Silver Spring International Middle School in Maryland

Last week, we went school hunting. We drove by and went inside of many different schools.

Here is my Mom, looking outside the window checking the neighborhood around a school we visited.

Checking the neighborhood around the school.

The first the schools we visited was called McLean School, which is a private school that specializes in educating twice-exceptional kids like me, just like Assets School in Hawaii.

When Mom told me about McLean, I felt a slim chance of hope that I would be finally accepted by the community of people who understand my condition. However, when we talked to the Admissions Director, my mood changed.

She explained that unlike most of the public schools, the middle school at McLean would start from 5th grade instead of 6th. That made me think that going to this school would not be a good idea.

I'm in 4th grade right now, and I was anticipating to continue into the last grade of an elementary school as a 5th grader all this time. For me, entering the middle school as a 5th grader felt really odd and horrible. I want to spend another school year in an elementary school, and that's VERY important to me.

So we decided not to apply to McLean next school year.

Another interesting school we visited was called Silver Spring International Middle School (SSIMS), which is public and an International Baccalaureate (IB) school.

This is a picture of SSIMS.

Actually, we pretty much discovered this school by accident when we drove around/near the humongous town called Washington D.C.

This is the front view. If you look closely, you can see a sign on the left side of the building that says: "IB".

The word "international" sounded mysterious to me, so I did some research about the school on the internet.

Both Hawaii and Maryland have public IB schools, but *the difference is that SSIMS offers language immersion programs in Spanish and French.

(*a note from Mom: SSIMS has a non-immersion program for English-native students too)

My Mom explained to me that an language immersion program means that the teacher speaks only a foreign language and does not speak a word of English during the entire day at school. For example, in a French immersion program, the teacher only speaks French for math classes, science classes, and so on.

Odd, right?

This is Downtown Silver Spring, which is only few blocks away from SSIMS.

I love how it's so busy all the time there, because I love busy places! They have a movie theater, restaurants, stores, and so much more. I love the clocktower that says "Silver Spring" and its merry, welcoming lights.

I'm VERY interested in going to Silver Spring International Middle School. I can't wait to entering 6th grade for that.

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