Reply to Eastern Middle School or Takoma Park Middle School

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Eastern Middle School or Takoma Park Middle School "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]May I suggest you search through previous posts?  There's a lot about both, especially Eastern, although be forewarned -- some people have preconceived ideas about what it means to attend a diverse school.

My child is an 8th grader at Eastern and it's been a great experience.  He doesn't feel unsafe and has both magnet and nonmagnet friends.

People are going to post about the social environment but I have another child at a Bethesda MS and honestly, there's plenty of rude and inappropriate middle school stuff that goes on there too.  Don't believe me?  Check a Tilden MS kid's instagram account and you will see :)

Most of the magnet teachers are very engaged and some are really extraordinary.  Quality of the nonmagnet teaching has been very good for math and so-so for science.

All that said, be sure to inquire about music classes.  My understanding is that magnet kids, at least in 6th grade, must take an extra period after school to do band or orchestra.  And there's not much of an opportunity for computer in the sense of programming, but DC has done a lot of work on the Mac using Final Cut Pro and other tools to create videos. This year, 8th grade, is really heavy on video production and DS has become a pretty skilled videographer and editor.

All kids do a long research paper in 7th grade which involves lots of research at the library at UMCP, many drafts, peer reviews, etc.  At the end your child will, ideally, have a paper that could be handed in to a freshman-level college course for a good grade.  It's quite an achievement.    I am impressed by the technical and creative writing skills that DC has acquired and I think he will do really well in high school and beyond because of it.

Good luck with your decision!  Both are great programs.[/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