Anonymous wrote:Choose west of 270. Silver Spring is nearly a third world country these days. In twenty years it will look like downtown Mexico City or Lagos.

Zip codes that identify "Silver Spring" go nearly 20 miles north and east of what used to be traditional Silver Spring.

At your age with such a young family you should be thinking as far west and north as you can go in Montgomery County.

Yeah, live in the exurbs and spend all your time commuting

What i think is interesting is that there are posters who say they WOULDN'T send their kids to a SS school but none that say they did and regret it.

On the flip side, there are plenty of posters who say their kids attend SS schools and they like them a lot.

Sherwood may be marginally better than Blair, but for twice the commute it isn't worth it to us. If we had horses or worked from home maybe.

People here are very happy with elem options and Blair. I can't speak to the other DCC schools.

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Anonymous wrote:If public school is important, then scratch SS off your list period. And I am born and raised from SS. It's a shit hole. Don't listen to all of the hippy posters on here who talk about how diverse or international or wonderful or la la la it is. It's not. Move farther west in Montgomery County if a decent school is important to you.

FYI, for "decent" read "white" or "affluent," because that's what this poster means. This is actually one of her less offensive posts.

Not true. Don't talk about what you don't know about. I am from SS. Enough said. And btw, DD's school isn't even 1/2 white. But it's got excellent scores - 90th percentiles, 9/10 greatschools etc. Why is everything about race to you? Oh I know, probably because you aren't from a very diverse area originally so it's fascinating to bring up race all the time even though it's very tacky.

Let me guess. You're in Olney/Brookeville, right?

not the other PP - But I taught in the DCC and NEC. While I am still teaching in a highly impacted school, we moved to the Sherwood cluster for the schools. As an insider, it's not a hard decision to make.

Exactly.

And as another PP said, schools may be great on the ES level in SS, but above that it goes downhill. Between the NEC and DCC, I would only send my kid to Blair IF they were in the magnet program. Blake may be the strongest school in the NEC, but it is not great compared to other schools in the county.

And with school choice in SS, everyone is bidding for Blake and Blair, so your chances of getting in, if either of those schools aren't your home school (and even if they are, really) are slim.
That said, i would pick SS over northern MoCo any day...Any. Day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If public school is important, then scratch SS off your list period. And I am born and raised from SS. It's a shit hole. Don't listen to all of the hippy posters on here who talk about how diverse or international or wonderful or la la la it is. It's not. Move farther west in Montgomery County if a decent school is important to you.

FYI, for "decent" read "white" or "affluent," because that's what this poster means. This is actually one of her less offensive posts.

Not true. Don't talk about what you don't know about. I am from SS. Enough said. And btw, DD's school isn't even 1/2 white. But it's got excellent scores - 90th percentiles, 9/10 greatschools etc. Why is everything about race to you? Oh I know, probably because you aren't from a very diverse area originally so it's fascinating to bring up race all the time even though it's very tacky.

Let me guess. You're in Olney/Brookeville, right?

not the other PP - But I taught in the DCC and NEC. While I am still teaching in a highly impacted school, we moved to the Sherwood cluster for the schools. As an insider, it's not a hard decision to make.

We made the mistake of starting our DC-area journey west of Rock Creek Park. I hated every second of it and now we are happy as clams in SS.

Anonymous wrote:We love Flora Singer. It's brand new and has a dynamic staff and energetic, positive community. It's very diverse so I think you'd like it. It's close to 495 and the Forest Glen Metro. The homes are charming. Some are small. But great vibe!!

Another million votes for Flora Singer and its community!!!

OP,
Sorry your thread seeking help was hijacked by crazies.

Sure you want to move here?

Anonymous wrote:The anti silver spring bitch is back! She posts on every thread. Must be lonely having moved to the boonies while watching her old hood thrive.

Seriously though, MS in general is the weak point for every school system. The ES are almost all very strong, and two of the high schools in silver spring are very strong. The others aren't as highly regarded as the top schools but are still on par with most of the outer burb schools, and at the very least are better than 95% of the schools in the country.

People make that statement a lot on here. I do not think it is accurate. Good? Yes. Better than 95% of the schools in the country? I don't think so.

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Anonymous wrote:

I'm guessing that Montgomery County schools with 9/10 on great schools, and a minority of white students, have a large proportion of Asian students. Asians -- they're not white, but they're not non-white either...

I hate to engage, but my non-white, non-Asian kids attend Viers Mill ES, which has a 9/10 rating (like I care). It's 15% white, 9% Asian, so... guess again.

+1

Well, it's a 7/10 now. Still pretty impressive for a school at 70%+ FARMs.

One thing to consider when researching schools in SS: many are Title I or have a large low-income and non-English speaking population. This May or may not bother you. There was a recent post in this forum regarding Bel Pre Elementary (also in SS) where a few posters (including me) outlined how these schools can sometimes be isolating when it comes to social aspects (play dates, team sports, birthday parties, etc). You might want to check out that thread.

To 17:26 - There are a bunch of folks who left SS for Olney (and other burbs), so I think it's safe to assume that there are more than one posters on this 5000+ DCUM world who post about why they left SS.

We love Flora Singer. It's brand new and has a dynamic staff and energetic, positive community. It's very diverse so I think you'd like it. It's close to 495 and the Forest Glen Metro. The homes are charming. Some are small. But great vibe!!

Anonymous wrote:

I'm guessing that Montgomery County schools with 9/10 on great schools, and a minority of white students, have a large proportion of Asian students. Asians -- they're not white, but they're not non-white either...

I hate to engage, but my non-white, non-Asian kids attend Viers Mill ES, which has a 9/10 rating (like I care). It's 15% white, 9% Asian, so... guess again.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

I'm guessing that Montgomery County schools with 9/10 on great schools, and a minority of white students, have a large proportion of Asian students. Asians -- they're not white, but they're not non-white either...

I hate to engage, but my non-white, non-Asian kids attend Viers Mill ES, which has a 9/10 rating (like I care). It's 15% white, 9% Asian, so... guess again.

As I recall, Viers Mill ES is unusual in this regard.

But anyway, to clarify -- I certainly don't believe that having a high proportion of non-white, non-Asian kids means that the school is a bad school! Just that that's how it tends to come out on the Great Schools rating. And also, unfortunately, on DCUM. Which is another reason to ignore both.