Anonymous
Post 06/06/2011 14:02     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
Anonymous wrote:I've got a daughter finishing up at RHPS this year, and wanted to respond to the OP. First, despite the number of people who jumped on you here, you're not alone in your concerns. Look, the same concerns tend to get expressed by parents about RHPS - check the archives here, you'll see periodic inquiries from CC MD parents who are horrified/worried/outraged that their little ones are going to be sent ***all the way*** to Silver Spring for K-2; that's code for OMG, I bought a million-plus house and now I'm nervous that my kid will be going to school with kids who come from very different circumstances. Just look at the debates about changing the boundaries for RHPS and NCES/CCES - the demographic/class balance is very much at issue for a lot of parents.

So yes, with respect to the middle school, my sense is that there is a small undercurrent of worry (not hysteria) that this might result in skewed demographics where Westland becomes all white / upper-middle class and the new school has a disproportionately higher population of FARMS/ESOL kids. No one is saying this directly, but the implications are there. Actually I heard one parent say this explicitly - a parent of one of my DD's classmates who happens to African American, for whatever that's worth.

HOWEVER, OP, just because I didn't join the others in flaming you doesn't mean that I agree with you or the others who think this. Mostly that's because of my experience with RHPS, which has been incredible. The teachers are great, the environment is incredibly nurturning despite its size (many of the staff people seem to know almost every one of the kids by name) and I've been surprised at how many super-high-income parents not only send their kids to school there, but devote tons of time and resources to the school. RHPS may have a slightly higher population of FARMS kids than Somerset, but I literally can't believe that the educational experience at Somerset is superior to that of RHPS. I am confident that any new middle school will have the same kinds of resources, both from MCPS and from the surrounding community. Plus it won't involve hours on a school bus sitting in traffic each day to go to an overcrowded school, so that sounds great to me.




I have to disagree with your statement in the first paragraph that any parent who expresses concern about putting their child on a bus to RHPS is secretly worried about the demographics of RHPS. Some of us live a fair ways from RHPS (and not that far from Bethesda elem.) and it does seem a long way to bus a kindergartener (I'd be curious if up-county bus routes are longer for kindergarteners, or if those are pretty much the longest for those kids), but I do agree with your last paragraph!
Anonymous
Post 06/06/2011 13:35     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
Thanks to all those who posted civil and polite posts.
Anonymous
Post 06/06/2011 12:16     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
All these posts about diversity are so off base. You moved where you moved bacuase you wanted a nice house and good schools. If you wnated diversity, you woudl have moved to a more diverse area.

I don't think going to school with world bank, IMF, and embassy kids diverse. You are dealing with the top income earners in their country. I went to carderock as well, pyle and whitman and the diverse argument a pp mentioned is crap.

You don't want your kid to go to school the kids who live in Summit Hills, Paddington Sq and on and on. The parents at RHPS who live in Bethesda and Chevy Chase are constantly saying they don't want their kids to go on playdates there but if you are a black kid that lives in Edgemoor, they have no problem with sending the kid on a paydate there.

Your meaning of diversity has to do with $$$not color or ethnicity.

I can't wait until they all end up at B-CC and one of your daughters goes to the prom with a person from Summit Hills and hwo you react.

Anonymous
Post 06/06/2011 12:08     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
I've got a daughter finishing up at RHPS this year, and wanted to respond to the OP. First, despite the number of people who jumped on you here, you're not alone in your concerns. Look, the same concerns tend to get expressed by parents about RHPS - check the archives here, you'll see periodic inquiries from CC MD parents who are horrified/worried/outraged that their little ones are going to be sent ***all the way*** to Silver Spring for K-2; that's code for OMG, I bought a million-plus house and now I'm nervous that my kid will be going to school with kids who come from very different circumstances. Just look at the debates about changing the boundaries for RHPS and NCES/CCES - the demographic/class balance is very much at issue for a lot of parents.

So yes, with respect to the middle school, my sense is that there is a small undercurrent of worry (not hysteria) that this might result in skewed demographics where Westland becomes all white / upper-middle class and the new school has a disproportionately higher population of FARMS/ESOL kids. No one is saying this directly, but the implications are there. Actually I heard one parent say this explicitly - a parent of one of my DD's classmates who happens to African American, for whatever that's worth.

HOWEVER, OP, just because I didn't join the others in flaming you doesn't mean that I agree with you or the others who think this. Mostly that's because of my experience with RHPS, which has been incredible. The teachers are great, the environment is incredibly nurturning despite its size (many of the staff people seem to know almost every one of the kids by name) and I've been surprised at how many super-high-income parents not only send their kids to school there, but devote tons of time and resources to the school. RHPS may have a slightly higher population of FARMS kids than Somerset, but I literally can't believe that the educational experience at Somerset is superior to that of RHPS. I am confident that any new middle school will have the same kinds of resources, both from MCPS and from the surrounding community. Plus it won't involve hours on a school bus sitting in traffic each day to go to an overcrowded school, so that sounds great to me.



Anonymous
Post 06/06/2011 10:47     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
Most of the low income kids in the cluster live in the apartments along East-West Highway near downtown SS and on Grubb/Lytonnsville Road. These buildings do tend to attract more low-income folks and recent immigrants. Some of these kids go to RH, a lot more go to RCF.
Anonymous
Post 06/06/2011 09:46     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
the current plan for the middle school, both of which would pull lots of kids from lower income parts of Silver Spring and Kensington.


OK, please. I have a child at RHPS. The parts of Kensington that are in the RHPS/NCCES configuration currently are Rock Creek Hills and Chevy Chase View. They are by no stretch of the imagination "lower income" and are arguably the nicest areas in Kensington and are nicer neighborhoods than many in Bethesda. The parts of Silver Spring are the neighborhood immediately surrounding Rosemary Hills, where every house costs more than $450K, and a few nearby apartment complexes where I assume incomes are lower. It's true that there will be a boundary study and the outcome is uncertain at this point, but there is no proposal to move wide swaths of other parts of Silver Spring and Kensington into the already overcrowded B-CC cluster. The kids that OP is complaining about are already at RHPS, which is a fantastic school with an incredibly dedicated staff and involved parent community.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2011 23:03     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
ESOL thing concerns me because I would imagine that a school with a high proportion of ESOL kids is going to need to spend resources on that, and resources are obviously finite. T


Yes, those resources are called "ESOL teachers" and the school gets an allocation for them. That's like saying there are too many band students that the school would need to spend resources on.

If the new middle school hasn't been officially announced, don't hold your breath. But it's cool, because if I were a parent in those areas, I wouldn't want my kids going to school with kids like yours either.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2011 21:01     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
Anonymous wrote:We just started at CCES and I don't get where the FARMS kids live. Almost all the houses in CC are close to a million. Where is the lower/low income housing?


I don't think OP/PP's concerns apply to CCES; I read it as more about RHES and the current plan for the middle school, both of which would pull lots of kids from lower income parts of Silver Spring and Kensington.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2011 15:14     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
As some one who live in Chevy Chase, I hope OP chooses to move somewhere else. I try to limit my children's exposure to people with her attitude.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2011 13:43     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
Anonymous wrote:I love that OP expressed concern with the school and is immediately called a rascist. Way to be defensive, RH parnets. The fact is, the percentage of free and reduced price lunch students at a school is the best single predictor of educational quality. So it makes huge sense for OP to be concerned about the additional of lower income neighborhoods. We live in that district now, and while we don't think our options are bd, per say, we will be looking strongly at private schools as well as moving nother district.

OP - per your concerns about being priced out of Bethesda,, you might look at the Carderock/Bannockburn districts. Great elementary schools with a wider range of housing options. Good luck.


Free and reduced price lunch is a predictor of test scores, but not of quality. If you want to meausre educational quality using test scores you need to look at change over time. Which schools are moving kids to higher levels of performance?

Evidence shows us that in mixed income schools middle and high income children do as well as they would in segregated schools, and lower income children perform better. I would argue that the schools that are changing outcomes for kids, for the better, are in fact the better schools.

I'm a parent in the Somerset catchment area with a child at Westland. I am very glad that my child will be through middle school before this middle school is built. We moved into this area specifically to go to a middle school with diversity (combined with other reasons that have nothing to do with schools). It seems like the new school will get all the diversity, and Westland will end up very white, which is not what I want for my child.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2011 00:59     Subject: Re:New chevy chase middle school
We just started at CCES and I don't get where the FARMS kids live. Almost all the houses in CC are close to a million. Where is the lower/low income housing?
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2011 23:50     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
These are the stats at Bannockburn:

Ethnicity This School
White, not Hispanic 84%
Asian/Pacific Islander 8%
Hispanic 6%
Black, not Hispanic 2%


I don't consider this diverse.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2011 23:43     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
Actually, while Carderock and Bannockburn don't have as wide a range of socio-economic diversity, they do have a better dispersion of income levels within the middle and upperclass, whereas the RH area is very much haves and have nots. Plus Carderock (I grew up there and my parents still live there) is populated in large part by World Bank and IMF families. I guess it's a different kind of diversity, but there are a lot of other nations and cultures represented. My best friend growing up was Brazilian, and our neighbors on one side were Pakistani and the other Icelandic.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2011 23:36     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
Anonymous wrote:I love that OP expressed concern with the school and is immediately called a rascist. Way to be defensive, RH parnets. The fact is, the percentage of free and reduced price lunch students at a school is the best single predictor of educational quality. So it makes huge sense for OP to be concerned about the additional of lower income neighborhoods. We live in that district now, and while we don't think our options are bd, per say, we will be looking strongly at private schools as well as moving nother district.

OP - per your concerns about being priced out of Bethesda,, you might look at the Carderock/Bannockburn districts. Great elementary schools with a wider range of housing options. Good luck.




Perfect. There's no diversity at all in those districts. That's exactly why we didn't move there. BTW, you sound pretty racist too. I hope you're moving.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2011 23:27     Subject: New chevy chase middle school
I love that OP expressed concern with the school and is immediately called a rascist. Way to be defensive, RH parnets. The fact is, the percentage of free and reduced price lunch students at a school is the best single predictor of educational quality. So it makes huge sense for OP to be concerned about the additional of lower income neighborhoods. We live in that district now, and while we don't think our options are bd, per say, we will be looking strongly at private schools as well as moving nother district.

OP - per your concerns about being priced out of Bethesda,, you might look at the Carderock/Bannockburn districts. Great elementary schools with a wider range of housing options. Good luck.