Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, we are currently considering a TH in the Seneca Hill area, but we don't know too much about the area. Reading this thread has generated mixed emotions.
How is the neighborhood (population? occupations? crime?) and what are the parents like? Are there SAHMS of 2 parent family, 1-parent family, low income housing?
Is "Seneca Hill" where the Weis supermarket used to be? I wouldn't buy a house there, and not because of the schools. The houses themselves were slapped up in a day and a half; the rest of the housing in the area is not aging well; and there's not going to be any redevelopment of that housing because it isn't really anywhere and there are no plans for it to be anywhere. If you're planning to stay in your house for more than a few years, it might be a good idea to look for a house that's closer to something/somewhere.
Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, we are currently considering a TH in the Seneca Hill area, but we don't know too much about the area. Reading this thread has generated mixed emotions.
How is the neighborhood (population? occupations? crime?) and what are the parents like? Are there SAHMS of 2 parent family, 1-parent family, low income housing?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Clopper Mill has a lot of challenges. I have several friends who live there and they all send their kids to private school. The middle school, Roberto Clemente, is pretty good and has a magnet program in it. My friends with kids at Northwest have been happy too.
So they actually know nothing first-hand about Clopper Mill, because their children don't go there? I knew somebody who lived in one of the non-poor areas that is zoned for Clopper Mill, and she refused out of hand to send her child there. She never even set foot in the place, and from what she said, none of her neighbors ever did either. Too many poor, brown kids.
OP, Clopper Mill is a Title I school. That means that
1. There are lots of poor kids who go there.
2. Class sizes for K-2 are small.
Here is the MCPS summary sheet for Clopper Mill: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02100.pdf
Are there high-poverty schools in MCPS that are well-run, with good teachers? There certainly are, just as there are badly-run schools with bad teachers in Bethesda and Potomac. Is Clopper Mill a well-run, good-teacher high-poverty school? I don't know, unfortunately. I hope that somebody with first-hand experience with Clopper Mill will post.
Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, we are currently considering a TH in the Seneca Hill area, but we don't know too much about the area. Reading this thread has generated mixed emotions.
How is the neighborhood (population? occupations? crime?) and what are the parents like? Are there SAHMS of 2 parent family, 1-parent family, low income housing?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
I'm not sure about the student body per se.. I do know that personally I want my child in a challenging environment and Clopper Mill is one of the worst performing elementary schools in the county and certainly in Germantown. That would be my criteria for judging the school.
You would judge the school based on its overall scores on standardized tests?
That and neighborhood parents
Have you met any?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
I'm not sure about the student body per se.. I do know that personally I want my child in a challenging environment and Clopper Mill is one of the worst performing elementary schools in the county and certainly in Germantown. That would be my criteria for judging the school.
You would judge the school based on its overall scores on standardized tests?
That and neighborhood parents
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
I'm not sure about the student body per se.. I do know that personally I want my child in a challenging environment and Clopper Mill is one of the worst performing elementary schools in the county and certainly in Germantown. That would be my criteria for judging the school.
You would judge the school based on its overall scores on standardized tests?
Anonymous wrote:
I'm not sure about the student body per se.. I do know that personally I want my child in a challenging environment and Clopper Mill is one of the worst performing elementary schools in the county and certainly in Germantown. That would be my criteria for judging the school.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You are all bashing this ES school but saying the middle and high school are okay? Aren't all these problem kids going into the middle and high school. Doesn't sound very positive at all.
Clopper Mill ES enrollment per grade: 52-75
Roberto Clemente MS enrollment per grade: 374-450
Northwest HS enrollment per grade: 454-616
Also, I don't think that anybody has said anything about "problem kids", let alone "all these problem kids". Unless you assume that poor black and Hispanic kids are by definition problem kids? But you wouldn't do that.
Well obviously everyone else here on the thread thinks they are. No one is talking about an overcrowded school or ineffective teachers. That leaves the students that are the problem, correct?
I'm not sure about the student body per se.. I do know that personally I want my child in a challenging environment and Clopper Mill is one of the worst performing elementary schools in the county and certainly in Germantown. That would be my criteria for judging the school. [/quote
Riiiiight. And what makes it so bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You are all bashing this ES school but saying the middle and high school are okay? Aren't all these problem kids going into the middle and high school. Doesn't sound very positive at all.
Clopper Mill ES enrollment per grade: 52-75
Roberto Clemente MS enrollment per grade: 374-450
Northwest HS enrollment per grade: 454-616
Also, I don't think that anybody has said anything about "problem kids", let alone "all these problem kids". Unless you assume that poor black and Hispanic kids are by definition problem kids? But you wouldn't do that.
Well obviously everyone else here on the thread thinks they are. No one is talking about an overcrowded school or ineffective teachers. That leaves the students that are the problem, correct?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You are all bashing this ES school but saying the middle and high school are okay? Aren't all these problem kids going into the middle and high school. Doesn't sound very positive at all.
Clopper Mill ES enrollment per grade: 52-75
Roberto Clemente MS enrollment per grade: 374-450
Northwest HS enrollment per grade: 454-616
Also, I don't think that anybody has said anything about "problem kids", let alone "all these problem kids". Unless you assume that poor black and Hispanic kids are by definition problem kids? But you wouldn't do that.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Not the elementary you were looking at but Ronald McNair in Germantown is a very good school, just a bit further down than Clopper Mills and has a similar feeder pattern.
There's also Germantown ES, Matsunaga ES ( might be harder to move into this area) and Great Seneca Creek ES. All have the same feeder pattern as Clopper Mill (at the moment at least).
Matsunaga goes to Kingsview MS. Some of Great Seneca Creek also goes to Kingsview.
There is supposed to be rezoning involving Seneca Valley HS after the renovation is complete (now scheduled for 2020, I think) that may involve Northwest HS as well as Clarksburg HS.