Reply to Eastern or Takoma MS magnets vs SSIMS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wasn't able to attend the Takoma Park info meeting tonight and wondered if anyone else who did could share notes? 
Also, does anyone have comparisons to offer from within your own family? Do you have one kid who went to 1 of the 3 schools and another who went to another? I know the advice is to wait and see whether your child gets in but if you get lucky and have a choice, you want to be informed enough to decide quickly and confidently.
 I'm interested in the practical pros and cons of each school. I hadn't heard that Eastern kids usually don't take a foreign language in 6th grade, so that's exactly the kind of detail I'd like to know. (By the way, is there an after-school club in foreign language or some way to get that?) I hear SSI has a block schedule - do the others? Can you share more details about the homework load at TPMS and Eastern? (For comparison, DC is at Pine Crest magnet and it's been less brutal than we feared, at least so far). What are the after-school opportunities and what's the overall social climate of each school like?
Any thoughts welcome.[/quote]

I have one kid at Eastern and another at a nonmagnet MCPS middle school in the western part of the county, so I am getting the opportunity to compare the two options pretty closely.  The difference in challenge, complexity and interesting work is pretty striking.  If you have a child who's thriving at Pine Crest (mine also went to Pine Crest) I would most definitely apply to the magnet.  My kid who's at Eastern would be miserable in the regular county program.  There are things the regular MS kids are doing now that are less-challenging duplications of what the Pine Crest kids did in 4th grade.

It's not that the regular middle school program is bad, but my child who's doing it (who was waitlisted for both Eastern and TPMS) isn't finding it particularly inspiring and is turning into one of those kids who talks about hating school.  To be fair, she might have hated Eastern too!

We really like Eastern and I think the issues about the school being older are kind of a red herring -- it's not as attractive to us as parents but it doesn't seem to bother the kids.  We also have been pleased with the fact that our DC has continued friendships with nonmagnet kids made at Pine Crest, and has met a lot of nice non-magnet kids through after-school sports.  The concerns about Eastern being a "rougher" school have not been an issue for us or our DC -- sure, some kids have problems but I feel the administration is good about addressing them.  And let me tell you, there are plenty of problems at the west-county middle school with the "good" reputation, too.  I have seen more issues of concern -- girls cutting, for example -- than I have at Eastern.  I think middle school is just tough -- at Eastern you may have more low-income kids with some issues that go along with that, but the social pressure at the other school is no picnic either.

I don't have first hand knowledge of SSIMS but a lot of the neighbor kids go there and the parents are generally pretty pleased.

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