Reply to Which bethesda elementary schools have the best teachers, principal, and resources?

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Reply to "Which bethesda elementary schools have the best teachers, principal, and resources?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Bethesda Elementary is often criticized for being crowded (and it is despite changes over the years) but the principal is dedicated and hard working. She fights for resources for the school from MCPS.  Because the school has a focus on special needs, I think all students benefit from diversity in abilities in the student population.  Because of the high amount of construction in Bethesda, there’s a variety of housing and family incomes.  I’ve had 14 years at the school as a parent with multiple children and have only had one teacher who was very unprepared for the classroom (and that teacher has left). I am regularly impressed with the teaching staff. [/quote]

+ 1. Great principal and mostly great teachers. The overcrowding is no joke though. 44 kids in my kid’s 5th grade math class. The teacher is a marvel and can handle it and my kid adores math so she’s fine, but others may not be.

I have heard good things about Westbrook and somerset in the same cluster. And Bradley Hills and Burning Tree further out. [/quote]

Compacted math?  Guessing the other classes are smaller.[/quote]

The reward you get for being placed into compacted math is being crowded into a classroom like a sardine?  My kid's ES class has 27 kids and already there's no room to move.  I hope math is in the BES gymnasium, if they're squeezing 44 kids into a classroom.[/quote]

They make it work and the kids truly don’t seem to mind. The teacher is a marvel. But obviously not ideal.

That is an outlier but even their home rooms have 27 plus kids. The county tried rezoning a few years ago to try to fix it - half our neighborhood now goes to Somerset and the rest to Bethesda - but it didn’t take. We are happy there because of the caliber of teachers and the principal, who truly makes the most of what she’s got. But I do sometimes wonder if a place like Burning Tree where my friend says they top out at 20 kids per class might be better.

I don’t think I’d move into the BE cluster for the school. If I wanted to live in the area for other reasons (which we do - walkable, metro etc) then the school need not be an impediment. But if I could live anywhere in the area without regard to the particular reasons that brought us to our neighborhood, I’d pick a neighborhood zoned to a less crowded school. [/quote]

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