Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if Madison will grow significantly with the boundary changes?

The Thru Consulting proposals from earlier this year would move about 75 Marshall kids to Madison. Not a big change to Madison. And of course those proposals may get revised.

From what Elementary schools? Is anyone leaving the boundary as well?

Some combination of the existing split feeders. The notes from the BRAC review indicates a lot of tweaking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if Madison will grow significantly with the boundary changes?

The Thru Consulting proposals from earlier this year would move about 75 Marshall kids to Madison. Not a big change to Madison. And of course those proposals may get revised.

From what Elementary schools? Is anyone leaving the boundary as well?

There are definitely many visible minorities there, so he won’t be alone.

I’m one of the PP with a kid at Madison. I feel like all of the posters saying that everyone is only white at Madison and how everyone is the same do not actually have kids there.

Now that clubs have started, I want to echo what the above poster said. My freshman has met a lot of kids already and there are tons of options. So far it’s been a good experience. They have to take the initiative to join but there are many to pick from.

My husband and I are the same demographic as you and we have been happy at Marshall.

We are visible minorities (south asian descent). My kids have always had an ethnically diverse group of friends--I'd say roughly 60% of their friends are white. That's in line proportionally to our own neighborhood and our own friend groups.

The sports culture at Madison *can* feel overwhelming if your kid is not involved in any school sports AND has not joined any other clubs, drama, music, etc. Once my daughters joined other groups, they felt included in the community at Madison. There is something for every interest and hobby.

As for the grading system, my kids understand it, they know where their wiggle room is, and when they need to step things up. Rarely any surprises, as they individually check their grades in the system every 3-4 days. Like at any other school, the quality of instruction varies teacher to teacher.

Overall, after many years at private, we've found FCPS and Madison to be fine. Not great, not terrible. A couple of fantastic teachers each year at Madison. The course offerings are great and my kids have always been placed in their first choice classes.

My kids are mixed race at Madison and have diverse friend groups. They aren’t athletes and are perfectly happy there

Per Vienna Patch Marshall had almost twice as many National Merit Semifinalists as Madison this fall. Oakton had over three times as many.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The architects of Madison’s grading policies are the equivalent of a bunch of preschoolers playing in the kitchen. The preschoolers like to mix up all sorts of ingredients without measuring and along the way, they make a colossal mess in the name of baking a cupcake. The cupcake is inedible but because the parents want to support the child we take a bite, smile, and pretend it’s great! Madison has baked the worst grading policy and all along the way they keep changing policies and making a mess. The end result is an awful grading system that teachers, students, parents, and quite possibly the creators don’t even like or understand. As a parent, I’ve shared my concerns with teachers, the counselor, and principal…no one cares…they may not like it either (except Calvert) but they don’t dare say it’s awful.

This is spot on. I don't understand why it continues year after year with new rules other than a strong desire by someone to cover up that the whole thing was a failure from the beginning and a waste of time and money. Also, if you come into a school as a principal where things are working really well and people are happy - why mess with that? This wasn't a school where the kids were failing academically and things were so bad that experiments needed to be done immediately.

So, let's implement the grading policy used by failing schools. Yeah, that's makes sense. Then Meren and Reid support it - so they are equally to blame for this.

+1000

I thought I was the only parent who did not get the grading policy.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if Madison will grow significantly with the boundary changes?

The Thru Consulting proposals from earlier this year would move about 75 Marshall kids to Madison. Not a big change to Madison. And of course those proposals may get revised.

Anonymous wrote:The architects of Madison’s grading policies are the equivalent of a bunch of preschoolers playing in the kitchen. The preschoolers like to mix up all sorts of ingredients without measuring and along the way, they make a colossal mess in the name of baking a cupcake. The cupcake is inedible but because the parents want to support the child we take a bite, smile, and pretend it’s great! Madison has baked the worst grading policy and all along the way they keep changing policies and making a mess. The end result is an awful grading system that teachers, students, parents, and quite possibly the creators don’t even like or understand. As a parent, I’ve shared my concerns with teachers, the counselor, and principal…no one cares…they may not like it either (except Calvert) but they don’t dare say it’s awful.

This is spot on. I don't understand why it continues year after year with new rules other than a strong desire by someone to cover up that the whole thing was a failure from the beginning and a waste of time and money. Also, if you come into a school as a principal where things are working really well and people are happy - why mess with that? This wasn't a school where the kids were failing academically and things were so bad that experiments needed to be done immediately.

So, let's implement the grading policy used by failing schools. Yeah, that's makes sense. Then Meren and Reid support it - so they are equally to blame for this.

The architects of Madison’s grading policies are the equivalent of a bunch of preschoolers playing in the kitchen. The preschoolers like to mix up all sorts of ingredients without measuring and along the way, they make a colossal mess in the name of baking a cupcake. The cupcake is inedible but because the parents want to support the child we take a bite, smile, and pretend it’s great! Madison has baked the worst grading policy and all along the way they keep changing policies and making a mess. The end result is an awful grading system that teachers, students, parents, and quite possibly the creators don’t even like or understand. As a parent, I’ve shared my concerns with teachers, the counselor, and principal…no one cares…they may not like it either (except Calvert) but they don’t dare say it’s awful.

Does anyone know if Madison will grow significantly with the boundary changes?

I’m the poster from page 1 who’s oldest had had really hard time with the teachers and grades. He always struggled to turn things in and the grading system had been a nightmare.

To the person who said to stay on top of the gradebook, I just checked my youngest child’s grades. 4 classes have nothing. The others all have As but it’s misleading because when you click on the grade there are 1-3 little formative assignments. Like a homework check. Only the math class has a quiz.

Ok, that cut off before I finished. The advice is to have your kid stay on top of the grade book. Lots of errors as far as entering/removing/replacing grades because even the teachers can't keep up with the constant changes. And they're human beings who miss things when they constantly have to be updating. My DCs grades would definitely have been effected in several classes if she hadn't known to reach out and ask.