In terms of incidents in the 90's, I would say that that was culturally normal in that time period. Certainly happened at my high school, which makes the whole Kavanaugh uproar absurd to me.

My child is at Westland now and from the way its described it sounds like Disneyland. No fighting, no grabbing, everyone being friendly and kind. Minimal bullying though I have heard of some minor incidents. I have been extremely please about the school environment this year.

Ignore the thread derailment, OP. I hope you know that MCPS has a very firm bullying policy in place and that harassment of any kind, including and most specially sexual harassment, will not be tolerated.

My friends with kids at Westland are happy with it, especially this year, as many local children were shut out of the middle school magnets and MCPS opened some advanced classes to cater to their needs in 6th grade.

I encourage you to contact the school to ask whether your child, coming from private, could be eligible for these classes, and whether they need to register for the magnet middle school test in order to be considered (not that you want your child in a magnet, but that MCPS may only place those rejected from magnets into these special classes, if you see what I mean). Hurry, because I believe the test registration deadline may be quickly approaching.

My own child is at North Bethesda Middle School, and I also know kids at Pyle. These are all large, but decent schools.

I will say two things in general:

1. Writing. It is what you and your child make of it. Teachers provide the guidelines and examples of good writing, sometimes in minute detail, but they do not have the time to go over each student's writing with a fine-toothed comb and coach them to write better. This is because they have too many students. Parent involvement goes a long way toward ensuring that your child becomes a good writer.

2. Math. There are advanced tracks that offer a lot of material and end in high school with two years of AP classes or the possibility of taking a college class if the student has exhausted all MCPS math. However, they don't teach too much critical thinking in the sense that there aren't a lot of brain-teasers that force students to really SOLVE A PROBLEM. This is an issue that exists across the board in all K-12 education in the US (and perhaps in the world), with a few exceptions - the math magnets do expose students to higher-order thinking, for example.

Personally, I have not noticed that private schools teach writing and math better than the good public schools that my children have attended. In all cases, you need to engage in the process anyway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% true - I was there in the mid-90s and you couldn’t walk to class or take the bus home without being groped. In retrospect it was disgusting but at the time seemed normal. At lunch boys offered girls free ‘breast exams.’ I hope it’s changed.

OP is asking what Westland MS is like NOW. Who cares your experience 20-30 years ago.

I care. Thank you PP for answering my thread-derailing question. If you’re going to be obnoxious (other PP) you should try to be obnoxious to the right PP.

Anonymous wrote:100% true - I was there in the mid-90s and you couldn’t walk to class or take the bus home without being groped. In retrospect it was disgusting but at the time seemed normal. At lunch boys offered girls free ‘breast exams.’ I hope it’s changed.

OP is asking what Westland MS is like NOW. Who cares your experience 20-30 years ago.

I have neighbors who send their kids there and they’ve been very happy. It’s more personal now that it’s so much smaller and yet there’s a critical mass for some good differentiation.

Anonymous wrote:I went to a BCC elementary and then Eastern in the early 90s. My one good friend who went to Westland was always telling me about boys grabbing girls' butts and having to have male friends walk you from class to class to "protect" you from the butt grabbers.

I don't know if she was bs-ing us or if it was true. And certainly it says nothing about the school now. But I wonder if other DCUM readers went to Westland and can confirm or refute this decades-old rumor. I continue to be curious about it 25 years later.

Ironically, I read about butt-grabbing at Eastern more recently (2013) on DCUM: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/index/posts/list/296208.page

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the private. Middle school is definitely the weak link in MCPS. Westland isn’t as bad as a Pyle but it’s pretty crowded.

Isn’t middle school the weak link everywhere ?

Yes, its a tuff time for kids. It would be better if schools did k-6, 7-9 for middle and 10-12 for high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the private. Middle school is definitely the weak link in MCPS. Westland isn’t as bad as a Pyle but it’s pretty crowded.

Isn’t middle school the weak link everywhere ?

My DD went to a very small catholic school for middle school (13 in class - all girls) and it was wonderful.
Kids wee friendly and close and they had a lot of fun times together.

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the private. Middle school is definitely the weak link in MCPS. Westland isn’t as bad as a Pyle but it’s pretty crowded.

Isn’t middle school the weak link everywhere ?

I went in the late 80's and that stuff did not happen.

100% true - I was there in the mid-90s and you couldn’t walk to class or take the bus home without being groped. In retrospect it was disgusting but at the time seemed normal. At lunch boys offered girls free ‘breast exams.’ I hope it’s changed.

I went to a BCC elementary and then Eastern in the early 90s. My one good friend who went to Westland was always telling me about boys grabbing girls' butts and having to have male friends walk you from class to class to "protect" you from the butt grabbers.

I don't know if she was bs-ing us or if it was true. And certainly it says nothing about the school now. But I wonder if other DCUM readers went to Westland and can confirm or refute this decades-old rumor. I continue to be curious about it 25 years later.

Probably still a Wasteland as it was when many of us went. Middle school all over sucks and you just have to survive it.

Depends on the private. Middle school is definitely the weak link in MCPS. Westland isn’t as bad as a Pyle but it’s pretty crowded.

Now that Westland is not (yet) as overcrowded, how are things at the school? I’m thinking of moving our son from private to Westland.