Reply to How is your 4th grader at CES doing so far?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP here. I have a child who just started CES at CCES. My apologies to the CCES posters who are rightly indignant about being accused of being racist after having done far more to foster integration (through bussing to RH) than most MCPS parents have done.

However, I can understand why the PP who floated the race theory might have done so. As a new parent at the school this year, I was blown back on my heels with the one conversation I had with a neighborhood parent who lit into me with frustration about her 99% kid not having been admitted to the program, and the school "suffering" for the sake of kids like mine (she said that they kept losing the "best" teachers to CES and indicated that I was profiting from her loss).

Honestly the degree of hostility was really startling and confusing and I don't really understand why people think it's OK to treat other parents this way. If you have an issue with MCPS or the principal, please don't take it out on families whose only offense is taking a seat we were offered. To be honest, we were really unhappy at our home school too, due to all sorts of reasons similar to the ones that seem be bothering you now - goofed up lunch plans, limited resources/overcrowding, teaching quality, etc.

I immediately joined the CCES pta upon my daughter's enrollment. I attended the blacktop bash but found very few parents there who seemed interested in talking to a newcomer. I wasn't able to volunteer on Unity Day but don't recall seeing other calls for volunteers, or I'd have answered them. The number of community events / opportunities to meet / join / contribute to the school community seems lower so far than at our old school (read: nonexistent). I haven't seen any messages so far about PTA meetings despite having joined. so I'm really not sure how to contribute to the community / lessen hostility toward CES families. Thoughts?[/quote]

First of all, welcome to CCES and thank you for joining the PTA.  The parent you discussed could have been almost anyone.  There are lots of very upset neighborhood parents this year.  Last year they didn't seem to understand what had happened when they lost the 6th grade and several classes of new CES families showed up.  This year, they get it, are awake and angry.  CCES is now a different school that feels transient and cold.  Which it sounds like you felt.  Sorry for your experience.

The lunch/recess issues are boiling over.  I heard several parents at games talking about it today.   Unhappy kids make nhappy parents. The reason there are no community events is because the same dozen local  parents are sick of doing all the work.  Someone told me they almost cancelled the Fall Festival this year because no one would take it on. I heard a local parent say she was done with volunteering because it was unappreciated and she felt invisible.  There used to be events even a couple of years ago.  They are almost all gone.

The neighborhood parents see all of the teacher awards of excellence around the school.  There are several and not one of them teaches a non CES class.  The parent you describe wasn't exactly wrong and you probably judged her because you assume she is a 99%.  The truth is on the walls of the school.  There used to be a day of excellence and neighborhood parents would watch as CES kids took home all the honors.

It's a tough spot for everyone.  My suggestion would be that if CES parents took some ownership of the school, it would lesson the hostility.  So it is not enough to join the PTA but also actively participate.
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PP here. Thanks for explaining all this, and I'll certainly try to do my part. I didn't know there was such a thing as a fall festival, as it's not been in any emails or calendars I've seen. [b]I definitely didn't judge the parent I mentioned for anything other than her extreme rudeness. It's she who announced to me that her child was in the 99th percentile and in her view deserved a seat.[/b] I would never brag about my kid's test scores with a stranger, but to each her own.

What you say about the day of excellence sounds really awful - I'd be embarrassed by that and angry as well. It sounds like they should do separate events for the center--or just not do that sort of thing at all.

As for the good teachers being in the CES, that sucks, but at our home school, the good teachers kept getting chased away by our mediocre principal and/or reassigned by the county to more needy schools. Welcome to MCPS - if you were at a school without a CES you might have many of the same complaints. I'm also not totally sure why people think that overworked/underappreciated volunteers are the CES's fault. at our home school, the same handful of people do all the work and they feel invisible and exploited--and events almost get canceled, etc--but there isn't a CES to blame for the fact that everyone is stretched thin.

It seems to me that a lot of the problems you're describing at the school are surely also a result of the removal of 6th grade -- which is REALLY not the CES kids' fault. Having a school that exists for only 3 years is just going to lead to transient feeling, CES or no CES. With such a short span, people will be juggling kids in multiple schools, less likely to have two kids in same school for many consecutive years, less likely to be invested, etc.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain people's perspectives, and for your welcome, which i truly appreciate. and I'm just sorry to hear that this is the way things are. Unfortunately I feel like what's being described is likely to result in a vicious circle-- resentment toward newcomers leads to coldness toward them leads to their alienation and decision not to volunteer etc. Ugh. [/quote]

Sorry to hear this - but this is par for the course at CCES, among parents whose kids did not get into CES. See how the poster you were responding to framed this: "The parent you describe wasn't exactly wrong and you probably judged her because you assume she is a 99%."

Also, there was *ONE* CES classroom (grade 4) that was added last year. But even last year, there were exaggerated complaints similar to those of the other poster about "several classes of new CES families" showing up. (If the extra classroom had not been added, the same parents would have been complaining about how much more difficult it is to get into CES since WJ cluster also started sending kids to CC CES instead of Barnsley.)[/quote]

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