Does anyone have any experiences with Ilchester Elementary, Bonnie Branch Middle, and Howard High School? I'm concern about future redistricting and the overcrowding schools in that region of the Howard County. It seems like many schools in Ellicott City are either at or above capacity. Does anyone know if the school board plans to build new schools or plan to redraw the school boundary lines to alleviate the overcrowded schools anytime soon?

Nice schools. Probably better than MoCo schools. We are in MoCo but if we were looking for a new home, def Howard over McCo.

I don't know much about Ellicott City schools, other than they uniformly have good reputations. I grew up in southern Howard County, which has some lower income areas. My nephew still lives in the general area (nicer neighborhood), and both he and I have done Hammond Elementary, Hammond Middle, and Atholton High (Laurel address).

Diverse, nice kids, smaller classes than what we've got here in Montgomery County. About 25 kids on average.

I think Howard is a really good school system. It's small enough that it has some flexibility to target and solve problems. Montgomery County seems so huge, and it takes forever for anything to get changed or improved.

Howard County does redistrict fairly often, though, so you could buy for a certain pyramid and find out somewhere during the K-12 years that it changes.

You didn't ask about Baltimore County, but I have friends in the Catonsville area and they've loved their school experience, too. At least up through elementary.

Baltimore City resident here. We love our city neighborhood. However, our son is a year off from school beginning. We're looking at the Baltimore area private schools, many of which are a real stretch financially. So, like many city people who swore they'd never do it, we're considering selling and moving to Howard County.

I know the overall statistics for Howard County's objective performance.

But data is 15 percent of the story. Would anyone be willing to tell me what your school is and how you / your kids like your specific school? How would you characterize the experience? What is your child's class size? I'm trying to identify some specific areas that would be a good bet for us. We're trying to get very focused so that we can learn about specific areas.

We're thinking about Ellicott City right now, but are open to suggestions.