Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

While that is true, I want to move to cluster that she can go to from K-12. I want this to be a one time move.

I understand. If you're considering any of the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools, be advised that there will be a boundary study soon, which may redraw the middle and high school boundaries. Elementary boundaries are not included. The NEC does not have any imminent boundary studies.

Yes, I'd be especially aware of property close to Woodward or any of the adjacent schools like Wheaton, WJ, Einstein and BCC.

How’s Woodward? This is the first time I heard this name.

Woodward's building will be open next year, but it will be a holding school for Northwood for the first three years. After Northwood leaves three years from now, it will be its own school. So you haven't heard of it because it didn't exist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

While that is true, I want to move to cluster that she can go to from K-12. I want this to be a one time move.

I understand. If you're considering any of the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools, be advised that there will be a boundary study soon, which may redraw the middle and high school boundaries. Elementary boundaries are not included. The NEC does not have any imminent boundary studies.

Yes, I'd be especially aware of property close to Woodward or any of the adjacent schools like Wheaton, WJ, Einstein and BCC.

How’s Woodward? This is the first time I heard this name.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

While that is true, I want to move to cluster that she can go to from K-12. I want this to be a one time move.

I understand. If you're considering any of the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools, be advised that there will be a boundary study soon, which may redraw the middle and high school boundaries. Elementary boundaries are not included. The NEC does not have any imminent boundary studies.

Yes, I'd be especially aware of property close to Woodward or any of the adjacent schools like Wheaton, WJ, Einstein and BCC.

Anonymous wrote:Moving to Montgomery County from Southern Maryland. My daughter is a rising kindergarten and I’m interested in a school cluster that has a significant amount of African American students, but also ones that do extremely well and are well supported. I prefer the Silver Spring area since that’s where my job is, but I’m open to other parts of the county.

Unfortunately MCPS does not do a great job of making sure any students that do extremely well are well supported. They spend a huge amount of resources towards kids who are underperforming and expect the high performers to just sort of keep it moving. I think you’d do well in the BCC cluster where there are definitely UMC high achieving AA students/peers and there’s a critical mass of high performing students that courses like compacted math, etc. are absolutely offered vs. clusters where those enriched courses are cut because 95 percent of the class needs remediation and they need to allocate the teachers to do so.

Avoid Wootton. AA with buyers remorse here. My kid is the only Black one in the class. 😩

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

While that is true, I want to move to cluster that she can go to from K-12. I want this to be a one time move.

I understand. If you're considering any of the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools, be advised that there will be a boundary study soon, which may redraw the middle and high school boundaries. Elementary boundaries are not included. The NEC does not have any imminent boundary studies.

Thank you, that’s very helpful!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

While that is true, I want to move to cluster that she can go to from K-12. I want this to be a one time move.

I understand. If you're considering any of the Downcounty Consortium (DCC) schools, be advised that there will be a boundary study soon, which may redraw the middle and high school boundaries. Elementary boundaries are not included. The NEC does not have any imminent boundary studies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how you define well. There are A LOT of safety/security and cultural issues with the high schools in Silver Spring.

If I had to rank best to worst for black students, I'd say in the DCC:
- Blair
- Wheaton
- Einstein
- Northwood
- Kennedy

NEC:
- Blake
- Springbrook
- Paint Branch

Paint Branch is the most majority black high school population in MCPS but the academic outcomes and behavioral issues are OFF THE CHARTS. MCPS has a lot of work to do to improve the learning experience for black students. They've failed black kids pretty significantly.

Dog whistle alert.

No. I'm referring to the school climate/culture, which is the terminology MCPS uses to gauge the health and wellbeing of its schools. Go and look at the latest climate/culture surveys for the schools I listed. There are lots of problems.

OP-School climate surveys
https://sharedaccountability.mcpsmd.org/SurveyResults/content.php

A lot of the indicators are actually pretty positive for Paint Branch, just like the other schools but the safety question for students does not look great. 59% of students said they felt safe while at most other schools it's more in the 80s to over 90%.

Kennedy and Watkins Mill (Gaithersburg area, not where OP is looking) are also low at 62%.

Just to be clear, the PP said that all Silver Spring schools have bad "cultures" but the numbers for Blair and Einstein along that exact same metric are pretty good 84 percent for Blair and 83 percent for Einstein.

For the question "At my school, students treat people from different races, ethnicities, or cultures fairly" you have 89 percent for Blair and 88 percent for Einstein.

This actually sounds like a pretty good "culture" to me.

I ranked Blair and Einstein as being among the best options in Silver Spring.

When you factor in ALL of the schools in Silver Spring, which include those in the DCC and NEC, pretty much only Blair, Einstein and Wheaton have acceptable climate and culture measures from staff and student.

You mean all the high schools? There are lots of elementary schools with positive ratings from staff and students. At the middle school level most have appallingly bad survey scores, Argyle and Sligo are average, Parkland is a bit better than average, Takoma Park is very good.

OP, you can find MCPS survey results here: https://sharedaccountability.mcpsmd.org/SurveyResults/content.php?sch=798

The MD school report cards also include survey scores from staff and students: https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

Yes, but OP's post title asks specifically about high schools so....

I meant to put high school cluster. That’s what I get for multitasking.

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out for those who may not have noticed: OP's child is a rising kindergartener.

While that is true, I want to move to cluster that she can go to from K-12. I want this to be a one time move.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how you define well. There are A LOT of safety/security and cultural issues with the high schools in Silver Spring.

If I had to rank best to worst for black students, I'd say in the DCC:
- Blair
- Wheaton
- Einstein
- Northwood
- Kennedy

NEC:
- Blake
- Springbrook
- Paint Branch

Paint Branch is the most majority black high school population in MCPS but the academic outcomes and behavioral issues are OFF THE CHARTS. MCPS has a lot of work to do to improve the learning experience for black students. They've failed black kids pretty significantly.

Dog whistle alert.

No. I'm referring to the school climate/culture, which is the terminology MCPS uses to gauge the health and wellbeing of its schools. Go and look at the latest climate/culture surveys for the schools I listed. There are lots of problems.

OP-School climate surveys
https://sharedaccountability.mcpsmd.org/SurveyResults/content.php

A lot of the indicators are actually pretty positive for Paint Branch, just like the other schools but the safety question for students does not look great. 59% of students said they felt safe while at most other schools it's more in the 80s to over 90%.

Kennedy and Watkins Mill (Gaithersburg area, not where OP is looking) are also low at 62%.

Just to be clear, the PP said that all Silver Spring schools have bad "cultures" but the numbers for Blair and Einstein along that exact same metric are pretty good 84 percent for Blair and 83 percent for Einstein.

For the question "At my school, students treat people from different races, ethnicities, or cultures fairly" you have 89 percent for Blair and 88 percent for Einstein.

This actually sounds like a pretty good "culture" to me.

I ranked Blair and Einstein as being among the best options in Silver Spring.

When you factor in ALL of the schools in Silver Spring, which include those in the DCC and NEC, pretty much only Blair, Einstein and Wheaton have acceptable climate and culture measures from staff and student.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how you define well. There are A LOT of safety/security and cultural issues with the high schools in Silver Spring.

If I had to rank best to worst for black students, I'd say in the DCC:
- Blair
- Wheaton
- Einstein
- Northwood
- Kennedy

NEC:
- Blake
- Springbrook
- Paint Branch

Paint Branch is the most majority black high school population in MCPS but the academic outcomes and behavioral issues are OFF THE CHARTS. MCPS has a lot of work to do to improve the learning experience for black students. They've failed black kids pretty significantly.

Dog whistle alert.

No. I'm referring to the school climate/culture, which is the terminology MCPS uses to gauge the health and wellbeing of its schools. Go and look at the latest climate/culture surveys for the schools I listed. There are lots of problems.

OP-School climate surveys
https://sharedaccountability.mcpsmd.org/SurveyResults/content.php

A lot of the indicators are actually pretty positive for Paint Branch, just like the other schools but the safety question for students does not look great. 59% of students said they felt safe while at most other schools it's more in the 80s to over 90%.

Kennedy and Watkins Mill (Gaithersburg area, not where OP is looking) are also low at 62%.

Just to be clear, the PP said that all Silver Spring schools have bad "cultures" but the numbers for Blair and Einstein along that exact same metric are pretty good 84 percent for Blair and 83 percent for Einstein.

For the question "At my school, students treat people from different races, ethnicities, or cultures fairly" you have 89 percent for Blair and 88 percent for Einstein.

This actually sounds like a pretty good "culture" to me.

60% of black students at Wheaton HS give the school an A or B. 27.9 percent of black students at Paint Branch HS give the school an A or B.

But yes, there are no problems at Paint Branch High School and anyone who says as much is racist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how you define well. There are A LOT of safety/security and cultural issues with the high schools in Silver Spring.

If I had to rank best to worst for black students, I'd say in the DCC:
- Blair
- Wheaton
- Einstein
- Northwood
- Kennedy

NEC:
- Blake
- Springbrook
- Paint Branch

Paint Branch is the most majority black high school population in MCPS but the academic outcomes and behavioral issues are OFF THE CHARTS. MCPS has a lot of work to do to improve the learning experience for black students. They've failed black kids pretty significantly.

Dog whistle alert.

No. I'm referring to the school climate/culture, which is the terminology MCPS uses to gauge the health and wellbeing of its schools. Go and look at the latest climate/culture surveys for the schools I listed. There are lots of problems.

OP-School climate surveys
https://sharedaccountability.mcpsmd.org/SurveyResults/content.php

A lot of the indicators are actually pretty positive for Paint Branch, just like the other schools but the safety question for students does not look great. 59% of students said they felt safe while at most other schools it's more in the 80s to over 90%.

Kennedy and Watkins Mill (Gaithersburg area, not where OP is looking) are also low at 62%.

In the staff survey, 38.7 percent gave MCPS a C and 32.1 percent gave MCPS a D and 17.9 percent gave MCPS an F. That means 88.7% of staff at PBHS gave MCPS an C or less.

For the school specifically, 75% of staff gave PBHS specifically a C or less.

On the student side, 58% gave MCPS a C or less. And 70.8% gave PBHS a C or less.

Those grades from staff and students don't indicate that the school or the system are doing very well.

Blair cluster