Second round options for Woodward boundary study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can some one share the regional magnet programs in Woodward region?

Art, Design, Performing Arts, Communication.

So with 30% FARMS + these programs ---> Very little numbers left for higher level STEM classes. Woodward may not offer good STEM courses.

WJ with 15% FARMS rate should be able to offer good STEM courses despite school size going down.

Every school will offer STEM but Woodward will also be able to go to Wheaton for Engineering. Impressive program.

Total number of kids intested in courses will dictate what courses get offered. WJ is likely to have MV but Woodward won't have that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very unfair to Whitman families.

More diversity should be added in Whitman. Leaving it untouched is a missed oppurtunity.

But do non-white, lower income folks even want to go to Whitman?

I am high income and non-white - I don't want my kids to attend Whitman.

I am high-income and white, and purposefully didn't buy in the Whitman or Churchill districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear whether the data sets include new programs or not. They did not address that on the webinar.

+1 or how and with what money they are adding 500 seats to Wheaton

They should not call this community engagement if they aren't actually hearing from the community. They should just send out the powerpoint with the script they are READING instead of wasting people's time.

I don't think they are adding 500 seats to Wheaton. They are just combining the existing Wheaton + Edison capacity and the projected Wheaton + Edison enrollment.

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very unfair to Whitman families.

More diversity should be added in Whitman. Leaving it untouched is a missed oppurtunity.

I think the vast majority of Whitman families disagree. Most just won’t publicly admit it.

Well, people buy in Whitman for certain reason. If they wanted diversity then they would have bought some where else.

But to that argument, no school boundaries should change. Any current homeowner who bought into an area that is now being changed has the same argument. And then nothing ever changes. So while I don’t disagree with the premise, it has to only apply to some and not others, so it’s an entirely circular argument. The Whitman families just seem to have extra interest in preserving their status.

Nothing ever changes if you think individual schools can’t change without changing the demographics of who attends.

So why not improve schools that need improvement?

Or are you saying only white rich kids can improve schools?

I was PP and I actually agree with your point here. My point was that your first point applies equally to Luxmanor and Farmland families who bought for WJ and now have Woodward. It’s not just Whitman. So it’s a circular argument if you apply it broadly, because then no boundary changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can some one share the regional magnet programs in Woodward region?

Art, Design, Performing Arts, Communication.

So with 30% FARMS + these programs ---> Very little numbers left for higher level STEM classes. Woodward may not offer good STEM courses.

WJ with 15% FARMS rate should be able to offer good STEM courses despite school size going down.

Every school will offer STEM but Woodward will also be able to go to Wheaton for Engineering. Impressive program.

Yes, STEM oriented kids in Woodward will have no other option than to attend Wheaton, but WJ is likely to have better STEM courses allowing kids to be in home school and get good STEM courses. It's simply due to making twos chools within a mile drastically different in FARMS. A poor job by consultants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will never make everyone happy but these options make the most sense. Also there is supposed to be a demographic cliff at some point, with fewer children being born resulting of course in fewer students in our schools.

Except on facility utilization and demographics, two of the four factors and these options are terrible on these

Might as well give up on trying to equalize demographics unless you want super long bus rides for poor kids.

Or change housing policy.

And most poor kids and their families want to attend the local school. Just like the rich kids. Funny how that works.

There is a difference between what individual families want and what is feasible/efficient. Everyone wants their kids to go to the closest school (except for ToK, they are special that way). But everyone CAN'T go to the closest school. It is physically impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can some one share the regional magnet programs in Woodward region?

Art, Design, Performing Arts, Communication.

So with 30% FARMS + these programs ---> Very little numbers left for higher level STEM classes. Woodward may not offer good STEM courses.

WJ with 15% FARMS rate should be able to offer good STEM courses despite school size going down.

Every school will offer STEM but Woodward will also be able to go to Wheaton for Engineering. Impressive program.

Yes, STEM oriented kids in Woodward will have no other option than to attend Wheaton, but WJ is likely to have better STEM courses allowing kids to be in home school and get good STEM courses. It's simply due to making twos chools within a mile drastically different in FARMS. A poor job by consultants.

Honestly I am livid we are paying these clowns so much

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very unfair to Whitman families.

More diversity should be added in Whitman. Leaving it untouched is a missed oppurtunity.

But do non-white, lower income folks even want to go to Whitman?

I am high income and non-white - I don't want my kids to attend Whitman.

I am high-income and white, and purposefully didn't buy in the Whitman or Churchill districts.

Yah, people self select. Whitman will attract certain kind of crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And despite assuming this extra capacity at Wheaton that doesn't yet exist, they still leave Wheaton overcrowded over that inflated number. Wow.

Yup and WJ is now at sub 80% capacity. Shows what they care about.

Exactly. I am completely fine with all the options for my kid and how it affects my family (we're not zoned for Wheaton), but as a taxpayer this is absolutely maddening. Such a blatant disregard for fiscal responsibility in a time of massive fiscal uncertainty. MCPS administrators are like children who think money grows on trees. Then they will come crying to taxpayers begging them to pay more while thousands are out of work and have possibly left the region entirely.

Or maybe lots of WHJ-zoned families will return to the public school, once the out of control overcrowding is finally fixed. Many in my neighborhood go to private schools in order to avoid over-crowded WJ. Now they will once again have reasonable access to their tax-funded local school.

So in this scenario WJ is at capacity and Wheaton wildly overcrowded. Nice!

And BCC and Whitman are untouched.

If they're untouched why are their utilization percentages changing?

So? What’s your point? They’re basically unchanged from their current demographics. These options try to minimize the overall impact to areas not affected by the new school. That’s the point. Also, MCPS clearly saw these well funded, well organized parents push back on material changes to their clusters and the Board caved. Are you surprised?

There is nothing wrong about that. What’s really wrong is trying to social engineer and impact more people than necessary.

PP and I agree. I’m questioning the posters who are miffed that Whitman or BCC aren’t “affected” as if that was the entire point of this study rather than focusing the impact on the area where the new school operates. It reads like sour grapes.

Because if you include a broader area in the study, it makes more sense to make more smaller changer than larger sledgehammer changes. if the “entire point” of the study was “where the new school operates” then why was it even in the study? I know heaven forbid Whitman became even slightly more diverse racially or socioeconomically, the horrors.

Because a countywide plan to socially reengineer each and every school was never realistic or feasible. It’s bad messaging and bad PR. And what’s with your preoccupation with Whitman? Seems like it’s tangential at best to managing the impact of Woodward. Should MCPS go out of its way to target Whitman because…reasons? Yeah, let’s stick it to the rich kids because we think they’re entitled and deserve to be knocked down a peg? That seems to be a good use of MCPS’s time and resources.

This is a horrible argument. You’re going from zero change at all to “target.” It would “target” Whitman if even the slightest thing changes whereas elsewhere schools and sliced and diced, and schools are even split from middle to high school? This argument is laughable. Whitman is targeted if anything changes? Entitled much? I’m sorry but this is absurd and frankly, shameful.

Why? You haven’t given any reason for a change other than “it should be more diverse”. Okay, where is MCPS going to go to get that diversity short of cross county busing and/or approving massive affordable housing projects on the few commercially available areas to develop in that area of Bethesda. Whitman is insulated because of all of the buffers it has to its geographic location. Short of massively upending the county’s single family housing zoning in that area, it ain’t changing without some radical adjustments to the cluster boundaries. And those have their own unintended consequences. Oh and who are these diverse kids who are just waiting with bated breath to go to Whitman? Your argument sounds more like a white Takoma Park liberal who wants what’s best for others who may not want it for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear whether the data sets include new programs or not. They did not address that on the webinar.

+1 or how and with what money they are adding 500 seats to Wheaton

They should not call this community engagement if they aren't actually hearing from the community. They should just send out the powerpoint with the script they are READING instead of wasting people's time.

I don't think they are adding 500 seats to Wheaton. They are just combining the existing Wheaton + Edison capacity and the projected Wheaton + Edison enrollment.

No

Where does it say anything about adding seats to Wheaton? The data table footnotes just say "Wheaton HS includes the capacity at Edison HS" and "Assumes 500 students attend Wheaton HS for CTE."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can some one share the regional magnet programs in Woodward region?

Art, Design, Performing Arts, Communication.

So with 30% FARMS + these programs ---> Very little numbers left for higher level STEM classes. Woodward may not offer good STEM courses.

WJ with 15% FARMS rate should be able to offer good STEM courses despite school size going down.

Every school will offer STEM but Woodward will also be able to go to Wheaton for Engineering. Impressive program.

Yes, STEM oriented kids in Woodward will have no other option than to attend Wheaton, but WJ is likely to have better STEM courses allowing kids to be in home school and get good STEM courses. It's simply due to making twos chools within a mile drastically different in FARMS. A poor job by consultants.

Honestly I am livid we are paying these clowns so much

The fact that Woodward and WJ appear to have such different FARMS rates is definitely a problem.

Maybe the consultants really whiffed it in the first round to purposefully get a muted reaction to this problem in the second round.

[Anonymous]

Was there this much split articulation in the first set of options? So many elementary schools getting split up under all 4 scenarios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will never make everyone happy but these options make the most sense. Also there is supposed to be a demographic cliff at some point, with fewer children being born resulting of course in fewer students in our schools.

Except on facility utilization and demographics, two of the four factors and these options are terrible on these

Might as well give up on trying to equalize demographics unless you want super long bus rides for poor kids.

Or change housing policy.

And most poor kids and their families want to attend the local school. Just like the rich kids. Funny how that works.

There is a difference between what individual families want and what is feasible/efficient. Everyone wants their kids to go to the closest school (except for ToK, they are special that way). But everyone CAN'T go to the closest school. It is physically impossible.

Right. So then they’re probably looking at the next closest option. Where in this proposal do you see a massive disconnection between the closest option and the proposed one? Maybe that should be the focus of any constructive feedback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very unfair to Whitman families.

More diversity should be added in Whitman. Leaving it untouched is a missed oppurtunity.

I think the vast majority of Whitman families disagree. Most just won’t publicly admit it.

Well, people buy in Whitman for certain reason. If they wanted diversity then they would have bought some where else.

But to that argument, no school boundaries should change. Any current homeowner who bought into an area that is now being changed has the same argument. And then nothing ever changes. So while I don’t disagree with the premise, it has to only apply to some and not others, so it’s an entirely circular argument. The Whitman families just seem to have extra interest in preserving their status.

The history of self segregation should tell you that it won’t matter if you change the boundaries. So yes it is circular in that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was there this much split articulation in the first set of options? So many elementary schools getting split up under all 4 scenarios.

My sneaking suspicion is that this will leave them optionality on adjusting clusters at a later date based on how demographics shift over time.