The Potomac School: A Fall 2027 Parent Guide to Entry, the School Day, and the Bus

Kindergarten

For Kindergarten, watch the child visit and the family rhythm

A Kindergarten applicant must turn five by September 1. The family submits a current-teacher recommendation and narrative or progress report.

Adults may tour and attend an information session, and Potomac schedules a 30-minute virtual parent meeting after the application begins.

The child visit is an in-person Saturday-morning group experience in December or January after the family applies. Potomac does not publish its activities, scoring, observer roles, group size, or approach to a tired or slow-to-warm child.

Ask what the visit is designed to reveal and how preschool context is handled.

Kindergarten families may drive instead of using the bus. That flexibility disappears in Grade 1, when round-trip busing becomes the rule.

A family should model both years before deciding that the current commute works.

Grades 4 and 6

Two transition years with a shared admissions shape

Grades 4 and 6 begin with a campus tour and a 30-minute parent meeting. After applying, children attend a Saturday group campus visit and assessment.

The file also includes a current-teacher recommendation and school records.

The public checklist does not require the SSAT or ISEE for these grades. Potomac does not explain the internal assessment's format, scoring, curriculum assumptions, or accommodations.

Parents should ask whether the visit samples reading, writing, mathematics, discussion, collaboration, or something else.

Grade 4 begins Middle School, where a homeroom and small classes support growing independence. Grade 6 is the final Middle School year, and the school highlights committee leadership.

A sixth grader enters one year before the move to the separate Grades 7–8 Intermediate School, so ask how new students build friendships and prepare for that next transition.

Grade 9

The ninth-grade process puts the student in the foreground

Ninth-grade families can join an hour-long group tour with up to four families. The student then completes a required interview.

The file includes English and mathematics recommendations, transcripts, and a student questionnaire.

Testing can be the SSAT, the ISEE, or Potomac's own assessment. The school does not publish whether it prefers one route, how the internal assessment compares with the external tests, or how testing accommodations work.

Ask before choosing the option that creates the most strain for the child.

The checklist does not name a separate Grade 9 parent interview. That absence should not be turned into a strategy.

Follow Ravenna, answer the requested parent writing plainly, and let the student's interests and actual school record carry the application.

How learning changes

A K–12 label does not erase three division changes

Lower School covers Kindergarten through Grade 3. Children work in whole groups, small groups, and independently across literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, art, and music.

Specialists and outdoor learning are part of the design.

Middle School serves Grades 4–6 with homerooms, small classes, inquiry, and a deliberate move toward independence. Intermediate School gives Grades 7 and 8 their own setting, with advisory and explicit attention to organization, time management, perseverance, and collaboration.

A child crosses into a new division after Grades 3, 6, and 8. The public pages describe each destination but not the mechanics: how teachers hand off learning plans, how course or math placement is decided, how friendship groups are remixed, or how newly admitted students are integrated with children who already know the culture.

Ask about the particular crossing your child will make, not only the division they enter now.

Upper School offers grade-level, Honors, Advanced, and accelerated mathematics courses. Potomac stopped offering an AP curriculum in 2022–23, although it remains an AP test center and says many Advanced courses prepare students for related exams.

Departmental approval controls Honors and Advanced enrollment, and the profile says very few students take Advanced courses before Grade 11. A Grade 9 family should not equate immediate acceleration with rigor or admission success.

That structure leaves important fit questions. Families should ask when advanced work becomes available, what approval requires, how often students change levels, and how the school supports a capable child who is ready in one subject but not every subject.

An ordinary day

Put classes, activities, the bus, and recovery on one page

The published day runs from 8:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. in Kindergarten through Grade 8 and to 3 p.m. in Upper School. Upper School activities generally run from 3:30 to 5:30.

Extended Day serves Kindergarten through Grade 8 until 6 p.m.

The September 2025 school profile describes a six-day rolling rotation, with 70-minute classes meeting every other day. Upper School students take at least five academic courses each semester and must complete athletics or approved activities in eight of twelve seasons.

Potomac says the rotation can reduce nightly homework and make room for play and rest. That is the school's explanation, not measured workload evidence.

Public pages do not give homework ranges by grade, assignment bunching, sleep data, course-drop patterns, or the experience of students arriving at a major entry year.

On a visit, ask for two believable weeks: one for a typical student and one for a child taking the most demanding realistic schedule. Add the actual morning ride, the 5:45 late bus, dinner, homework, and sleep before judging whether the week feels balanced.

Arts and athletics

Breadth is visible; access and tradeoffs need testing

Potomac presents visual art, music, and theater as a K–12 strand, not decoration. Upper School graduation requires three semesters across two arts areas or four full years in one.

Students may apply during the second semester of Grade 9 to begin the selective Visual and Performing Arts Concentration in Grade 10. VPAC asks for sustained work: for example, music students take private lessons and ensembles, while visual-art students work four afternoons a week during the winter athletics season.

Support and wellness

Support is present, but it has boundaries

Potomac describes K–12 learning support delivered individually, in small groups, and in classrooms. Learning plans may document accommodations.

The school is also clear that support sits inside a rigorous curriculum without significant curricular modification.

Lower School uses literacy and mathematics specialists, flexible groups, and individual accommodation plans based on recent psychoeducational or neuropsychological testing. Upper School adds a Learning Resource Center, writing support, a mathematics and science collaboration center, and a language center.

Counselors offer individual and group support, classroom lessons, referrals, and crisis response. Potomac says school counseling does not provide ongoing psychotherapy or diagnosis and is not a replacement for an outside licensed provider.

Phones and health

The health team is public; the current phone day is not

Potomac publicly identifies two full-time registered nurses, counselors, and two certified athletic trainers. It says the Board's Health & Wellness Committee meets through the year and the health-services team meets every two months.

For athletics, the school publishes emergency, injury, concussion, return-to-learn, and return-to-play materials; students in Grades 7–12 receive baseline concussion testing every other year.

The public health pages do not give nurse-to-visit volume, medication and allergy workflows, infectious-disease thresholds, counselor caseloads, or after-hours coverage for travel and late activities. Families managing diabetes, severe allergy, seizures, concussion recovery, or a mental-health plan should walk through an ordinary day and an emergency before enrolling.

We could not verify a current public cell-phone rule by division. An undated acceptable-use PDF governs school systems and privately owned devices on campus, but it names older platforms and does not say when a student may carry, check, or use a phone.

Ask where phones and smartwatches live from bus pickup through the late bus, how parents reach a child, and how violations are handled in each division.

McLean logistics

The bus is part of the school choice

Potomac requires round-trip bus transportation for Grades 1–11. Kindergarten families may drive.

Eleventh graders may drive to off-campus parking and take a shuttle, while seniors may drive themselves and siblings.

The school publishes more than 23 routes, fee-based neighborhood and limited regional service, and a free 11-stop shuttle. Public pickup areas include Eastern Market, Union Station, and East Falls Church Metro, with McLean Metro service as needed.

A 5:45 p.m. late neighborhood bus and shuttles until 7:30 support activities; families can track their child's bus through the password-protected parent portal.

Families coming from Northwest Washington reach campus across Chain Bridge; Maryland approaches may use the American Legion Bridge. But the family commute is not simply a drive to campus: Grades 1–11 must use a neighborhood bus or reach a shuttle stop.

Test the address-to-stop trip, waiting time, ride, and return after an activity on a real school day rather than relying on a weekend map.

The public page does not list current stops, pickup times, typical ride length, seat allocation, or neighborhood-bus prices. Ask for the route serving your address, the earliest pickup, the normal and worst-day ride, activity-bus coverage, and the plan when a child misses a bus.

Governance and safeguarding

A difficult history makes current procedure worth seeing

Potomac was founded in Washington in 1904; its Upper School was added in 1987. Head of School John Kowalik now leads the school.

The board, which the school says has 17 to 26 members, sets broad policy and holds fiduciary and long-range responsibility. The June 2025 Form 990 reports about $76.9 million in revenue, $62.3 million in expenses, and $192.3 million in net assets.

One year's surplus and balance sheet show scale, not classroom quality, affordability, or future financial strength.

Historical context cannot be omitted. In 2014, The Washington Post reported on a school-commissioned investigation into abuse by a former teacher and administrator decades earlier.

The report found strong evidence of many additional victims and failures to take protective action or report concerns to authorities. Potomac said it had strengthened training, background checks, and reference practices.

That history does not measure today's school, and it should not be used for spectacle. It does make present-tense evidence important.

We did not find on the public site a current child-protection policy, adult-student boundary rules, full background-check coverage, mandatory-reporting workflow, independent reporting channel, training cadence, or audit results.

Tuition and aid

Build the budget beyond the published tuition number

For 2026–27, tuition is $47,175 in Kindergarten through Grade 3, $49,250 in Grades 4–6, $53,750 in Grades 7–8, and $54,750 in Grades 9–12. Full-time Extended Day is $5,775.

Potomac has not yet published 2027–28 rates.

The live aid page reports $7.3 million annually, with 19% of students receiving grants and an average award of $33,500. It also says 70% of aided families have household income above $150,000.

The September 2025 school profile instead says 20% receive aid, likely a timing or rounding difference. Neither page gives award ranges, division-level recipients, or enough information to predict one family's grant.

Aid applications go through Clarity. Each household must participate, and Potomac considers parents' and stepparents' resources.

The school may impute income when a parent is not working after all children reach school age, unless family circumstances explain otherwise.

The unknown family budget includes 2027–28 tuition, the enrollment deposit and withdrawal terms, neighborhood bus fees, Lower and Middle School lunch, Grades 4–8 uniforms, technology, trips, materials, private music lessons, and outside support. Ask for an individualized all-in estimate and which non-tuition costs aid can cover before the reply deadline.

Where children enter

Kindergarten, Grades 4 and 6, and Grade 9 are different doors

Potomac names Kindergarten, Grades 1, 4, 6, 7, and 9 as entry years. Its current FAQ estimates about 48 Kindergarten places, 10–12 in Grade 4, 8–10 in Grade 6, and 35 in Grade 9.

The page does not attach those numbers to Fall 2027, so use them to understand the shape of the school, not to calculate odds.

Grades 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, and 11 are attrition-only. A family may apply, but an opening must first appear.

Potomac does not issue I-20 forms, which matters for a student who would need school-sponsored immigration status.

The calendar

The dates are simple; the paperwork is not

Ravenna opened September 2, 2026. The application is due December 28.

Supporting material is due January 8, 2027, including the parent statement, recommendations, records, and any grade-specific questionnaire or testing. Starting recommendations early matters because the school, not the parent, controls when those documents arrive.

Prospective-family financial-aid files are due February 1. Potomac plans to release admission decisions February 26, with replies due March 12 at noon.

The school uses Clarity for aid, not Ravenna, so the family is really managing two files.

Potomac's visit page now lists 2026 events, including division information sessions, a November 19 arts open house, and a December 11 athletics open house. The grade-by-grade application page calls these 2026–27 tours but still embeds several 2025 information-session dates.

Use the visit page to plan and Ravenna to confirm; the two public pages are not fully synchronized.