Basic Info
Herbert Hoover MS is located at 8810 Postoak Rd, Potomac, MD 20854. The principal is Dr. Yong-Mi Kim.
Rating
Please rate your experience at this school with respect to the following aspects on a scale from 0 to 10.- Inclusiveness: Does the school have a culture of inclusion and inclusive practices in place (e.g., co-teaching)? Are these practices effectively and systematically implemented?
- Staffing and resources: Does the school have staff and resources to accommodate a wide range of special needs?
- Cooperation: Does the school staff exhibit a cooperative approach by accepting/requesting the parents' input, listening to concerns, and attempting to resolve disagreements?
- Communication: Does the school implement progress monitoring plans? Does the staff regularly communicate with parents with respect to their child's progress and challenges? Is the staff responsive when contacted?
- Academic expectations: Does the staff systematically set high expectations for students with special needs? Does the staff systematically raise expectations when IEP goals are met ahead of time?
Herbert Hoover MS
Imagine people working with your child who don’t ever read the IEP and data on your child. For an autistic child, there are probably triggers that can lead to a melt down. If the IEP is read, these triggers can be minimized and your child is supported. However, if you have staff that doesn’t take the time to read the IEP or understand your child – both the child and the teacher keep hitting a brick wall that leads to meltdowns, punishments, and your child cannot learn. It defeats the purpose and the time of developing an IEP. The teacher is frustrated, the other kids in the program may be effected, and above all the child with a disability is not served and faces stigmatizing punishment from a school that doesn’t understand his/her needs.
The treatment from the staff is just the tip of the iceberg. Other students pick up on the classroom comments and teacher frustrations and the Special Needs children are alienated from the general education population.
This is Hoover Middle School.
The Bridge program is overly harsh and punitive. They use a one size fits all behavioral level system that is not effective with most kids. Many parents pull their kids out and homeschool in desperation after their kids deteriorate. There is no real social skills training.
The School Administration and the people in Special Education are either poorly trained, or incompetent, or just flat out don’t care about Special Needs kids. If you have a choice, go somewhere else. Kids are subjected to mistreatment by staff and kids at school. Some of the worst years in public education for my child.
My child reported that the her aid at Hoover gave her the answers so she could pass. Passing report card grades mean nothing and I questioned why standardized testing didn’t show ample progress. When questioned at IEP meetings, staff said they didn’t know what the significance of the low scores was even though they showed my child was failing to make progress.
Inclusiveness
9
Staffing and resources
9.3
Cooperation
9.5
Communication
9
Academic expectations
9.5
We have been nothing but impressed with the Bridge program. We evaluated several private and other MCPS public options and have found the team there to be extremely collaborative and willing to work closely with you to meet the needs of your child, including making changes to academic courses mid year and adjusting supports. We are in a mix of mainstream and self-contained classrooms with rigorous curriculum and our child is performing at the highest levels this year.
When we looked at Hoover bridge 5 years ago, we did not like it for our child. It was unruly and chaotic. They had their own corridor of the school that they rarely left. That was just one morning of one day, so take that FWIW.
I toured the program too and thought the exact same thing: unruly and chaotic!! And yes, I didn’t
like the corridor that was closed off from everything else.