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Woodward HS boundary study - BCC, Blair, Einstein, WJ, Kennedy, Northwood, Wheaton, Whitman impacts
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Anonymous
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Since this will be a long and important process, please consolidate discussions regarding the Boundary Study to one thread. Any change to one school will affect another school. Important ideas about the process shared in one thread are important for all schools. When there are important updates from MCPS/BOE, we will spin off a new thread with an updated OP so that people new to the conversation have a clear starting point with current information.
MCPS Webpage for the Study: https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/WoodwardHSBoundaryStudy Board of Education Adopted Boundary Study Scope - to Determine the Service Area for the Reopening of the Charles W. Woodward High School - March 28, 2023 https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/fil...20W.%20Wood%20HS%20Revised.pdf They are going to look at the boundaries of 8 high schools and 14 middle schools (no ES). Due to the scope, they are hiring a consultant to help with facilitation and community engagement during the process. The scope of the boundary study to establish the service area for the reopening of Charles W. Woodward High School includes the following high schools and their feeder middle schools: Bethesda Chevy-Chase https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/BCCHS.pdf -- Silver Creek MS -- Westland MS Walter Johnson https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/WalterJohnsonHS.pdf -- North Bethesda MS -- Tilden MS Walt Whitman https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/WhitmanHS.pdf -- Thomas W. Pyle MS DCC: Montgomery Blair https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/BlairHS.pdf John F. Kennedy https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/KennedyHS.pdf Albert Einstein https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/EinsteinHS.pdf Northwood https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/NorthwoodHS.pdf Wheaton https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/WheatonHS.pdf -- Argyle MS -- Eastern MS -- A. Mario Loiederman MS -- Newport Mill MS -- Parkland MS -- Odessa Shannon MS -- Silver Spring International MS -- Sligo MS -- Takoma Park MS The anticipated timeline for the boundary study process to determine the service area for the reopening of Charles W. Woodward High School is provided below: • Spring 2023—Request for Proposal is released • Summer 2023—Board of Education approves consultant • Fall 2023—Montgomery County Public Schools staff and consultant prepare for community engagement process and provide stakeholders with meeting information • Early 2024–Fall 2024—Boundary Study process (community meetings, option development, feedback) • Early 2025—Boundary Study report is released • Winter 2025 (February)—Superintendent’s recommendation on the boundary study is released • Winter 2025 (February–March)—Board of Education work sessions, public hearings, and action on the superintendent’s recommendation on the boundary study Additional resources: Interactive map for all ES/MS/HS boundaries: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/Viewer.html MCPS 2019 Boundary Analysis webpage: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/boundary-analysis/ Please summarize key general ideas from previous threads as needed to continue conversation. |
Anonymous
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I think that one of the important parts of this study will be to take a close look at the walk zones for each high school and middle school and see if they really make sense. In other boundary studies upcounty, there had been changes to roads that either made a former walk zone unsafe, or where a road/sidewalk change was identified (and implemented) to actually improve walk access.
I was hoping to look at the boundary analysis tool to see examine the walk zones that they had identified, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to have the data anymore. I intend to write BOE about reinstating that tool. |
Anonymous
Thank you for posting this valuable information. I wonder if the consultants will come up with the criteria, ie walkability, diversity, bussing, split feeder articulation, etc., and if the criteria would be ranked in order of importance. |
Anonymous
| Generally the options for the boundary studies are done by MCPS, not consultants. The factors are to be considered in boundary studies are geography, demographics, facility utilization, plus stability of school assignment (which means that the same students are not supposed to get repeatedly reassigned), and they are not ranked. However, in previous boundary studies, MCPS has produced options that optimized one of geography, demographics, or facility utilization, so that people can see what those would look like, as well as options that balance those factors in different ways. |
Anonymous
True about consultants - I’d bet MCPS doesn’t go down the road of hiring consultants again like they did the last time they considered broadly based boundary study. The first community meeting that left the consultant from WXY who was leading the discussion in tears was not a good look for MCPS. They should save the money and invest it instead on making sure hard to reach communities are heard. |
Anonymous
MCPS hired a consultant (WXY) to do a district-wide boundary ANALYSIS. (In my opinion, the first community meeting was not a good look for the MCPS parents who were at that meeting, but that's water under the bridge.) The Woodward HS boundary study is a boundary STUDY. MCPS has not hired consultants for boundary studies, and I don't know why they would start now. |
Anonymous
They said they wanted to hire consultants to work on community engagement for this study because it is so large and affects so many school communities. |
Anonymous
| Is the timeline above correct for the revised 2026 opening? Typically, things would be finalized in Spring 2026 for a Fall 2026 opening. |
Anonymous
Yes, the above timeline was approved by the board at the March 28th meeting. https://gis.mcpsmd.org/boundarystudypdfs/WoodwardHS_BoundaryStudyScope.pdf |
Anonymous
+1 The consultants are supposed to be helping with gather feedback from different communities. If you haven’t been to a community meeting- it’s interesting. Tables with a mixed group of people and a facilitator, a structured presentation with questions posed to the community, and note taking/ feedback cards. The info gets gathered and tallied and presented back to the boundary study committee as they revise the recommendations. |
Anonymous
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Thanks for pulling all the links together, OP. I would also add the following chapters from the latest Capital Improvements Program (CIP) book, which contain charts listing the 2022-23 and projected enrollment and capacity of all the schools, as well as demographics and other useful information about each of the physical facilities. When the next edition of the CIP is released this coming fall, it will contain the preliminary 2023-24 numbers that staff will use to develop the boundary options over the next year.
BCC Cluster: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP24_Chapter4BCC.pdf WJ Cluster: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP24_Chapter4Johnson.pdf Whitman Cluster: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP24_Chapter4Whitman.pdf Downcounty Consortium: https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP24_Chapter4DCC.pdf The CIP is also kept more up-to-date than the Schools at a Glance pages, which are still showing 2021-22 data. |
Anonymous
| So is Woodward set to open fall of 2025 or 2026? I’ve now heard both… |
Anonymous
It will open as its own school in fall 2026. In fall 2024, it will open as a holding school for Northwood for two years. |
Anonymous
| Looking at Policy FAA and Policy FAA-RA, I don't see any prohibition against reassigning students in the walk zone of one school to be bussed to another school. I often see posters saying as long as you are a walker you will not be reassigned. Is that really true? I can see how it's unlikely they'd reassign someone who lives very close to a school, but the walk zones for high schools are up to 2 miles away. I can't imagine all those neighborhoods will be excluded from consideration from reassignment. |
Anonymous
| Is it worth making this a pinned post to try to drive people here instead of popping up more new threads? |