One of the best public schools in the country! Proud to have sent my daughter here. Amazing…read moreacademics, culture, diversity, and sports!

An amazing schoool that produces some of the Washington DC areas finest students, proud to have…read moresent my kids here !

I went to Whitman and had mixed opinions. I enjoyed the activities and classes I chose, but the…read morepeople really brought it down a notch. It's definitely very challenging academically. It either pushes students to excel or burns them out and causes them to give up. It just depends on each students ability to handle stress. Even so, the school has a class, activity, friend group, caring teacher for everyone.

I went to this school at the end of the Seventies and graduated in 1980. I made many friends. I…read morewould say it was better than other schools nearby at the time I went there for academics but also because of the unique landscape and architecture that was destroyed in a teardown and rebuild project which came ten years after I graduated. We had a domed arena that was in the style of Finnish architect Ero Saarinen and was great to play sports in. The principal was pretty good: Dr. Jerome Marco-he served a long time and had the current Football field named after him. He didn't like underage drinking so he got rid of the Rugby team which was a club sport-not varsity. That team became the Maryland Exiles thanks to Dan Soso who kept it going. I did academics with great teachers like Bari Bergman for English, Speech and Drama but sports was really what I was into at the time. We had arguably the best football team in the history of the school. I played each season. We were not undefeated in the regular season but 9-1 then lost the state AA Championship-our QB got injured in the semifinal. The 2003 team went 10-0 but lost their first playoff game that makes us better in my opinion. Our coach, Rich Cameron was good. He had us in the wishbone offense that just could not be stopped. Our rugby team won tournaments-the coach was John Haberman. I also wrestled. That was more fun than anything. Many of the students have gone on to great careers and spread out across the country nowadays. We had great colors and a great mascot but I do not agree with the gender equity changes made to our mascot. Our Colors were Black, White and Columbia Blue. We were the Vikings and we had a great Viking but nowadays any depiction of our Viking must be accompanied by a Lady Viking. I went to our reunion and saw Lady Viking drawings which we did not have. If you want to have Lady Viking Drawings in 2013 O.K. but we did not have them in 1980 so don't go back and try to re-write history. Cafeteria food was good. We even had a salad bar which I used in wrestling season. We always had a weight room open after school. Other notable teachers were Mr. Cleary-English and Yearbook, Jack Freeman-JV Football and Al Patini-Driver's Education, Mr. Peters and Mr. Debone-gym, Hugh Hammet-Tennis Coach, Ms. Linda Niedbalski and Melanie Sorg-Biology, Mrs. Trebor-Home Economics, Ms. Guiterrez-English, Ms. Cummings-English. Some great teachers have names I forgot-sorry. This was a high school you would want to go to. 4 stars.

I recommend this school to everyone that is looking for a serious and true Montessori program. In…read moreMD any school that claims to be Montessori has to be approved by the state and has to have at least one Montessori-trained teacher. However, I have heard parents complain sending kids to Montessori is a waste of money because it's just a name to sell the school. So, not all state-approved Montessori programs have good quality of education. So being aware not all schools are the same, I toured 3 Montessori schools: Lone Oak, Manor and the Woods Academy. I found the Lone Oak Montessori on AMI website and Woods academy on AMS website. Manor was recommended by other parents and it seems to be a popular choice when it comes to Montessori preschools in Bethesda area. I took my 3-year-old son with me to all the tours and he loved the Woods the best because we were allowed to walk into the classroom and had very brief interactions with the students and teachers, to observe and also play some toys in the classroom while parents were talking to the director, Mrs. Gerber- who is very knowledgeable and experienced about Montessori programs and part of the reason we chose Montessori is because of her expertise and experience. After the tour, my son wanted to go back the next day because the classroom was just so fun and interesting for little kids. My son is happy every day and cannot wait to tell me what he learned in school. The teachers encourage independence, good manners, trying new things/food, healthy snacks, and creativity. They are caring and loving but also very firm when giving instructions. My son learns new things/facts each day and not just merely playing with expensive toys. For instance, he came home one day start singing "The family of the Sun," and talked about all the facts he learned about planets and I was amazed. And three weeks later, he started to learn the sounds of alphabets and try to read! The teacher told me she would advance any student if s/he is ready so there is no need to wait till 4 or 5 to learn how to read. The other pluses but not major factors are- 1) facility, it's a school so it has it's own gym, music/art classrooms, library, and playground. It's very spacious, clean and well-maintained. 2) it has PE, music and art classes once a week for 30 minutes. The school has a very strong art program. 3) faculty and staff are very friendly and they know student by names. I felt that students are given a lot of attention because of its small classroom size. The only downside is the tuition. It is about $2K more than other schools I checked/toured. We've been happy with our choice and would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good preschool in Bethesda. If you want more information about the Montessori program, check out the blog: http://woodsmontessori.blogspot.com/

This is a very good private school in the Potomac and Bethesda area. I went here for Montessori…read morethrough 8th grade and loved my experience here. There were incredible resources and the teachers were awesome! I definitely recommend looking here for your child.

The teachers here are great - and they are the reason why the school is as good as it is. But…read moreeverything starts at the top and the Head of School not only has no background in education or business but is not held accountable by the Board for all her massive, messy errors. She hires like minded people that are just nasty. Turnover in the administration is shockingly high; and sadly it's the good people that leave. Something like 7 people quit this year? And it's a small team. If management could be replaced with someone who enjoys the job, and parents and children, this school would be top in area.

As an English-speaking parent of a child that has been at Rochambeau since she was three years old,…read moreI am extremely happy with how my child has grown over the years with her knowledge of French, English, and now Spanish. She is also someone who, given the extremely diverse community at Rochambeau (now, I believe over 80 nationalities represented!) is comfortable and informed about the world! No school is perfect--I know of highly rated private schools in the DC area where students struggled with math and parents were paying upwards of $45k a year! Communication is a struggle at times with the administration--but they have listened from American parents and have grown tremendously, for instance now making sure all parent/family programs are in English and French. Rochambeau is an amazing global education with incredibly dedicated teachers at a reasonable price point. I highly recommend it to parents looking for a school that invests in the children and an international education!

Parents beware! The bullying at this school is unbelievable…read more I have a bright, but shy and artistic daughter. From the start, she had a hard time fitting in as the majority of the student body seems to be comprised of typical vanilla teenage girls with hard opinions about what's acceptable and few hobbies outside of sports, mainstream fashion and dating. Two girls targeted her, picked on her daily and nearly drove my daughter to suicide. Teachers ignored the problem even when these problem students physically and verbally assaulted my daughter in front of her classmates. Some even went so far as to blame my daughter for the disruptions the bullies were causing while hurting her. The bullies were never punished due to the donor status of their wealthy parents and it was an easy decision to transfer my daughter out of that vipers nest. A sisterhood Stone Ridge is not. It's a place where only the rich and privileged thrive, protected from consequences by the administration. I've safely transferred my daughter to a better school where she's finally happy, but parents be warned. This school tolerates and encourages bullying.

Overall, a truly excellent educational institution. I attended all four years of high school, and…read morecan confirm that the upper school has rigorous and intellectually stimulating academics, competitive arts and athletics programs, and well-educated teachers who are largely engaged with the students and who clearly care about what they teach. The school is rich with opportunities for volunteering and community engagement, and even short programs abroad. I formed close relationships with teachers there, and am still in contact with some of them. I absolutely would not have the skills I have today without Stone Ridge, and I wouldn't trade my education there for anything. I do, however, have a couple of reservations that keep me from giving the school five stars; the downside of the educational rigor is that the place can be a real pressure cooker, and I knew lots of students who suffered from mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and eating disorders during my time there. It is worth noting that I came of age during the Covid-19 pandemic and during a time with unprecedented access to the rest of the world through social media, which undoubtedly affected these numbers; but the observation is perhaps still worth taking into account if your student is especially susceptible to mental illness. While I was there, the upper school was staffed with two well-qualified and empathetic counselors, but it seemed to me that (through no fault of their own) they were floundering, doing damage control rather than prevention in an environment that placed enormous weight on academic and extracurricular achievement. Socially, SR was a toss-up; in my experience, most students eventually found tight-knit, supportive groups of friends, but this could be more difficult if you were one of the kids who "stuck out" more than the others. For all its attention to ensuring diversity and inclusion (and to its credit, it is clear that the school has and continues to make an effort to grow in this area), Stone Ridge is still a PWI, and the social scene favors extraverted young women with shared tastes in fashion and extracurriculars, whose families are often (though not always) upper-class. This isn't to suggest that these girls deliberately ostracize their peers-- in fact, I found that most of them were quite kind-- but that, maybe unsurprisingly, sticking to conventional social scripts tends to lend itself to popularity more easily than difference. The admin also skews more conservative than much of the student body and faculty, which can lead to some grumbling when one wonders if the school is prioritizing the feelings of a handful of parents and donors more than the teachers' and students'. However, I believe that the school has made huge strides over the past few years, and I hope the progress will continue. Having said all this, my experience there was (to apply a perhaps overused term) life-changing, and I look back on much of my time there (Covid excepted) quite fondly. I remember the Five Goals of Sacred Heart education, and I keep my class ring carefully cushioned in its little box. As a Stone Ridge girl, I was challenged academically and morally, and I genuinely feel that in many ways the school taught me to think for myself. Stone Ridge is not perfect, but I have yet to encounter its equal. Go gators!

Absolutely horrible experience. Waste of money. For this…read morehuge amount of money children are not even taught handwriting or good behaving but they are educated how to sue their own parents. Poor girls are not allowed to wear warm tights in winter, instead they have to go with bare legs when it's freezing cold. Is that normal? Teachers wear pijamas, that's ok, but little girls can't wear tights? Why the child isn't allowed to bring even warm tea for lunch? Ice water is ok but warm tea is not, in winter? The teachers have very poor level of behaving and education (mostly online). Constantly collecting money in something else. Don't send your child there!

absolutely horrible school. the teachers are not qualified, not able to properly deliver…read moreinformation. they keep complaining the parents about children's low results trying to shift their own responsibility. constantly begging for donations in add to tuition fee increases every year. strict dress code, the girls are not allowed to wear tights in winter but teachers can wear pijamas. shame to this school

This school is the EPITOME of a bad educational system. The grading system is EXTREMELY unfair, and…read morethe teachers don't even do what their name implies or try to get their students to learn. The subjects aren't even reasonable. The only reason it is on the recommended school list is because the staff lies to the journalists about the quality of their school. It even lied its way to winning a blue ribbon certification. Therefore, this is the WORST school I have been to in all my years of learning. Do NOT listen to the reviews online or take your children here, because this school is WAY WORSE than they say. I would give 0 stars if possible.

While having a few flaws, i would recommend this school to anyone not minding the lack of…read moredescription/motivation