All schools have falling enrollment. I've had children get into 2 of the "top" schools off cycle, non entry years and not bc we were just moving to area.
I have/ had a kid at both friends and park as well as the more "rigorous" schools (I clearly have too many kids!)
My sense fwiw - friends ls does great job of bringing "weaker" students along; park is better handling different skill levels. Neither of these lower schools is particularly rigorous as compared to say Gilman or bryn mawr or Calvert. But they all pick up in middle school and all have strong upper schools.
Also we've found the single sex schools to be much more diverse than friends or park.

Please explain the falling enrollment at Park? That's scary. I guess it has changed, or fallen out of favor compared to other schools in Baltimore.

I used to live in Baltimore when I was in my 20s. I was a teacher in the city schools. (CHALLENGING!!)

Friends who grew up there said where you go is kind of like talking about where you went to college, and a way to connect with people. (This person was NOT a snob. I was asking because I taught and did NOT grow up there...).

This woman went to Friends and had a great experience. I forget where she went to college, but she felt like she had a true Quaker experience. Non-violent stuff was a big deal for her and she studies lots of social justice issues.

I had another friend who went to Park. Also a great woman and she was really good at formulating ideas and expressing them.

I don't think you can go wrong at either place. I prefer the geographic location of Friends.

Good luck with your move!

Right now Friends has a much better reputation at the lower school. Over the last six years Park enrollment has dropped by an average of 5% per year. Kind of in a death spiral.

Friends used Singappore math for highest math class in 1st grade this past year. No idea what other math classes used.
Reading and math are divided into 4 different ability groups starting in 1st. Groups are fluid (kids did move up and down during the year).

Friends is homogeneous starting in 1st grade -4 groups.
It's a nice school.

We are at a single sex school and I do not know of any that have numbers like the one you are speaking about but I'm very interested in the school. Our school is small but doesn't even achieve the bmore profile of 2 AAs 1-2 Asians in the class. I wish it did or had a similar profile to the one you mentioned. Friends seemed to have more diversity in the LS of all the privates that we saw. I can think of 1 girls school that might achieve those numbers in LS but none of the boys or co-ed schools achieve those numbers.

We I toured Friends and spoke to parents that I know they were doing Singapore Math 2-5. I believe that this is a recent change just like they added Language offering pre-k - 5. They also indicated that they were going to be doing Singapore in 1st grade next year.

I was surprised that Friends used heterogenous classroom in the early grades but stopped after 3. I must admit that we were impressed with most of the schools in the bmore area.

We moved to a more rigorous single sex school. Friends does use singapore math and talk a good game about differentiation but are not at all interested in challenging the kids who are easily able to do the work, at least not in the lower school. I have no doubt this changes in middle school, but for various reasons we didn't want to wait.

Re diversity, my DC's class of 15 had 5 AA, one Asian, 1 with GLB parents. That's pretty good for a B'more private lower school.

Anonymous wrote:They have may 2 or 3 at the most AA per class, 1 Asian - 2 at the most.

That's Friends School!

Anonymous wrote:*sigh* I went to Sidwell in the early 80's--it was then what your Park school sounds like now. How times have changed at Sidwell. Now it is just NCS/StA without uniforms...very sad. Would not send my kids there.

If you want to bitch about Sidwell again, please start your own thread instead of littering this one. Thanks.