Reply to Eastern Middle, trying to decide

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[quote=Anonymous]My older kid went to Eastern and would definitely choose to do it again, although there were pros and cons.  
[b]Pros[/b]: She made really good friends and enjoyed the cohort of Humanities kids there; she learned and grew a ton; she had some truly outstanding teachers (and some not-so-great ones); she made some incredibly impressive projects; she learned time-management and how to takcle big projects -- skills that are now making high school pretty easy; and the 8th grade field trip was really memorable (even though it was three day-trips to DC and not the weeklong NYC tradition because of the pandemic).
[b]Cons[/b]: the commute was  bad (about an hour each way), and it was a burden on the whole family because of needing to be driven to/from the bus stop every day; she took after-school band in order to continue with her instrument because of the other required classes -- this was great, but meant she was out of the house from 6:45 to 5:15 at least 3 days a week, which is very long; homework was intense; the non-magnet classes weren't that challenging and had some behavior issues; and her friends split up between many high schools, so she started high school without any close friends there.

Older kid ended up choosing our home school for high school (turned down a spot at CAP at Blair) and is happy with that choice too, with good academic choices and a much, much better commute.

My younger kid was in both magnet lotteries but didn't get a spot, so is at our home middle school (which is not a highly rated school). She's happy there, although still wishes the magnet selection process hadn't changed and she'd been chosen for a magnet spot.  Also pros and cons there:
[b]Pros[/b]: commute - she can get herself to and from school, and has a reasonably short commute; she has friends there who will likely continue to high school with her; almost no homework (this is a pro for her, not sure about me); there's at least a small cohort at her academic level
[b]Cons[/b]: academics are not challenging at all, especially in comparison to what Eastern provided; no exciting or in-depth projects; I think the transition to high school will be a lot harder

Bottom line -- go to the open house and let your kid understand all that is involved, both good and bad.  There are trade-offs either way, and your family needs to evaluate them and decide what to do.  But likely either option will be fine, just different. For me, the fact that both my kids were/are happy in middle school was the important bottom line.

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