MCPS BOE petition re: making student demographics the primary factor in redistricting decisions

[Anonymous]

It passed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It passed.

As Jack Smith said, this is not necessarily going to things either way when the real hard work of actually making boundary decisions comes along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It passed.

As Jack Smith said, this is not necessarily going to things either way when the real hard work of actually making boundary decisions comes along.

Yes, he said it well. The actual work comes in the procedures and actual decisions.

[Anonymous]

It passed.

How lovely. Are they discussing how to avoid making the same horrible mistakes with the second curriculum attempt? Nope. Were they discussing how to change the employee conduct manual to align with other districts that do not have a weekly sex offender arrest? Why no, of course not. Were they discussing barring Discovery from bidding on the RFP ? Nada. Were they discussing the horrible PARCC scores and failures across the county? Nope.

But they did pass this crap. Vote these people out.

[Anonymous]

This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

Actually QO looks pretty good. Wooton will definitely change. 80+ percent white/Asian and only 5% FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw this from Jill Ortman-Fouse's post on FB: "The language change, “*especially* strive to create diverse schools”, simply weighs demographics slightly higher than the other factors of geography, stability of school assignments, and facility utilization when setting new boundaries. It doesn’t mean the other factors won’t also be considered."

It seems like a lot of the opposition is based on a straw man characterization of what's actually proposed in the language.

I know Jill was saying "just a tiny bit more" in the meeting on 9/13 and "slightly more" above, but my (personal) interpretation of the word, "especially" means "definitely more", not "just a little bit." She actually wanted "especially and in particular" but O'Neill didn't like that combination of words.

Idiots. It means they will be considered only as a tie breaker to diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

That happened in 1998. Are you going to be like the Horizon Hill people who are still angry that they're zoned for Richard Montgomery HS instead of Wootton HS? Although, to be fair, that happened in 1987, so they have 11 years on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

I don't see QO as being top of the list for schools that may be affected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw this from Jill Ortman-Fouse's post on FB: "The language change, “*especially* strive to create diverse schools”, simply weighs demographics slightly higher than the other factors of geography, stability of school assignments, and facility utilization when setting new boundaries. It doesn’t mean the other factors won’t also be considered."

It seems like a lot of the opposition is based on a straw man characterization of what's actually proposed in the language.

I know Jill was saying "just a tiny bit more" in the meeting on 9/13 and "slightly more" above, but my (personal) interpretation of the word, "especially" means "definitely more", not "just a little bit." She actually wanted "especially and in particular" but O'Neill didn't like that combination of words.

Idiots. It means they will be considered only as a tie breaker to diversity

We don't know that. The wording is amorphous enough that it could mean almost anything. It might mean it will only be used as a tie breaker and this will be more about posturing than actual significant changes. Or it could be used to make much more drastic changes. We won't know how things actual play out until changes are proposed and made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It passed.

How lovely. Are they discussing how to avoid making the same horrible mistakes with the second curriculum attempt? Nope. Were they discussing how to change the employee conduct manual to align with other districts that do not have a weekly sex offender arrest? Why no, of course not. Were they discussing barring Discovery from bidding on the RFP ? Nada. Were they discussing the horrible PARCC scores and failures across the county? Nope.

But they did pass this crap. Vote these people out.

If you actually go to the BOE page and look at the totality of recent meetings, you'll see that this was just one small item that they've been working on. (I say this is as someone who is not a BOE booster - I'm just trying to be fair.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone looked at the options for RM #5 that they were voting on? Look at options C and D. They're busing kids all over the place past one another. In case you didn't know, they voted for Option B.
http://gis.mcpsmd.org/boundarystudypdfs/RMES5_UpdatedBOEAlternativesAE111417.pdf

Two points:

- Having lived through that RM#5 process, I don't believe that the outcome would have been any different had this policy change been in effect. In that particular case, the other factors weighed so heavily in favor of Option B (and the other similar option) that I don't think anything would have changed even if diversity was given greater weight than any of the other three. (Remember, they are not proposing that diversity gets greater weight than the other three factors combined - just that it gets more individual weight than any of the other three.)

- Part of the reason Options C and D looked somewhat crazy was that MCPS was limited to redrawing ES boundaries within the RM cluster, which is already a very gerrymandered cluster going back to when Fallsgrove was moved from Wootton to RM 15 years ago. If the same process had involved looking at boundaries from neighboring clusters (as it likely will with Crown HS), I think they could have achieved better SES diversity while coming up with maps that would have had good geographic continuity.

This policy change was introduced by Jill Ortman Fouse in response to what happened in the RMES #5 boundary study. She explicitly said so on her public Facebook page - you can go read it. Both Jill Ortman Fouse and Matt Post wanted options C and D - they did not think those looked crazy, those are the options that they wanted to be chosen. The idea behind this policy is so that options like C and D will become more likely to pass in future boundary studies.

I get that she voted that way, and that this is designed to make diversity more influential in the final decision. My point is just that, even if this new policy were in effect, I don't think it would have changed a single vote on RM#5. All it's saying is that diversity now counts for more than 25% (30? 35? who knows) - it's not saying diversity trumps every other factor.

Separately, I still go back to the fact that RM had a unique map where it was hard to balance these competing interests. I think many of the future decisions coming up are ones where there will be an opportunity to better balance diversity without resorting to anything too crazy from a geographic standpoint.

DP... I was part of the boundary change, and I think if this new policy were in effect then, more of the folks in the BOE would have given Option C and D serious consideration.

Based on what though? The new language just emphasizes diversity more - it doesn't tie anyone's hands in a circumstance like the one you're describing. Ultimately, people voted in RM#5 based on nearly unanimous feedback from residents in every cluster, and the fact that every other factor weighed so strongly towards the option they picked. (It was also a unique situation where the central office's mistake caused 12+ months of community work to be cast aside because they realized at the 11th hour that they were working off of bad data - hopefully, that type of thing never happens again.) The ES zones they left actually have very high diversity by MCPS country-wide standards. None of the 5 options that were considered (including the chosen one) would have left the type of disparity that you see between some of the HS clusters.

To me, this is a lot of hand-wringing over a fairly minor change in emphasis in the policy document that is unlikely to result in the "parade of horribles" people are suggesting.

Actually, most of the parents at the meetings wanted option A not B. To me B always made sense because under A College Gardens ES was overcapacity.

The funny part of all this is that RM may just be the most balanced school in the county as far as diversity goes.

Totally agree.. it's one of the reasons why we chose RM cluster.

And yes, A and B were the most popular because of proximity.

Option E balanced FARMs better, but most people didn't want that because of proximity - it required a longer bus ride for one group (passing 3 ESs along the way), and a walkable neighborhood to the new school would end up continuing to be bused to the school it was previously zoned for.

People who were not part of this boundary study should really take a look at the different options BOE had on the table, and the discussions around it at the BOE meeting. It got ugly. If you are going to be rezoned, get ready for lots of ugly.

With the passing of the new policy, BOE will not be putting more weight on diversity than proximity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

That happened in 1998. Are you going to be like the Horizon Hill people who are still angry that they're zoned for Richard Montgomery HS instead of Wootton HS? Although, to be fair, that happened in 1987, so they have 11 years on you.

lol.. yes the old timers in HH are still upset about it. Most of the parents with children actually in the RM cluster are fine with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

I don't see QO as being top of the list for schools that may be affected.

Then what do you see?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is bad for QO which is a shame. The school has really been growing in popularity. There are enough crowding issues at Rachel Carson that this cluster seems ripe to rip apart. They already made strange splits by taking the Darnestown kids who go to Lakelands to NW instead of QO even though the denser areas that go to Darnestown ES are right down the road from QO. Splitting off one elementary school to another high school sucks for those kids who made friends in middle school and get dumped into another school with other kids that grew up together.

I don't see QO as being top of the list for schools that may be affected.

Then what do you see?

I can only speak for QO -- racially relatively balanced and relatively high FARMS (41%). So I don't see that QO really needs to be touched.