MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

You really moved the goalpost there. The students were described as "highly motivated students who love to learn." No reason to believe that won't still be the case.

+1. And there’s no evidence that the data on the MAP scores is true-that’s not official data—unless the PP thinks that everything posted on DCUM is true, in which case I have a bridge to sell them.

And the reason there aren’t more kids from Whitman in the magnets is that the commute is too far and the offerings there are strong enough that kids prefer to stay at their home school. It’s not that kids at Wootton and WJ are better.

If you are going to deny facts that Magnet Coordinator Ostrandor has stated on multiple occasions, and hundreds of parent have heard with their own ears, no one will care about your ignorant opinions.

SMACS compresses 1 year of honors course into 2 semesters, for each of physics, chemistry, math, and computer science (and some students compress another year of math into one semester), while also adding more enriched content. After second year, they have completed a high school honors STEM curriculum. This is not "90%ile and motivated to learn". This is "99%ile learn the basics on their own or at first glance, and spending their time doing creative applications and extensions" . Students regularly do individualized project and then present them to each other

Whitman is a special case because it's so far away and has a very strong non-magnet program.
Its population is also low-Asian and not as STEM-focused in the way that the SMACS students are.

SMACS is the biggest concern because because IB isn't very different from AP at a school with a large talent base that supports a full AP menu, like Whitman has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Which math teacher is that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

What on earth makes you think that "almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies"? There's like 30+ Silver Spring kids who actually attend Blair SMCS every year right now, plus presumably many others who get "beat out' by richer kids from elsewhere in the county who can juice their MAP scores in ways most Silver Spring families can't. Why would the difference in the number of smart, motivated kids from rich schools and poor schools be "astronomically different"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

Because they only have 100 slots per year and not all kids want the commute or set program. Nothing special about functions. Kids can start algebra in 6th but then need access to more math classes which the dcc schools don’t have. Functions sounds like a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

What on earth makes you think that "almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies"? There's like 30+ Silver Spring kids who actually attend Blair SMCS every year right now, plus presumably many others who get "beat out' by richer kids from elsewhere in the county who can juice their MAP scores in ways most Silver Spring families can't. Why would the difference in the number of smart, motivated kids from rich schools and poor schools be "astronomically different"?

They need to tell themselves that they are richer, smarter and better. It’s ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

At this point I think we have to fully internalize that there is no source of support for those truly advanced students in MoCo. They are going to have to find other options especially for math - online or dual enrollment in local colleges. That is what the very brightest did where I grew up. MoCo being bigger had the potential to actually provide programs for them but no more. It’s a really sad commentary on the state of American educational priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

Because they only have 100 slots per year and not all kids want the commute or set program. Nothing special about functions. Kids can start algebra in 6th but then need access to more math classes which the dcc schools don’t have. Functions sounds like a bad idea.

So because not all kids want it it should be cancelled? huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

What on earth makes you think that "almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies"? There's like 30+ Silver Spring kids who actually attend Blair SMCS every year right now, plus presumably many others who get "beat out' by richer kids from elsewhere in the county who can juice their MAP scores in ways most Silver Spring families can't. Why would the difference in the number of smart, motivated kids from rich schools and poor schools be "astronomically different"?

37 in total from Blair catchment: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DJVQ56678E2B/$file/Attachment%20D%20SY2025%20Student%20Enrollment%20Countywide%20Programs%20250724.pdf

I agree with you that switching to regional model might encourage more admitted students from, e.g., Whiteman, to attend Blair. But the overall number of "qualified" students is undoubtedly going to reduce significantly. Of course you can always lower down the qualification threshold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

Because they only have 100 slots per year and not all kids want the commute or set program. Nothing special about functions. Kids can start algebra in 6th but then need access to more math classes which the dcc schools don’t have. Functions sounds like a bad idea.

So because not all kids want it it should be cancelled? huh?

There is something special about Functions. Most schools don’t let anyone take Algebra in 6th grade. Was the first time my kid had a challenging math class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Blair, the students take really specialized classes like Quantum Physics, Organic Chemistry, and Thermodynamics. There is no way that MCPS plans to bring all of these classes to the regional programs, and it will be impossible finding qualified teachers to teach these subjects. Blair teachers would certainly leave the MCPS program, as many of them only stay at MCPS for the magnet program at Blair, (this comes from the teachers themselves). We will be losing really qualified teachers due to this unneeded change. (Not sure about RM IB and Poolesville Magnet but most likely the same will happen).

No, this comes from trolls on DCUM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Blair, the students take really specialized classes like Quantum Physics, Organic Chemistry, and Thermodynamics. There is no way that MCPS plans to bring all of these classes to the regional programs, and it will be impossible finding qualified teachers to teach these subjects. Blair teachers would certainly leave the MCPS program, as many of them only stay at MCPS for the magnet program at Blair, (this comes from the teachers themselves). We will be losing really qualified teachers due to this unneeded change. (Not sure about RM IB and Poolesville Magnet but most likely the same will happen).

No, this comes from trolls on DCUM

Said like you are clearly unfamiliar with the program.

- a different poster who IS familiar with the magnet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Do you think that Taylor even understands what he is doing? Getting rid of our high achieving programs is not going to correct educational disparities experienced in different student cohorts.

I’m sure he does not. Please make sure to reach out to him and to the board to let him know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Blair, the students take really specialized classes like Quantum Physics, Organic Chemistry, and Thermodynamics. There is no way that MCPS plans to bring all of these classes to the regional programs, and it will be impossible finding qualified teachers to teach these subjects. Blair teachers would certainly leave the MCPS program, as many of them only stay at MCPS for the magnet program at Blair, (this comes from the teachers themselves). We will be losing really qualified teachers due to this unneeded change. (Not sure about RM IB and Poolesville Magnet but most likely the same will happen).

No, this comes from trolls on DCUM

Said like you are clearly unfamiliar with the program.

- a different poster who IS familiar with the magnet

I am very familiar with the program, and the rumors that Blair teachers say they would leave the program are just that...rumors and fear mongering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst thing about this is the loss of the incredible magnet teachers that we will have at both the RM IB and Blair SMCS. My son is a student at the Blair Magnet program, and their math teacher has a PHD in math from Yale! Other teachers are equally qualified and hold PHDs from many renowned universities in the country. There is no way that these teachers will opt for teaching county magnet programs, as they are more than qualified to teach college level classes with much more pay as well. They stay because they enjoy teaching a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. The loss of teachers will be something we won't be able to replace, even after Taylor is gone.

Seems like you are making a lot of assumptions here, about the teachers and the future students.

Not that pp, but my child also goes to the same program, and more than one teachers told their personal stories to students about why they chose to stay in Blair SMACS, and the reasons are highly similar to what described above. They will choose to leave the magnet as it's not rewarding anymore to themselves, and practically many of the current courses will not exist anymore due to lack of enrollment.

If true, those teachers are not great in reasoning then, and perhaps not as incredible as some PPs describe. They’re assuming students in the future regional magnet will not be a group of highly motivated students who love to learn. We don’t know the criteria of the regional program, so we don’t know what those students will be like. If they maintain a hard cutoff of 90% MAP (“A” students by objective measure), the type of students should be the same. Incredible teachers are good at reasoning and not emotionally reactive.

It has been repeatedly cited in this forum that the median MAP-M score for the admitted students is somewhere around 285, which is >99% for Grade 12 according to NWEA breakdown. More than 50% of the current SMACS students came from Churchill and Wootton, and the 3rd is WJ. Many admitted students had won state or national STEM prizes before joining SMACS. What makes believe that the new regional program wouldn't be significantly watered down?

The fact that most of the current students came from just 3 schools suggests that it should be no problem to fill the regional programs with kids from 4-5 schools each, right? The admission standards might have to be a tad bit lower if the distribution of smart kids isn't exactly equal between those 3 schools and the others in the county, but presumably that's a pretty small difference.

Is this a joke?
It's astronomically different. What is your explanation for why almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies for SMACS, while students from Rockville/Potomac/Bethesda bus in from far away?

SMACS already struggles to fill upper level courses, offering many electives only once every 2 years.

Splitting Blair SMACS into 3 would eliminate those classes.

The Functions (advanced/accelerated Alg2/Precalculus) class has 20 kids. If you split those kids across 2-3 regions, what happens to them?

Yes, there are students that would thrive in regional STEM programs that enhance their current home school offerings with more AP options and some electives. No, no one is helped by shattering the current SMACS into 4 parts and pretending that those kids are well-matched to programs that run courses at half the academic pace.

What on earth makes you think that "almost no one in Silver Spring qualifies"? There's like 30+ Silver Spring kids who actually attend Blair SMCS every year right now, plus presumably many others who get "beat out' by richer kids from elsewhere in the county who can juice their MAP scores in ways most Silver Spring families can't. Why would the difference in the number of smart, motivated kids from rich schools and poor schools be "astronomically different"?

37 in total from Blair catchment: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DJVQ56678E2B/$file/Attachment%20D%20SY2025%20Student%20Enrollment%20Countywide%20Programs%20250724.pdf

I agree with you that switching to regional model might encourage more admitted students from, e.g., Whiteman, to attend Blair. But the overall number of "qualified" students is undoubtedly going to reduce significantly. Of course you can always lower down the qualification threshold.

Blair is not the only school in Silver Spring. And if the qualification threshold isn't based on the intelligence and potential of the students, but is just based on getting super-high MAP scores which can be and frequently are gamed/skewed, then probably it should be lowered so that the smartest kids don't get blocked out by "merely bright" hard workers with rich parents who are good at test prep. But that doesn't mean the standards would be decreased-- arguably you would get even higher numbers of the smartest kids in that way.