I am from the Burning Tree area and went there as a kid. It may have changed but it always had a lot of foreign children that were the children of either diplomats or diplomatic staff or the children of World Bank employees. So, the ESOL was busy but the children were definitely from upper middle class backgrounds and their parents were all educated. That is the best way I can describe it---everyone was about financially equal and the countries/languages spoken were very diverse--Japanese, Spanish, Portugese, French, Kenyan--etc. I am sure that is even more true today. Maybe a large cluster of foreign families moved in and that has impacted ESOL.

I doubt Burning Tree is falling apart. The superintendent of MoCo schools lives in the Burning Tree cluster on Woodhaven Boulevard.

Wood Acres and Burning Tree are over capacity and bursting at the seems. They are not on renovation lists. Carderock and Bannockburn are under capacity. Carderocks and Bradley Hills just went under $$$$ renovations.

All of the elementary schools in the Whitman cluster are excellent. Those include Burning Tree, Bannockburn, Woodacres, Carderock Springs, and Bradley Hills. I belive that I hit them all. You can't go wrong with any of them, even if the stats say that test scores fell. One thing to keep in mind is that no school is perfect, whether public or private.

Burning Tree has a fairly large "learning center" population (special ed) and a large ESOL population. This may account for the low(er) numbers. That being said, it is an EXCELLENT school, with a very strong and supportive PTA, wonderful teachers, and a top notch principal and asst principal (the superintendants kids go there....)

We are thinking about moving and I have heard that all of the Bethesda area elementary schools are great. We have found different houses and of course look which ES where we would go.

When I look at the testing/ranking for Burning Tree ES, it seems like the number took a dive since 2010 and may not be doing well.
Could anyone shed some light on this situation?

THANKS!