Reply to Einstein vs. Northwood, and how does school choice in the DCC work?

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Reply to "Einstein vs. Northwood, and how does school choice in the DCC work?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm sorry that I misread your previous statement about 9th grade classes.  My worry for a student taking Algebra 1 and Foreign Language 1 in 9th grade in MCPS would be that your student may be in classes with a lot of students who are academic strugglers, troublemakers, or very new to the English language.  This might be non-PC of me to say.  My DC started a new language in 9th grade and was really disappointed.  It's not like Foreign Language 1 in any private school I know of.  The strong MCPS students already took Foreign Language 1 in 6th or 7th grade.  The weaker students wait to take it in 9th.  Some older students are retaking Foreign Language 1 for the 2nd or 3rd time in order to pass.  I am not making this up.  The exception would be Japanese 1, which will have motivated 9th graders who haven't studied it before.

It will likely be a similar situation in Algebra 1, which is not available as an honors class.  The worst math students in the entire high school are going to be in Algebra 1.  Likely, some are retaking it in order to pass.

I have known students who were behind in math, with other academic strengths.  I have known students who were behind in foreign language (often with learning disabilities), who had other academic strengths.  I would worry about a former private school student who has to take the lower level offerings in both.

Have you considered Duke Ellington in DC (costs less than a private) or DeMatha in Hyattsville?  At both schools, there should be a strong work ethic demanded of academically average students while providing an excellent music education.

I'd love to see the Einstein band gain your son, but I would want to make sure that he is going to get the academic atmosphere that you are looking for.[/quote]

I think it's odd that, without knowing anything about my kid other than that his parent thinks he's fantastic and he plays an instrument you assume that other kids on his level are terrible, but he's not and should be rescued from them.  [/quote]

This person is just giving you a heads up that your child's peers (we are assuming college bound students) will likely be in APUSH, Geometry or higher, and World Language 2 or higher. You also want to put your kid in Pre-IB English. On level and honors classes (because MCPS mixes honors and on level at most schools) are going to be filled with kids who are not college bound (maybe you don't care, I get it), and there are more likely to be disruptive kids (you should care, teachers have no ability to discipline kids under current mcps disciplinary policies, it's a problem).[/quote]

OP, it's the chatty Einstein mom again.  You know your kid best.  I'm just trying to give you the lay of the land.  The parents who rave about Einstein love the extracurriculars, especially the arts, and usually have their kids in higher level classes.  My chld did transfer into MCPS from a private, so I'm fully aware that for many privates Algebra 1 in 9th is on-level and Algebra 1 in 8th is accelerated.  That's just not the way it is in MCPS and my DC felt the consequences.  If they really had wanted to fix that, I would have recommended Geometry over the summer (not Algebra 1 over the summer).  My DC was very frustrated in Foreign Language 1 to the point of tears and did end up doing summer acceleration.  I had a very different experience when I took Foreign Language 1 as a 9th grader at a private many moons ago.  You will run into the same issues at Northwood or any other MCPS school.  Your son might possibly wonder why he's not in classes with the other kids from band.  That's why I mentioned the possibiity of Duke Ellington and DeMatha, where the band kids would have a wide variety of academic abilities.  [/quote]

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