What Makes a School in PG County Bad?

[ddaye1]

Where are they???? I live in Fort Washington, Maryland and we have had to send our eight year old to private school in Howard County some 35 mile drive each way. I have visited a number of elementary schools in my school district and have also checked those schools stats and was horrified at the scores. My son just turned eight and will be in the fourth grade this upcoming school year. Choices seem to be non existent. Can anyone suggest a good elementary school in PG county with test scores to prove it.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by ddaye1

Where are they???? I live in Fort Washington, Maryland and we have had to send our eight year old to private school in Howard County some 35 mile drive each way.

Just......wow.

[scrapper105]

If you're relying on test scores to determine a good school, then we need to start at the very beginning. Please read some of my previous posts on how to determine a good school and if you're interested in chatting further, I'd be happy to start a separate thread.

In brief, everyone values different things in school choice and quality of life. For me, I would never have an 8 year old in a car for a 70 mile round trip ride every day. I'd make other choices, but that's me.

I'd be happy to chat about this sincerely, but please do read my other posts first so you know where I'm coming from. If we value completely different things, then it probably wouldn't be helpful to you to chat with me.

[Seb's Mom]

My son is a student in need of special education in PG County. His boundray school has been ill-equipped (and IMO unwilling) to meet his needs so he has spent the last two years becoming increasingly anxious and frustrated with adults who don't understand him. His IEP states his needs and goals, the meetings are hopeful because they seem to care, but then nothing is put into action and his goals are ignored. There is a severe lack of training amongst the staff on how to deal with classroom inclusion, and even worse, my son was afraid of the special ed chairperson that he was supposed to work with one-on-one with daily.

The classes are too big, the teachers need more support, and each time the staff is cut, it is teachers who are left to pick up the duties like lunchroom aides, playground aides, bus greeters, dismissal aides, and now media specialists. I grew up in private school, and most of these aforementioned duties were picked up by parent volunteers. That was also at a time when it was much less common to have single working moms or just working moms in general. Now you have to be fingerprinted (and pay for it!) to help out at your child's school.

Because my perspective is from a parent of a child with special needs, my experience may be very different from yours. I do believe that many other parents in my shoes see the same thing-a lack of training, a very poor teacher-to-child ratio in the classroom, and promises with no delivery ,that is, if you can even get to the promises part.

Every public school in Maryland has budgetary issues and large class sizes. Please correct me if I am wrong. However, when it comes to meeting the needs of children with disabilities (and the range of disabilities is vast) PG and Baltimore City simply snub their noses at the law. This is a fact. Take a look at the complaints filed against schools in Maryland for the past 4 years: Complaint Investigation & Due Process Branch Every quarter PG and BC have multiple complaints filed, sometimes in the double digits, while most districts have NONE. These are issues that parents have worked with the teachers, then principals, and then county public schools office and have received blatant disregard for special education law.

Now tell me the problem is that the parents just don't care. It takes a great deal of effort and heartache to go through a process that in theory should only be needed under extremely rare circumstances.

I also wanted to add that our boundary school has ZERO after school activities. The only extra-curricular offering at the school is "MSA Study Group." Don't get me started...