Anonymous wrote:PP one more thing that drives me crazy is the constant need for substitute teachers. It seriously seems like it’s all the time.

Another Wood Acres parent here- my kid is also mid-elementary and has very very rarely had a sub.

The school was wonderful until the new principal took over in 2023.

Y

Dr. Zaks seems to be disengaged with parents and doesn't appear welcoming or interested in fostering parent involvement. I was also taken aback by the high staff turnover after she took over. Some of the employees had been there for years, which speaks volumes about her leadership—or lack thereof.

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Parent of a fifth-grader here. We also had an older child who attended Wood Acres from K-5.

Overall we're very happy with the school. Parents are very engaged in the school and our kids have had more good teachers than bad ones (although each has had some of both).

The school used to be overcrowded several years ago, but the renovation combined with declining enrollment during the pandemic seems to have solved that problem.

We preferred the old principal to the new one -- she had been there for decades, was a strong leader and was willing to engage with parents (though she didn't always yield to what you wanted).

We have less of a read on Dr. Sweta Zaks, the new pricipal (finishing her first year), but to us she seems less engaged with parents. A small example that may seem insignificant: In the past, room parents would help organize classroom parties for holidays like Halloween and Valentine's Day. They would be given access to the classroom for, say, an hour in advance to decorate it, set up party games, etc. It helped to create a fun atmosphere and experience for the childen, and while it had zero to do with academics, it had a lot to do with community-building. Dr. Zaks cut the prep time to 10 minutes, which just isn't enought time to do much, so parties like this became just an afterthought. Again, it seems insignificant, but I think it speaks to a principal who just decided that something wasn't important to her, so it became unimportant to the school even if it was something that benefited the students socially.

We also have noticed the trouble the school has getting quality substitute teachers, but that may be a district-wide problem that in part stems from the pandemic.

One more thing about Wood Acres. We have been amazed at the attrition as families over time decide to opt for private school instead of public. In some cases it is because children have special needs that are better addressed by privates (needing smaller class sizes, for instance), and in other cases it reflects a feeling that kids will be better off in private once they get to middle school and high school. I doubt it is specific to Wood Acres. Bethesda has lots of families with the money for private school, so people go that route once they get the itch for it. But given that the Whitman cluster offers some of the best public schools in the county, it was a little surprising to us just how many of our kids' classmates departed for private as time wore on, and especially as middle school approached.

Having said all this, we would certainly stick with Wood Acres if we had a younger child moving through.