Brewer school for 4th grader- Need info (Bangor, Hampden: rentals, house)

[mel1211]

So I think we found a house in Brewer (I will be working in Bangor) however the school that serves 4th graders in Brewer did not get very good test results or reviews on greatschools.org etc. Do they offer advance classes for those in gifted, is the school itself really good or would you say we should take the home we like 2nd best in Bangor and have her go to Mary Snow? Anyone send their kids here and have any insight. Also, have the old schools all been replaced with Brewer community school? Thank you so much for your insight!

[mel1211]

Does anyone know anything about this school....anything...

[Maine Writer]

You might get more replies if you post this in the general forum rather than Bangor area.

[mel1211]

Isn't Brewer about 6 minutes away from Bangor? I thought perhaps people might have relatives friends and the like that have attended the brewer schools.

[Zymer]

It's right across the river, actually. I don't have kids, so I couldn't say anything about the differences between schools. (But if I *did* have kids, I'd probably home school them.)

[puntin]

Well this is nothing other than my opinion from growing up in the area, but when we moved back to the Bangor area I didn't want my daughter attending Brewer schools. I just felt that they fell short. We moved to Bangor. The best schools in the area are in Hampden though. Again, JMO.

[atrixwolfe]

Doesn't sound like your getting good response on Brewer. You just got a suggestion of hampden and I can say that my cousin's 3 children seemed to get an excellent education in the old town schools. Surely there are rentals in old town. I know there are plenty for the students, there are usually some people there who prefer not to rent to the students and prefer families....at least that's what my daughter found when looking for off campus housing.

[cebdark]

I am extremely cautious about 'test scores' being the first measurement in which to judge a school district. This is for varying reasons, but mainly because a lot of the time (IMHO) it doesn't give a good picture at all.

For example, in areas that are depressed economically, there are going to be those parents who simply cannot afford to tutor their children and that does make a difference if they are unable to tutor them themselves. In many schools, the curriculum varies so vastly from what they had that the parent is left scratching their head at homework time. If a parent works long hours or more than one job, it's often difficult to relearn how their kids are doing their math for one example (totally different now from what many parents learned).

Also, all a kid has to do is lose a few hours of sleep the night before the big test (yeah, no pressure there with the big "preparathons" schools now have to hold in order to secure funding thanks to the 'score,' but I digress) and they can fail miserably.


I went to Brewer High many moons ago, and I felt I got a decent education from them, but that was then and this is now, so I can only give you a link and ask that you to peruse it and see for yourself. I do have friends with children in the district and each one of them feel that the elementary grades are generally good and that their children have done well there. These are parents who are as involved in their school as much as they can be given that 2 of them are single working mothers and one is a single working mother who has gone back to college.

Good luck in your research and maybe a good idea would be to give the school a call and ask questions.

Brewer School Department

My understanding is that they now have one school vs. smaller community schools. This is becoming the way of the state with K-8 education being housed in the same building for budget purposes (and in some cases educational 'philosophy' if you will). Personally, I think the smaller the better, but in difficult financial times, I can see the practicality in building one large school vs. funding many smaller ones.