Reply to Which Bethesda / Chevy Chase ES am I describing?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Chevy Chase ES for less stressful environment.

In my experience of Bethesda area schools, it is the best for that. They're not overcrowded like so many schools are, and they have a wealthy parent-funded foundation, so one room in the school is dedicated to relaxation and alternative learning, with walking desks, and yoga balls and bean bags, and a fountain (my daughter had standardized testing there, to reduce stress). The counselor is great and also has lots of fun stuff.

Bethesda Elementary has the best reputation for catering to special needs - they accept students from the area that other MCPS schools cannot welcome and they also get the kids undergoing treatment at NIH. They make it very easy to get an IEP or 504 if your child needs one - unlike in other MCPS schools, parents there rarely have to fight to for their child to receive accommodations. The Principal and Assistant Principal are wonderful people. However they are overcrowded due to the unending high-end condo and apartment construction in downtown Bethesda that attracts more families than developers and the school board (who is in the pocket of developers) ever thought possible.

Middle schools are the weakest link in any school system, due to raging hormones ;-) If your child has serious special needs, I have to say that it's best they then switch to North Bethesda MS then Walter Johnson HS, which is the neighboring cluster to the north that houses many excellent special programs (cluster switching is allowed if your child is approved for a special program). The teachers are great, the academics are very strong, but it's overcrowded. If you want to live in that cluster, please know that WJ is first in line to have its boundaries recalibrated because of the construction of the new high school, Woodward, to the north of it on Old Georgetown Rd. The boundary study will affect ALL Bethesda clusters and will be done in 2024, for a Woodward opening for 2025. BCC and WW boundaries might not change much, but they are included in the study.

Westland MS, the middle school in the BCC cluster after Bethesda ES, is small, not yet overcrowded, and tries not to create an atmosphere of academic striving - which has its drawbacks for kids who actually WANT that sort of thing. Special needs aren't well catered to, though.

BCC high school is nearly as good, academically, as WJ, Walt Whitman, and Winston Churchill. It's conveniently located in downtown Bethesda. It sells its IB program hard, but the dirty secret of IB is that it's not as well recognized by US/Canadian/UK college admissions officers as AP courses/exams. If you want a university in Singapore or Switzerland, then sure, IB is the way to go. As a result of offering IB, it has fewer AP courses than other "W" high schools in the area. So buyer beware.
If you're looking for a high school that's not a pressure cooker like WW or WJ, then BCC is also a good balance of academics and not sky-high stress.

There is no high school in MCPS that is quite as academically ambitious as Walt Whitman, OP. That comes with certain emotional sacrifices.

Did I make your head spin? ;-)
[/quote]

The thing about IB is that it opens up additional subjects for kids. At BCC, students can mix and match between AP and IB. My kid took AP math and English with IB arts and languages. They actually only got college credit for the arts and languages - but they could have asked for the math also. [/quote]

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