Reply to Recent experiences with Silver Spring International

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I read the recent Bethesda Beat article on Silver Spring International Middle School and I'm interested in some recent perspectives on the school. My child, who would start next year, is somewhat anxious. I am, in turn, now somewhat apprehensive about descriptions of SSIMS that make it seem chaotic and disruptive. My kid's heard from current 6th graders about fights and that kind of thing, but I also don't know how much of that is kids talking and making their school seem more dangerous than it really is.

https://moco360.media/2023/01/30/safety-concerns-at-ssims-prompt-two-visits-from-county-officials-in-one-week/

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The school is 1 mi from the Metro, but is described as next to a Metro station. Makes me wonder about other errors.[/quote]

That detail is an unfortunate error, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t been corrected.  The rest is an accurate, if not understated, depiction of the issues[/quote]

I think context is important here. This list of issues was generated by staff and parents as part of an advocacy effort to coincide with the recent operating budget hearings. Good for them for being thorough and organized, and they got a good bit of preliminary attention from central office and the media. We'll see if it helps with increased funding. But I don't think neighborhood parents should overreact to the publicity. SSIMS does have some unique challenges, with its very old and poorly connected buildings, the external field house, and the never-ending Purple Line construction, but honestly the problematic student behaviors are standard middle school stuff, these days, unfortunately.[/quote]

Meh; my experience at SSIMS was that it's student behavior problems were a bit worse than the average at MCPS; Bryant is notorious for not holding student's accountable - until said student is in HER face. That said, my experience was behavioral issues were more general unruliness rather than violence. Other middle schools in MCPS are more violent, though I'd put SSIMS in the bottom third for sheer chaos. One consequence of that chaotic behavior is that students, even in the "honors" math, are between a quarter to a semester behind what the better run middle schools are doing. Nominally they may be on the same page, but often the school has to drop much of the detail just to get students to pass county formatives.

Although the metro is a whopping whole mile away (not much for middle schoolers), downtown silver spring is much closer; easy walk from SSIMS to Chik-fil-a, Chipotle, Mod pizza for lunch, especially when there are few consequences for students for not getting back in time, if at all.

But as others said, there are worse middle schools in the county.[/quote]

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