Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well well well...

"Three schools - Robert Frost, Takoma Park, and White Oak, offer Honors Algebra 2 at their school.
Students in other middle schools must attend a local high school to take that class."

This is the kind of thing that really bothers parents and MCPS could benefit from centralizing school course offerings rather than just leaving it up to administrators. I'm still trying to completely understand the methodology of the report. Is it that it is only offered at these three schools, or, is it that in Spring semester 2025 these were the only middle schools with kids actually taking the class? I think it is odd the Robert Clemente (up county math magnet) had no kids taking Algebra 2.

Oh, they do! They just have to wake up in the dead of night to go to a high school that's really far from their home.

Anonymous wrote:Well well well...

"Three schools - Robert Frost, Takoma Park, and White Oak, offer Honors Algebra 2 at their school.
Students in other middle schools must attend a local high school to take that class."

This is the kind of thing that really bothers parents and MCPS could benefit from centralizing school course offerings rather than just leaving it up to administrators. I'm still trying to completely understand the methodology of the report. Is it that it is only offered at these three schools, or, is it that in Spring semester 2025 these were the only middle schools with kids actually taking the class? I think it is odd the Robert Clemente (up county math magnet) had no kids taking Algebra 2.

Anonymous wrote:I do not trust this report. We are at B-CC. There is not on-level English classes. Only Honors (or AP/IB in grades 11/12). Maybe if you are ELD, they will put you in an on-level class, but not if you are an English speaker, even when you are performing below grade level. It is definitely honors for all, and that is why teachers do not actually teach an honors class. It is grade-level at best.

My kid is in Bridge at Churchill. Is there an SESES program at BCC? We have grade level classes in Bridge so I'm thinking that if BCC has a sp ed program, the regular classes might be for the self contained courses.

Something like this would have been good to have released to the public before Taylor planned out his regional program plan.

But of course, the county's Office of Legislative Oversight had to do it, at the request of a county council member.

Anonymous wrote:I do not trust this report. We are at B-CC. There is not on-level English classes. Only Honors (or AP/IB in grades 11/12). Maybe if you are ELD, they will put you in an on-level class, but not if you are an English speaker, even when you are performing below grade level. It is definitely honors for all, and that is why teachers do not actually teach an honors class. It is grade-level at best.

This is what the report says about the inventory tables:

The following appendix provides a detailed summary of all courses with any enrollments in Spring 2025. If a
school had an enrollment within a specific course, it is designated with a check mark.

It is a snapshot of just one semester. As far as I can tell, it doesn't have a table showing by HS which courses are combined (like English I / Honors English or Bio I / Honors Bio I--which we know happens at multiple high schools). I don't think it is lying, it just doesn't look at combined classes, which I agree with you is extremely frustrating.

It is a long report. If someone does see a discussion of combined courses at the high school level, please point me to the page number.

This is an interesting report and a lot to digest.

One conclusion I agree with, especially if you are trying to determine if moving to a different school/cluster will offer the academic opportunities you want for your kid:

" While this report does not make recommendations on the availability of courses throughout MCPS, OLO
has identified one issue that MCPS should address when decisions about boundaries and programs have been solidified – the utilization and uniformity of course catalogs. During the course of this report, OLO found that there is no consistency among school catalogs. The central MCPS catalog contains courses
that may not be available in all schools. Individual school catalogs, if even available, are not uniform. OLO
found that courses identified in individual school catalogs did not match up with what courses were
actually o􀆯ered. Further, MCPS sta􀆯 reported that this can be a problem – without consistency, students
and families may not be able to easily identify courses available to them.

Therefore, OLO suggests that no matter what decisions are made about programs and curriculum in the coming months and years, MCPS provide schools catalogs that are comprehensive, uniform, and updated annually to ensure that students and families have all the information readily available to select schools, pathways, and courses."

I do not trust this report. We are at B-CC. There is not on-level English classes. Only Honors (or AP/IB in grades 11/12). Maybe if you are ELD, they will put you in an on-level class, but not if you are an English speaker, even when you are performing below grade level. It is definitely honors for all, and that is why teachers do not actually teach an honors class. It is grade-level at best.

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by the appendix in the back for schools offered by high school. I'm looking at Appendix D page 14. I want to see which high schools offer on-grade-level English 9/10. But the chart is cut off and only lists 18 high schools. It's also not alphabetized.

Am I missing something?

The chart isn't alphabetical it is by FARMS rate High-Low

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by the appendix in the back for schools offered by high school. I'm looking at Appendix D page 14. I want to see which high schools offer on-grade-level English 9/10. But the chart is cut off and only lists 18 high schools. It's also not alphabetized.

Am I missing something?

The charts get cut off if you are only viewing online. Download as a PDF.

Thank you! I hope they will fix that.

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by the appendix in the back for schools offered by high school. I'm looking at Appendix D page 14. I want to see which high schools offer on-grade-level English 9/10. But the chart is cut off and only lists 18 high schools. It's also not alphabetized.

Am I missing something?

The charts get cut off if you are only viewing online. Download as a PDF.

^^oops, I'm confused by the appendix on English courses offered by high school.

I am confused by the appendix in the back for schools offered by high school. I'm looking at Appendix D page 14. I want to see which high schools offer on-grade-level English 9/10. But the chart is cut off and only lists 18 high schools. It's also not alphabetized.

Am I missing something?

This is a helpful report for parents. Now we can see the huge discrepancies between course offerings.

Well well well...

"Three schools - Robert Frost, Takoma Park, and White Oak, offer Honors Algebra 2 at their school.
Students in other middle schools must attend a local high school to take that class."

This report just came out and it's huge and fascinating, if anyone's looking for some snow day reading: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OLO/Resources/Files/2026_Reports/OLOReport%202026-2.pdf

I couldn't begin to summarize it since there's so much in there, but a few things that were interesting to me (I focused mostly on middle school, and feel free to check my math!):
- 3 middle schools (Parkland, Julius West, and Parks) offer regular alongside advanced English, and it looks like about 1/3 of kids at those schools are on the regular track on average
- 32 middle schools offer regular alongside advanced social studies, and it looks like about 3/4 of kids at those schools are on the regular track on average
- 34 middle schools have regular math 6, 7, and 8, and it looks about about 1/2 of kids at those schools are on that track on average
-- a fair number of middle schools don't have Spanish and/or French 3
- huge variation in the electives offerings among middle schools, including ones I had no idea existed