Pr. George's on course to expand middle schools - The Washington Post

For Teresa Saathoff, the decision on whether to send her 11-year-old son, Henry, to their neighborhood middle school is coming a year too early.

The grade span at Calverton Elementary, where Henry is a fifth-grader, used to be kindergarten through sixth. But Prince George’s County school officials decided to move the sixth grade to middle school to alleviate crowding. That means Henry will go to Martin Luther King Middle School next year instead of remaining at Calverton.

King is the only Prince George’s middle school that met federal benchmarks this year under the No Child Left Behind law, but Saathoff is concerned that Henry isn’t ready for the middle school environment.