Do note that some of the worst performing schools at MCPS are probably performing better than 80% of other schools across the nation.

It is a very pretty school in my opinion and gives Sweet Valley High vibes but then I see the people in the school and it is Sweet Valley No.

Anonymous wrote:Lol at people calling Gaithersburg HS diverse. Gaithersburg is the furthest thing from diverse. It is 82% Black and Hispanic and has a high FARMS rate. It's no more diverse than Walt Whitman HS is--in other words, it is one of MCPS' most segregated high schools.

I'm sure GHS has a lot of strengths, but diversity is not one of them.

My child is at Seneca Valley HS, with a 2023-24 student population that was 37.4% Black or African-American, 34.7% Hispanic, 12.3% white, and 10.6% Asian-American, with 66.6% ever FARMS, and the student population is diverse. For comparison, the Gaithersburg HS student population was 62.0% Hispanic, 20.3% Black or African-American, 8.8% white, and 6.0% Asian-American, with 76.6% ever FARMS. It would be a mistake to lump everyone who is in the Black or African-American or Hispanic groups into the same category of sameness, just like it's a mistake to call Whitman "lily white" (which people frequently do, on this forum).

One of the only positives of the mega-high schools we have in MCPS is that the student populations are large enough that there are cohorts for almost all kids.

Even the "worst" high schools have enough highly motivated and bright kids for there to be core AP classes at a minimum, and kids get into strong colleges and succeed in life.

Anonymous wrote:Lol at people calling Gaithersburg HS diverse. Gaithersburg is the furthest thing from diverse. It is 82% Black and Hispanic and has a high FARMS rate. It's no more diverse than Walt Whitman HS is--in other words, it is one of MCPS' most segregated high schools.

I'm sure GHS has a lot of strengths, but diversity is not one of them.

Exactly. People use "diverse" as a code for "lots of Black and brown kids" and don't realize that a lot of our schools are highly segregated and lack diversity.

Anonymous wrote:To answer your questions:

Is it safe? It depends on your threshold for violence and incidents in schools. There are fights and a student was arrested for having a gun on them last year. https://moco360.media/2024/03/14/loaded-gun-allegedly-found-with-gaithersburg-high-student-during-drug-search/ I wouldn't call it "safe" but it's also not the worst high school in the world either.

are there gangs? Yes, there are gang involved students at this school.

Bullying? Yes, there is bullying at GHS.

Special ed support? Don't know too much about this one.

Large class size? Probably depends on the class but given that the latest CIP has GHS at and forecasted to be over capacity in the future, it's probable that several classes willl be large: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP26_AppendixE.pdf

OP this is all true.

You should also know there are plenty of nice kids in the non advanced classes.
Your job is to pay attention to your child and the kids they befriend

There is a lot of the violence there. Teachers work so much over time and put up with so much BS but admin has to blame and fire them. I don't recommend teaching as a profession until the corruption of ed in ghs and in America for that matter has been addressed. Also in mcps admin fail upward for not following policy involving safety. If you are a minority you get huge taxpayer payouts if you play the race card and University of Maryland will give you super high salaries if you were involved in covering up or contributing to assault.

GHS isn’t as bad as a lot of people say. Sure, it has one of the highest drop out rates out of all the MCPS high schools and usually has the lowest graduation rate, but there’s some positives.

My son who went to GHS had some decent experiences. It has good programs and decent clubs, and he decided to do the Navy ROTC program there.

I’m aware theres gang and bullying there at the school, but almost every school has it and considering MCPS has bad security for pretty much every school, it seems like a problem that won’t go away.

I would not recommend GHS for special education needs. They have 3 very large programs - LAD, LFI, and SCB. There is one person supervising all 3 programs, which is way too much for one person to manage. I believe the total amount of kids is well over 300. They are also understaffed due to many teachers and being on leave and quitting.

Lol at people calling Gaithersburg HS diverse. Gaithersburg is the furthest thing from diverse. It is 82% Black and Hispanic and has a high FARMS rate. It's no more diverse than Walt Whitman HS is--in other words, it is one of MCPS' most segregated high schools.

I'm sure GHS has a lot of strengths, but diversity is not one of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gaithersburg is my home school. It is very diverse in every way. The kids in my neighborhood are all friends from ES, all advanced academically, and all took rigorous classes and got into good colleges. There may be issues among kids who live in apartment complexes and have bad history together, but generally those groups don’t cross the academic lines.

Well this is my concern. DD may attend for one year and has learning differences so will be in general ed population..

My kids went to a nearby school and we know plenty of kids who went to Gaithersburg and not all of whom took super advanced classes. Fights I have heard of are among kids who know each other not random picking on kids who are not already involved. This is the same as other schools. There is plenty of news about other Montgomery county schools having issues with fights. I do not know your kid’s special needs requirements so hard to know if GH will have the right resources. If you contact GH and they do not have the correct resources you can apply for a cosa to a school that had these resources. And, for the record, sending your kid to a ‘W’ school does not mean no fights, correct special ed resources or no bullying. And, I know loads of parents who choose to send their kids to schools with similar profiles to Gaithersburg including myself whose kids are doing great. Not sure why you think we are all sending our kids to private schools rather than racially and economically diverse schools. The west county area of Montgomery county is very proud of our diverse schools and all the opportunities they provide our kids. The city of Gaithersburg is especially involved in helping kids and provides all types of resources. It is a great area overall but yes with some pockets of concentrated poverty that do need more help. If you do not live in one of those very struggling areas, you can avoid the issues concentrated poverty can bring. If you do need to live in one of those areas since that is what you can afford, there are lots of resources to help you out from food pantries to free youth athletic programs to after school youth centers.

I have had friends who sent there kids there. It's totally fine. There are good academic programs and good kids there getting into good schools. They have a great child development program and other academic programs mentioned above. I heard great things about Mr. Dimmick (who recently retired). One difference with this school is that it doesn't have the same PTA power to put on and organize events like other schools do.
A friend had a bad experience with the special Ed team but this was many years ago so hopefully you can get information from more recent parents. There is a MOCO special needs FB forum I believe, that may be more helpful.