Anonymous wrote:Don't know they're doing them in batches, or just going for a "one out, one in" model, but I got an email today offering a spot at Pine Crest to my kid. We're declining.

Thanks for the update. It’s good to know what’s going on

Don't know they're doing them in batches, or just going for a "one out, one in" model, but I got an email today offering a spot at Pine Crest to my kid. We're declining.

Anonymous wrote:We got a spot today, too. What’s the latest on Pine Crest’s CES? Friends with kids there in 2017-2019 absolutely loved it. What’s it like these days? Thinking about fit for my very engaged but also a bit introverted DC who loves to learn and be challenged but isn’t a driver-type personality.

My son is just finishing up 4th grade at Pine Crest. He loves it, and has made great friends both in and out of the CES program. Remember they mix with other kids outside their homeroom for math in 4th, and he’s made plenty of non CES friends at recess too. The kids are just normal kids - not a pressure cooker at all. Just an advanced and interesting curriculum.

I would not pass this program up. The curriculum is like night and day compared to his home school. He’s not a go getter either - just a bright kid who wasn’t challenged. He is definitely challenged now. There is homework but they ease them into it slowly and he has learned so much responsibility keeping track of his assignments. He was VERY nervous to switch schools and says he is so glad he did.

I had heard some not so great things about Pine Crest in general as a school, but for what it’s worth I think it’s a great school. It’s very welcoming to parents and encourages family participation in a way our home school did not. It has a more relaxed vibe and treats the kids like they are older - which I guess they are because it’s an intermediate school. To my son it’s a lot more fun. They have more special days and events.

Every kid is different but I wouldn’t hesitate!

Anonymous wrote:Waitlists are moving. We got offered a spot at CCES this afternoon. Good luck to everyone!

How did you get word that you got a spot? Email. Letter, Phone call?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have friends with kids at Cold spring CES. FWIW I’m thankful my kids were never invited; they are thriving in fourth grade, have the best friendships and community, and my friends at CES said it’s a pressure cooker of weirdos and they can’t wait to leave. Parents are a nightmare of overbearing overachievers and kids and anxious reflection if that vibe. Thankful to stay at my small wonderful community school.

Oh, wow. We are wrapping up our first year at Barnsley CES and it is nothing like this. My child is very happy and aside from their first project at the beginning of the year that was a bit of a learning curve/stressor, hasn't brought a lick of homework home. The friends my child has made are normal kids who want to play games online, roller blade when they come over, and just hang out and be kids. Their parents talk about everyday things with me, not test scores and future college plans.

Interesting how different each CES program is.

People often write these posts hoping to encourage others to decline spots and create waitlist movement. I would take these posts with a grain of salt.

Seems like that must be the case. This was not our experience at Oak View, either. Nice kids, normal parents. If anything, kids are less stressed because they are engaged and enjoy school. Other than a few times during the year when big projects are due, homework has been minimal.

We got a spot today, too. What’s the latest on Pine Crest’s CES? Friends with kids there in 2017-2019 absolutely loved it. What’s it like these days? Thinking about fit for my very engaged but also a bit introverted DC who loves to learn and be challenged but isn’t a driver-type personality.

Waitlists are moving. We got offered a spot at CCES this afternoon. Good luck to everyone!

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Anonymous wrote:I know a significant number of 3rd graders who were offered a spot at CES this year. Several of my kids friends. Did they accept an unusually large group of kids this year anticipating that many would decline since there’s really no value in going to a CES anymore? Kids can get all the same enrichment at their home schools.

Nope, you just know a lot of lucky kids. I know of one kid in my kid's circle who got a spot, though most were in the lottery. They can't offer more spots than they have. It's not an airline.

It is such a great program. Too bad they can't offer it to more students.

At one time I would have agreed with this. But what I saw in the Title I school where I teach, expanding access to the CES by opening more centers was a bit of a double edged sword. More students got access, which was first and foremost the proper priority. We sent more kids than ever before. But at the same time, it depleted our 4th and 5th grades. Kids who were on the cusp, or had a spark but weren't quite at CES level, were left behind with no academic peers. Especially our newcomer ESOL students, many of whom had skills in their home language and had been stellar students before, but couldn't yet perform at that level in English. I saw many of them hating school because they had "no friends," because the smart motivated kids were gone.

With compacted math and now ELC, my school is going to be able to give these students the enrichment they need, and from my brief sample (meaning, looking up the kids who got spots and asking them if their parents had talked about a new school next year), most of the parents are keeping their kids at their home school. Again, completely non-scientific, but I would not have received those answers a few years ago. If a kid got a spot, the parents moved heaven and earth to make it work.

I find it hard to believe that sending 2-3 kids to CES is having that much of an impact. Nevertheless, if they opened more centers those kids with no peers would be able to join their friends in the program.

When the program expanded, it was more like 7-10 students, and yes it made an impact. Why open more centers when the programming can be made available at every school?

I agree. I think MCPS should offer programming at home schools with ELC in a separate class. Regional centers should be reserved for schools that need to band together because there are not enough peers to have a standalone class in a school.

I think that will have a negative impact on high FARMS schools. Sure, it's more convenient for students assigned to the affluent schools who have had outside enrichment but at schools with fewer high-fliers there often isn't a large enough high-performing cohort.

Anecdotally, my experience with kids in a high FARMS school was that the middle class kids chosen for the regional center always went, almost 100% of the time. The working class kids did not. Even with convenient transportation, and an encouraging principal, the BIPOC kids and the working class kids often gave up the spots. Those spots were then filled with middle class white/Asian kids, and it changed the composition of the 4th and 5th grades.

My kid is in a CES program along with several others from our Title 1 home school. I wouldn't necessarily say that the transportation is convenient, especially for families with siblings or for situations where the home school and CES school are on different schedules. I know several families who declined spots because they couldn't make transportation work.

They just did the first "waitlist" lottery for CES vacancies (we got a spot) -- they plan on doing them every two weeks until they're full.

Has anyone heard anything about the "waitlist"? People were supposed to accept/decline their spot by late April - does anyone know when they'll be going back to the lottery pool?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have friends with kids at Cold spring CES. FWIW I’m thankful my kids were never invited; they are thriving in fourth grade, have the best friendships and community, and my friends at CES said it’s a pressure cooker of weirdos and they can’t wait to leave. Parents are a nightmare of overbearing overachievers and kids and anxious reflection if that vibe. Thankful to stay at my small wonderful community school.

Oh, wow. We are wrapping up our first year at Barnsley CES and it is nothing like this. My child is very happy and aside from their first project at the beginning of the year that was a bit of a learning curve/stressor, hasn't brought a lick of homework home. The friends my child has made are normal kids who want to play games online, roller blade when they come over, and just hang out and be kids. Their parents talk about everyday things with me, not test scores and future college plans.

Interesting how different each CES program is.

People often write these posts hoping to encourage others to decline spots and create waitlist movement. I would take these posts with a grain of salt.

Anonymous wrote:We have friends with kids at Cold spring CES. FWIW I’m thankful my kids were never invited; they are thriving in fourth grade, have the best friendships and community, and my friends at CES said it’s a pressure cooker of weirdos and they can’t wait to leave. Parents are a nightmare of overbearing overachievers and kids and anxious reflection if that vibe. Thankful to stay at my small wonderful community school.

Oh, wow. We are wrapping up our first year at Barnsley CES and it is nothing like this. My child is very happy and aside from their first project at the beginning of the year that was a bit of a learning curve/stressor, hasn't brought a lick of homework home. The friends my child has made are normal kids who want to play games online, roller blade when they come over, and just hang out and be kids. Their parents talk about everyday things with me, not test scores and future college plans.

Interesting how different each CES program is.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I know a significant number of 3rd graders who were offered a spot at CES this year. Several of my kids friends. Did they accept an unusually large group of kids this year anticipating that many would decline since there’s really no value in going to a CES anymore? Kids can get all the same enrichment at their home schools.

Nope, you just know a lot of lucky kids. I know of one kid in my kid's circle who got a spot, though most were in the lottery. They can't offer more spots than they have. It's not an airline.

It is such a great program. Too bad they can't offer it to more students.

At one time I would have agreed with this. But what I saw in the Title I school where I teach, expanding access to the CES by opening more centers was a bit of a double edged sword. More students got access, which was first and foremost the proper priority. We sent more kids than ever before. But at the same time, it depleted our 4th and 5th grades. Kids who were on the cusp, or had a spark but weren't quite at CES level, were left behind with no academic peers. Especially our newcomer ESOL students, many of whom had skills in their home language and had been stellar students before, but couldn't yet perform at that level in English. I saw many of them hating school because they had "no friends," because the smart motivated kids were gone.

With compacted math and now ELC, my school is going to be able to give these students the enrichment they need, and from my brief sample (meaning, looking up the kids who got spots and asking them if their parents had talked about a new school next year), most of the parents are keeping their kids at their home school. Again, completely non-scientific, but I would not have received those answers a few years ago. If a kid got a spot, the parents moved heaven and earth to make it work.

I find it hard to believe that sending 2-3 kids to CES is having that much of an impact. Nevertheless, if they opened more centers those kids with no peers would be able to join their friends in the program.

When the program expanded, it was more like 7-10 students, and yes it made an impact. Why open more centers when the programming can be made available at every school?

I agree. I think MCPS should offer programming at home schools with ELC in a separate class. Regional centers should be reserved for schools that need to band together because there are not enough peers to have a standalone class in a school.

I think that will have a negative impact on high FARMS schools. Sure, it's more convenient for students assigned to the affluent schools who have had outside enrichment but at schools with fewer high-fliers there often isn't a large enough high-performing cohort.

Anecdotally, my experience with kids in a high FARMS school was that the middle class kids chosen for the regional center always went, almost 100% of the time. The working class kids did not. Even with convenient transportation, and an encouraging principal, the BIPOC kids and the working class kids often gave up the spots. Those spots were then filled with middle class white/Asian kids, and it changed the composition of the 4th and 5th grades.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a significant number of 3rd graders who were offered a spot at CES this year. Several of my kids friends. Did they accept an unusually large group of kids this year anticipating that many would decline since there’s really no value in going to a CES anymore? Kids can get all the same enrichment at their home schools.

Nope, you just know a lot of lucky kids. I know of one kid in my kid's circle who got a spot, though most were in the lottery. They can't offer more spots than they have. It's not an airline.

It is such a great program. Too bad they can't offer it to more students.

At one time I would have agreed with this. But what I saw in the Title I school where I teach, expanding access to the CES by opening more centers was a bit of a double edged sword. More students got access, which was first and foremost the proper priority. We sent more kids than ever before. But at the same time, it depleted our 4th and 5th grades. Kids who were on the cusp, or had a spark but weren't quite at CES level, were left behind with no academic peers. Especially our newcomer ESOL students, many of whom had skills in their home language and had been stellar students before, but couldn't yet perform at that level in English. I saw many of them hating school because they had "no friends," because the smart motivated kids were gone.

With compacted math and now ELC, my school is going to be able to give these students the enrichment they need, and from my brief sample (meaning, looking up the kids who got spots and asking them if their parents had talked about a new school next year), most of the parents are keeping their kids at their home school. Again, completely non-scientific, but I would not have received those answers a few years ago. If a kid got a spot, the parents moved heaven and earth to make it work.

I find it hard to believe that sending 2-3 kids to CES is having that much of an impact. Nevertheless, if they opened more centers those kids with no peers would be able to join their friends in the program.

When the program expanded, it was more like 7-10 students, and yes it made an impact. Why open more centers when the programming can be made available at every school?

I agree. I think MCPS should offer programming at home schools with ELC in a separate class. Regional centers should be reserved for schools that need to band together because there are not enough peers to have a standalone class in a school.

I think that will have a negative impact on high FARMS schools. Sure, it's more convenient for students assigned to the affluent schools who have had outside enrichment but at schools with fewer high-fliers there often isn't a large enough high-performing cohort.

Those schools should band together and form regional centers — schools that have enough of a cohort should do it in-house.

Nah they should use local norms so there's equal proportions from all schools. That way everyone can go to a center.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a significant number of 3rd graders who were offered a spot at CES this year. Several of my kids friends. Did they accept an unusually large group of kids this year anticipating that many would decline since there’s really no value in going to a CES anymore? Kids can get all the same enrichment at their home schools.

Nope, you just know a lot of lucky kids. I know of one kid in my kid's circle who got a spot, though most were in the lottery. They can't offer more spots than they have. It's not an airline.

It is such a great program. Too bad they can't offer it to more students.

At one time I would have agreed with this. But what I saw in the Title I school where I teach, expanding access to the CES by opening more centers was a bit of a double edged sword. More students got access, which was first and foremost the proper priority. We sent more kids than ever before. But at the same time, it depleted our 4th and 5th grades. Kids who were on the cusp, or had a spark but weren't quite at CES level, were left behind with no academic peers. Especially our newcomer ESOL students, many of whom had skills in their home language and had been stellar students before, but couldn't yet perform at that level in English. I saw many of them hating school because they had "no friends," because the smart motivated kids were gone.

With compacted math and now ELC, my school is going to be able to give these students the enrichment they need, and from my brief sample (meaning, looking up the kids who got spots and asking them if their parents had talked about a new school next year), most of the parents are keeping their kids at their home school. Again, completely non-scientific, but I would not have received those answers a few years ago. If a kid got a spot, the parents moved heaven and earth to make it work.

I find it hard to believe that sending 2-3 kids to CES is having that much of an impact. Nevertheless, if they opened more centers those kids with no peers would be able to join their friends in the program.

When the program expanded, it was more like 7-10 students, and yes it made an impact. Why open more centers when the programming can be made available at every school?

I agree. I think MCPS should offer programming at home schools with ELC in a separate class. Regional centers should be reserved for schools that need to band together because there are not enough peers to have a standalone class in a school.

I think that will have a negative impact on high FARMS schools. Sure, it's more convenient for students assigned to the affluent schools who have had outside enrichment but at schools with fewer high-fliers there often isn't a large enough high-performing cohort.

Those schools should band together and form regional centers — schools that have enough of a cohort should do it in-house.