Montgomery County - Maryland vs Virginia Public Schools Series
Two school districts that often go head to head in the DC Suburbs are Montgomery County in Maryland and Fairfax County in Virginia. There are decades of history where these districts were home to some of the top high schools in the country. Covid changed that for many schools and locally - we were not unaffected. Let’s see where these two highly regarded school districts currently fare in the education department. This is going to be a deeper dive into what Montgomery County Schools offer - both the good and not so good.
Montgomery County School System
There are a lot of educational choices in Montgomery County. When I went to school we matriculated through the in-boundary elementary, middle and high school. Other than a few elective choices, there weren’t other schools you could choose from, nor was there a way to tailor your education to a specific career path. Sure, a few guys took auto-body shop class, but there were no pathways paved toward college.
This is not the case in Montgomery County Maryland.
Montgomery County’s 211 schools offer both local “by-right” schools as well as regional and countywide programs. There are language immersion programs for French, Spanish and Chinese. There are Centers for Enriched Studies which is like Talented and Gifted for 4th and 5th grade. There are magnet middle schools which offer digital design, performing arts and aerospace technology. At the high school level, the choices blow wide open.
In 8th grade, students can apply to one of the many programs available at county high schools. Some of these programs are criteria-based and selective, and some are administered by a lottery. Some programs are open to the whole county, some are just the geographic region around the high school. Applications open in early October with a deadline in early November.
The first step is to go to the website where you can see the program offerings. www2.montgomer...
We will start with likely the most well-known of the programs, the IB or International Baccalaureate Program. The IB program at Richard Montgomery HS is a countywide, criteria- based (magnet) program. There are IB programs at Kennedy, Springbrook and Watkins Mill High Schools which are regional, criteria-based (magnet) programs. IB programs are also offered at Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Einstein, Seneca Valley and Rockville High Schools.
Rockville High School offers IB / International Baccalaureate career related programs in engineering, biomedical, computer science, hospitality management and child development. This is open to students in about a dozen surrounding high schools.
Blair and Poolesville High Schools are Science, Math and Computer Science Magnet schools.
Clarksburg High School has an I.T. / Tech program where students can earn certifications and college credit. This is open to several surrounding schools near Clarksburg.
Wheaton High School also offers engineering and biomedical programs open to those in the Down County Consortium* as well as college and career programs in construction, healthcare, hospitality and I.T. open to a group of southern Montgomery County High Schools. The same programs are also available at Seneca Valley for the northern part of Montgomery County.
The Down County Consortium comprises 5 high schools (Blair, Einstein, Kennedy, Northwood and Wheaton) which offer different academic focuses. Students in these high school pyramids, meaning, the feeder schools that go to these high schools, participate in a lottery called the High School Choice Process. You’re always guaranteed a spot in your base / in-boundary school, but you have a preference to attend one of the other schools based on where an older sibling is attending, socioeconomic status, school capacity, etc.
Kennedy High School has the Leadership Training Institute open for those in the DCC. Einstein High School has a Visual Arts Program. Blair, as mentioned earlier, is a Science, Math and Computer Science Magnet School.
The DCC or Down County Consortium was created in the Silver Spring area of the county which is highly dense with fluid boundaries that, in the future, may be continually readjusted.
The graduation rate for Montgomery County Maryland’s Public Schools is almost 92%.
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- Melissa Terzis | DC Real Estate Mama