Northwood @ Woodward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's nice that Brian Hull finally decided to step down from the mountaintop to address the fire broiling around this. These are reasonable responses and updates that should have happened much more quickly.

+1 This was a good update. Clear and responsive. I just wish the MCPS folks would start moving faster and anticipating blowback. So, if you have to push back the date that these kids get an auditorium, fast-track some agreements with neighboring schools, arts venues, etc. and find a way to announce some solutions at the same time you announce the problem.

But, to give credit where it is due, this was a good message.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about having Northwood go virtual for a year and speed up construction?

So you missed out on all the information that came out about the emotional and psychological harm and learning loss that happened when we spent nearly two years virtual during the pandemic?

I clearly missed it as mine were fine in virtual. Get your kids help and fix what ever is going on in your house that caused those issues.

That's nice. There's a landslide of data that says otherwise that virtual learning was really harmful for children's academic education and their mental wellbeing. We won't be going back to that, though you're free to since it was great for your kids.

I’m fine going back to it. What’s going on at home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's nice that Brian Hull finally decided to step down from the mountaintop to address the fire broiling around this. These are reasonable responses and updates that should have happened much more quickly.

+1 This was a good update. Clear and responsive. I just wish the MCPS folks would start moving faster and anticipating blowback. So, if you have to push back the date that these kids get an auditorium, fast-track some agreements with neighboring schools, arts venues, etc. and find a way to announce some solutions at the same time you announce the problem.

But, to give credit where it is due, this was a good message.

They aren’t going to do all that. Maybe for sports and concerts but that’s it.

[Anonymous]

Having no auditorium or sports facilities is terrible. I feel awful. Northwood already has janky sports fields and a rotting building. To have to get up over an hour earlier to attend a school so far away and have to bussed to another school for any type of athletics or performing arts. Not to mention the continued construction on site while in school. I mean come on. MCPS should be ashamed of how much money they waste and can’t get on a decent schedule for school renovations.

[Anonymous]

Why was Northwood not renovated before the school re-opened 20 years ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why was Northwood not renovated before the school re-opened 20 years ago?

Same reason SSIMS and Sligo Creek ES weren't renovated from the old Blair building around the same time to a level that would make them comparable facilities to others that were new or renovated atound that time. It was Silver Spring/Wheaton instead of Bethesda/Potomac. Not enough juice (political $), fewer squeaky wheels among parents and no BOE champion like Pat O'Neill was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was Northwood not renovated before the school re-opened 20 years ago?

Same reason SSIMS and Sligo Creek ES weren't renovated from the old Blair building around the same time to a level that would make them comparable facilities to others that were new or renovated atound that time. It was Silver Spring/Wheaton instead of Bethesda/Potomac. Not enough juice (political $), fewer squeaky wheels among parents and no BOE champion like Pat O'Neill was.

This is exactly right.

You can look at old CIP budgets and see that for like a decade when Pat was on the Board, her district got more construction funds than downcounty and upcounty combined.

[Anonymous]

Brian Hull is in damage control mode.
He doesn’t care about Northwood or its students and staff. It seemed pretty easy for them to make some changes to bus pick up times and parking so why were they trying to screw Northwood in the first place. They just assumed the Northwood school community would not complain about anything. And now he is saying trust us, we are trying to find money to build the auditorium. Ya right.
Why did MCPS reapprove the virtual academy if they can’t even run functioning high schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brian Hull is in damage control mode.
He doesn’t care about Northwood or its students and staff. It seemed pretty easy for them to make some changes to bus pick up times and parking so why were they trying to screw Northwood in the first place. They just assumed the Northwood school community would not complain about anything. And now he is saying trust us, we are trying to find money to build the auditorium. Ya right.
Why did MCPS reapprove the virtual academy if they can’t even run functioning high schools?

You are hitting all of the nails on the head!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brian Hull is in damage control mode.
He doesn’t care about Northwood or its students and staff. It seemed pretty easy for them to make some changes to bus pick up times and parking so why were they trying to screw Northwood in the first place. They just assumed the Northwood school community would not complain about anything. And now he is saying trust us, we are trying to find money to build the auditorium. Ya right.
Why did MCPS reapprove the virtual academy if they can’t even run functioning high schools?

They probably didn't put any thought into the transportation as they needed more buses for all the kids who could have walked to school and now cannot.

The virtual academy is a good program. It may not be right for your family but it is for other families. Why would you want to take that away from kids who need it just to be spiteful?

There are lots of things they could cut, including the BOE newly remodeled space and furniture, donations to all the non-profits that don't directly help MCPS, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was Northwood not renovated before the school re-opened 20 years ago?

Same reason SSIMS and Sligo Creek ES weren't renovated from the old Blair building around the same time to a level that would make them comparable facilities to others that were new or renovated atound that time. It was Silver Spring/Wheaton instead of Bethesda/Potomac. Not enough juice (political $), fewer squeaky wheels among parents and no BOE champion like Pat O'Neill was.

Wootton rebuild has been pushed back every single time for over a decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was Northwood not renovated before the school re-opened 20 years ago?

Same reason SSIMS and Sligo Creek ES weren't renovated from the old Blair building around the same time to a level that would make them comparable facilities to others that were new or renovated atound that time. It was Silver Spring/Wheaton instead of Bethesda/Potomac. Not enough juice (political $), fewer squeaky wheels among parents and no BOE champion like Pat O'Neill was.

Wootton rebuild has been pushed back every single time for over a decade.

As has Eastern MS. And others.

The tiny slice of O'Neill's district that ended up being part of Wooton's catchment didn't matter to her the same way that the Whitman/BCC/Churchill/Johnson pyramids did. More west Rockville than north Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What are Northwood students asking for? What is the alternative option?

Did you read the post on Montgomery Perspective? Based on their three priority areas, it sounds like:

1. They want the auditorium to be reprioritized and put back into an earlier phase of construction

2. They don't want to have a start of 7:25 am, which is earlier than every other school in MCPS

3. They want MCPS to be more transparent and communicate more effectively

Of the three requests, I think three is the tallest order. MCPS has proved to be completely incapable of communicating in a way that builds consensus, demonstrates transparency and makes community stakeholders feel heard and considered.

For #2, what do they think should happen instead? Obviously a bus trip from many DCC neighborhoods to Woodward is going to take longer than a trip to Northwood. If they kept the times the same as they are now, they wouldn't arrive to Woodward in time for them to drop off and then travel back to the DCC to pick up the middle school kids on the next run, and then the middle school and then the elementary school routes would all be running late. Is that what Northwood families would prefer? If not, what are the other proposals?

How about adding more buses??

The plan is to add 16 busses to accommodate the kids who are currently walkers. That's on top of the 19 bus routes that already service Northwood, many of which are overcrowded. My kid, and many others in the University/Colesville road area take Ride On or Metro Bus to Northwood because the school bus is too crowded and leaves earlier. Student carpools will not be an option for most due to parking limitations - temporary lot for teachers while parking deck is still under construction.

What the students want is the same access to sports, theater, etc. as their peers at other schools. Think about the families who rely on public transportation to support their students - attend back to school night, sports events or IEP/504 meetings in the middle of the day. Bus routes and start times is just one of many issues.

I think everyone agrees that is what would be best. But what are the potential means to achieve that goal?

Yeah, this is what I find flawed with those who have been petitioning the board and MCPS on this issue. Whose projects do you want to defund or deprioritize to fund Northwood? No one is willing to go there, but that's the reality of what would have to happen for Northwood to get the funding they're protesting for.

I want to prioritize de-funding the tax cuts that the council gave to developers. The council funded those by taking money that was supposed to go to the MCPS capital budget. This is why we’re in this mess. The council passed tax cuts twice in the past four years and each time Woodward was downsized and other projects were delayed.

[Anonymous]

^^ correct, because Planning Board successfully claimed overcrowding was due to neighborhood turnover and not new builds. Cut the amount new builds (developers) have to pay, and said they would raise the recordation tax. The they didn't raise the recirdation tax for a couple years, and that effectively cut the amount available for building schools at a time when we had 3 HSs in the works (Northwood, Woodward and Crown).

Abysmal planning from Planning Board, MCPS, and Council, who all work in silos, rather than together

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was Northwood not renovated before the school re-opened 20 years ago?

Same reason SSIMS and Sligo Creek ES weren't renovated from the old Blair building around the same time to a level that would make them comparable facilities to others that were new or renovated atound that time. It was Silver Spring/Wheaton instead of Bethesda/Potomac. Not enough juice (political $), fewer squeaky wheels among parents and no BOE champion like Pat O'Neill was.

Wootton rebuild has been pushed back every single time for over a decade.

As has Eastern MS. And others.

The tiny slice of O'Neill's district that ended up being part of Wooton's catchment didn't matter to her the same way that the Whitman/BCC/Churchill/Johnson pyramids did. More west Rockville than north Potomac.

And yet when the board was discussing the plan to rebuild Northwood in 2018/19, O'Neill lamented what bad shape it had been in when they reopened it, and how the few improvements they had made then would be lost with the rebuild.