be finished for the next school year, and it is pretty large, so I think those problems will be solved.

We have been very happy there.  I would caution parents who look at the demographics of a school and see high ESOL and think they won't be able to communicate with other parents.  We speak Spanish at home, but I am also fluent in English.  My kids were tested for ESOL but did not need it.  I would hate to think that there are parents who would look at my kids' school and our family and think that they wouldn't be able to communicate because they only speak English.  VMES is very diverse in MANY ways--my son's class just got a kid from Turkey.  You can't judge a school just on paper.  You really need to talk with other parents of current students and/or speak with the principal.[/quote]

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