Baltimore Sun article about Howard County rezoning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my big issues with this redistricting is why now?

A new high school will open in 2023 which will force another redistricting.

Why go through such a huge redistricting now when it's going to happen again in another few years? I think Atholton HS is going to turn over something like 40% of its student body. Crazy.

You can't tell me that won't have some kind of impact.

Why not wait until 2023? Do it once instead of twice.

Because there are several schools that are very, very overcrowded now. Fulton ES is at 120% capacity. Several other schools at the ES, MS and HS level are over 110% capacity. The schools don't have any place to put the students.

If it's about overcrowding, why are the boards stating it's about socioeconomic equity?

It's about both, eh?

That's not quite true. For instance, we can easily solve the overcrowding at McLean by moving some of those students to under-enrolled Langley. The school board won't do that, because to them, that doesn't solve what they consider to be the 'socioeconomic inequity' of Langley. So what is it about liberalism that punishes people based on the size of their wallet?

How, exactly, do you feel you are being punished? What does the punishment consist of?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

You, and some other posters on here, are very dismissive of the potential (and sizable) loss of house values due to the redistricting. People bought in River Hill district to specifically be in River Hill. Those houses were zoned for River Hill since day one (as far as I can tell). Those houses are geographically closer to River Hill than the other high schools. It is not the same as a national recession affecting everyone across the board, but a deliberate change in government policy that substantially affects your economic well-being. A good equivalent would be a government deciding, out of nowhere, to build a major interstate right alongside your house without any compensation.

The particular irony that you probably also ignore is River Hill has a very high percentage of immigrant (first or second generation) families who have worked their asses off to follow the American dream to have a nice house in a top school district. It's a goal that these families dedicated themselves to. And with a single stroke of the pen a great deal of what people worked very hard for - whether their goals and dreams for their children, or the value of their house, which is going to be their most valuable asset, is wiped away. The house value differential between the two districts is generally around 100-150k, which is a lot of money, especially for people who started with nothing and worked hard to get where they are today.

The areas being rezoned from River Hill to the other high school also isn't the richer part of the River Hill district, but the more moderate income (relatively speaking) part of the district closer to Columbia, populated by people who are more likely to have stretched themselves to get into the River Hill district. So what's going on is definitely theft. But I'm guessing you're probably a young person who is clueless about how much effort and energy and discipline it takes to become even moderately financially successful and to be able to buy just a townhouse in the River Hill district. You think it's something people can take in stride and it's no big deal. That's not how it works for most people.

I suspect there will be political blood at some point. The board or the county council will find out to their political cost if they persist in rezoning people out of River Hill. People move to Howard for the schools and when you mess up the school assignments, memories are long and knives are sharp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

You, and some other posters on here, are very dismissive of the potential (and sizable) loss of house values due to the redistricting. People bought in River Hill district to specifically be in River Hill. Those houses were zoned for River Hill since day one (as far as I can tell). Those houses are geographically closer to River Hill than the other high schools. It is not the same as a national recession affecting everyone across the board, but a deliberate change in government policy that substantially affects your economic well-being. A good equivalent would be a government deciding, out of nowhere, to build a major interstate right alongside your house without any compensation.

The particular irony that you probably also ignore is River Hill has a very high percentage of immigrant (first or second generation) families who have worked their asses off to follow the American dream to have a nice house in a top school district. It's a goal that these families dedicated themselves to. And with a single stroke of the pen a great deal of what people worked very hard for - whether their goals and dreams for their children, or the value of their house, which is going to be their most valuable asset, is wiped away. The house value differential between the two districts is generally around 100-150k, which is a lot of money, especially for people who started with nothing and worked hard to get where they are today.

The areas being rezoned from River Hill to the other high school also isn't the richer part of the River Hill district, but the more moderate income (relatively speaking) part of the district closer to Columbia, populated by people who are more likely to have stretched themselves to get into the River Hill district. So what's going on is definitely theft. But I'm guessing you're probably a young person who is clueless about how much effort and energy and discipline it takes to become even moderately financially successful and to be able to buy just a townhouse in the River Hill district. You think it's something people can take in stride and it's no big deal. That's not how it works for most people.

I suspect there will be political blood at some point. The board or the county council will find out to their political cost if they persist in rezoning people out of River Hill. People move to Howard for the schools and when you mess up the school assignments, memories are long and knives are sharp.

No, I can understand that people are upset.

But the Howard County Board of Education is not there to maintain your property values. Particularly when your current property values are a product of previous Howard County Board of Education decisions. The Board of Education giveth, the Board of Education taketh away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ok, a few schools are overcrowded. Fix those schools then. You don't need to impact 7300+ students to fix overcrowding.

Make the big moves in 2023 when you have to make them anyway. Instead, they want to make a huge move now when everyone knows another huge move is coming a couple years later. We'll be talking about redistricting again right after finishing this one.

Families are being tossed around like ping pong balls. The proposal should have been much more modest.

Why would one new high school involve a "huge move", but fixing a few overcrowded schools doesn't have to?

How are families being tossed around like ping pong balls?

We don't need to move 7300 students to fix overcrowding. Move the minimum number of students to fix overcrowding. Do the big "equity fixing" in 2023 so some families don't have to keep switching.

This redistricting pushes a lot of students westward because that's where the capacity is. Opening a new school is going to pull some students back eastward because that's where the new high school is.

You think pulling families back and forth is good for the families? 3 major redistrictings in 5 years is too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We don't need to move 7300 students to fix overcrowding. Move the minimum number of students to fix overcrowding. Do the big "equity fixing" in 2023 so some families don't have to keep switching.

This redistricting pushes a lot of students westward because that's where the capacity is. Opening a new school is going to pull some students back eastward because that's where the new high school is.

You think pulling families back and forth is good for the families? 3 major redistrictings in 5 years is too much.

Why not now? Do the big fix now, do a smaller rezoning just for the high school in 2023.

[Anonymous]

We don't need to move 7300 students to fix overcrowding. Move the minimum number of students to fix overcrowding. Do the big "equity fixing" in 2023 so some families don't have to keep switching.

This redistricting pushes a lot of students westward because that's where the capacity is. Opening a new school is going to pull some students back eastward because that's where the new high school is.

You think pulling families back and forth is good for the families? 3 major redistrictings in 5 years is too much.

The situation two years from now is not going to be the same as the situation now. Familes are not going to be pulled back east. There are thousands of residential units in the pipeline, many of them high density units in the eastern/southeastern part of the county. With capacity already severely strained, there will be no way to accomodate the new units unless some of the population is pushed to the west.

In addition, the new development is largely moderate to lower income. The county has decided that this development is necessary, and the expanded tax base benefits the entire county. Given that the entire county benefits, why should only certain areas have to bear the burden of development?

I understand the outcry, and certainly concur that better planning should have been done. I also question if the economic benefit of all of this development outweighs the infrastructure improvements that are needed to support it (but largely not being made)

But putting the debate about governmental development policies aside, the only thing HCPSS can do is address the population before them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my big issues with this redistricting is why now?

A new high school will open in 2023 which will force another redistricting.

Why go through such a huge redistricting now when it's going to happen again in another few years? I think Atholton HS is going to turn over something like 40% of its student body. Crazy.

You can't tell me that won't have some kind of impact.

Why not wait until 2023? Do it once instead of twice.

Because there are several schools that are very, very overcrowded now. Fulton ES is at 120% capacity. Several other schools at the ES, MS and HS level are over 110% capacity. The schools don't have any place to put the students.

If it's about overcrowding, why are the boards stating it's about socioeconomic equity?

It's about both, eh?

That's not quite true. For instance, we can easily solve the overcrowding at McLean by moving some of those students to under-enrolled Langley. The school board won't do that, because to them, that doesn't solve what they consider to be the 'socioeconomic inequity' of Langley. So what is it about liberalism that punishes people based on the size of their wallet?

This is SO true. We have two elementary schools near us. One is at 75% capacity and another has 6 portables. They are 1 mile apart. A one neighborhood redistrict that is touched by both boundaries, that would have given kids the ability to walk to ES instead of bus (that is a cost savings, correct?) was not even thought of or discussed further when mentioned at 2 board meetings. Why? Because it would have slanted the socioeconomic of the 75% a little better than it was and the other ES for the worse. It was CRICKETS when that idea was proposed. We know they are waiting on this multi million dollar boundary study to get done so they can cherry pick who goes where and break up the neighborhoods that have been together for almost 5 decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

Actually, we ARE entitled to what we earned. We worked for it. What's entitled is others thinking THEY are entitled to our hard-earned wealth. Can you tell me why we should be forced to give away what we worked for?

Nobody's taking your hard-earned wealth, and you're not giving anything away.

The money you put into your property is an investment, just like the money you put into the stock market. There's no guaranteed return on investment. It's a gamble. Sometimes you win (when you go to sell, the sales price is higher than the price you paid to buy), sometimes you break even (when you go to sell, the sales price is about the same as the price you paid to buy), sometimes you lose (when you go to sell, the sales price is lower than the price you paid to buy). If you can't tolerate that risk, then you shouldn't buy property. Rent, let your landlord take the risk, and put your money in a federally-insured bank account.

In this case, Government is deliberately shifting boundaries to meet socio-economic equity goals. This means punishing one class of people to benefit another. This is social engineering designed specifically to pick my pocket. That is most definitely deliberately taking something from me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We don't need to move 7300 students to fix overcrowding. Move the minimum number of students to fix overcrowding. Do the big "equity fixing" in 2023 so some families don't have to keep switching.

This redistricting pushes a lot of students westward because that's where the capacity is. Opening a new school is going to pull some students back eastward because that's where the new high school is.

You think pulling families back and forth is good for the families? 3 major redistrictings in 5 years is too much.

The situation two years from now is not going to be the same as the situation now. Familes are not going to be pulled back east. There are thousands of residential units in the pipeline, many of them high density units in the eastern/southeastern part of the county. With capacity already severely strained, there will be no way to accomodate the new units unless some of the population is pushed to the west.

In addition, the new development is largely moderate to lower income. The county has decided that this development is necessary, and the expanded tax base benefits the entire county. Given that the entire county benefits, why should only certain areas have to bear the burden of development?

I understand the outcry, and certainly concur that better planning should have been done. I also question if the economic benefit of all of this development outweighs the infrastructure improvements that are needed to support it (but largely not being made)

But putting the debate about governmental development policies aside, the only thing HCPSS can do is address the population before them.

A very easy solution is to move any new developments to the under crowded schools. If they want to continue building more and more without new schools, then just send the new developments to the districts with the lowest capacity. If they are already moving kids all over, just move the kids that don't have roots yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

Actually, we ARE entitled to what we earned. We worked for it. What's entitled is others thinking THEY are entitled to our hard-earned wealth. Can you tell me why we should be forced to give away what we worked for?

Nobody's taking your hard-earned wealth, and you're not giving anything away.

The money you put into your property is an investment, just like the money you put into the stock market. There's no guaranteed return on investment. It's a gamble. Sometimes you win (when you go to sell, the sales price is higher than the price you paid to buy), sometimes you break even (when you go to sell, the sales price is about the same as the price you paid to buy), sometimes you lose (when you go to sell, the sales price is lower than the price you paid to buy). If you can't tolerate that risk, then you shouldn't buy property. Rent, let your landlord take the risk, and put your money in a federally-insured bank account.

In this case, Government is deliberately shifting boundaries to meet socio-economic equity goals. This means punishing one class of people to benefit another. This is social engineering designed specifically to pick my pocket. That is most definitely deliberately taking something from me.

+1

[Anonymous]

For those that oppose Dr. Martirano's redistricting plan in Howard County please come out this Saturday, September 14th from 12-1 p.m. to protest at the Walk The Mall Event. The event will be held at Columbia Mall. For more information go here. https://scotteblog.com/2019/09/07/walk-the-mall-event-to-oppose-the-hcpss-redistricting-plan-expected-to-be-covered-by-multiple-media-outlets/

Also, please join the Howard County School Redistricting Opposition group on Facebook if you are against this redistricting plan. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2481593048731404/?fref=nf

Please share this information with your neighbors who oppose this plan. Also, feel free to organize your own community meeting with your neighbors to discuss this plan, voting out county council members who are for this plan, and voting out BOE members who are for this plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

Actually, we ARE entitled to what we earned. We worked for it. What's entitled is others thinking THEY are entitled to our hard-earned wealth. Can you tell me why we should be forced to give away what we worked for?

Nobody's taking your hard-earned wealth, and you're not giving anything away.

The money you put into your property is an investment, just like the money you put into the stock market. There's no guaranteed return on investment. It's a gamble. Sometimes you win (when you go to sell, the sales price is higher than the price you paid to buy), sometimes you break even (when you go to sell, the sales price is about the same as the price you paid to buy), sometimes you lose (when you go to sell, the sales price is lower than the price you paid to buy). If you can't tolerate that risk, then you shouldn't buy property. Rent, let your landlord take the risk, and put your money in a federally-insured bank account.

In this case, Government is deliberately shifting boundaries to meet socio-economic equity goals. This means punishing one class of people to benefit another. This is social engineering designed specifically to pick my pocket. That is most definitely deliberately taking something from me.

Government policies very frequently have socioeconomic goals. For example, if you live in an area where only single-family detached houses are allowed, that is a policy with socioeconomic goals - one might call it social engineering. Transportation policies that favor some modes of transportation over others (for example, driving over taking buses or walking) are also social engineering. If rezoning for socioeconomic equity is social engineering, then so were the zoning decisions that established and maintained the socioeconomic inequity.

But is the policy designed specifically to make you poorer? I seriously doubt it. I mean, maybe the Board of Education has been meeting secretly in Columbia's smoky back rooms, saying, "Ha ha! Let's do a bunch of stuff so that affluent people will lose money! Wheeeee!", but it seems unlikely. More likely, the policy is designed to balance capacity issues and make sure that the poor kids aren't all in these schools over there while the rich kids are in those schools over here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A very easy solution is to move any new developments to the under crowded schools. If they want to continue building more and more without new schools, then just send the new developments to the districts with the lowest capacity. If they are already moving kids all over, just move the kids that don't have roots yet.

So much for the "keep communities together" and "no long bus trips" arguments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

You, and some other posters on here, are very dismissive of the potential (and sizable) loss of house values due to the redistricting. People bought in River Hill district to specifically be in River Hill. Those houses were zoned for River Hill since day one (as far as I can tell). Those houses are geographically closer to River Hill than the other high schools. It is not the same as a national recession affecting everyone across the board, but a deliberate change in government policy that substantially affects your economic well-being. A good equivalent would be a government deciding, out of nowhere, to build a major interstate right alongside your house without any compensation.

The particular irony that you probably also ignore is River Hill has a very high percentage of immigrant (first or second generation) families who have worked their asses off to follow the American dream to have a nice house in a top school district. It's a goal that these families dedicated themselves to. And with a single stroke of the pen a great deal of what people worked very hard for - whether their goals and dreams for their children, or the value of their house, which is going to be their most valuable asset, is wiped away. The house value differential between the two districts is generally around 100-150k, which is a lot of money, especially for people who started with nothing and worked hard to get where they are today.

The areas being rezoned from River Hill to the other high school also isn't the richer part of the River Hill district, but the more moderate income (relatively speaking) part of the district closer to Columbia, populated by people who are more likely to have stretched themselves to get into the River Hill district. So what's going on is definitely theft. But I'm guessing you're probably a young person who is clueless about how much effort and energy and discipline it takes to become even moderately financially successful and to be able to buy just a townhouse in the River Hill district. You think it's something people can take in stride and it's no big deal. That's not how it works for most people.

I suspect there will be political blood at some point. The board or the county council will find out to their political cost if they persist in rezoning people out of River Hill. People move to Howard for the schools and when you mess up the school assignments, memories are long and knives are sharp.

No, I can understand that people are upset.

But the Howard County Board of Education is not there to maintain your property values. Particularly when your current property values are a product of previous Howard County Board of Education decisions. The Board of Education giveth, the Board of Education taketh away.

That's not quite true.

County funding and resources and curriculum standards for schools is uniform across the board. What made River Hill more desirable than Wilde Lake was market forces driven by the people themselves. The county didn't set up River Hill / Clarksville to become a high end district, it naturally evolved that way. The same for the Columbia districts themselves. So the county didn't make River Hill a prestigious high school any more it made Wilde Lake a less than desirable school (actually, Wilde Lake is perfectly fine). It was the individual actions of homeowners and people's own decisions that led to River Hill being River Hill today. What the county is doing is interfering with the individual decisions and market forces by abruptly distorting it.

If we want to accept your theory, we could also argue that there's a strong case to be made that the county acted in bad faith to the River Hill homeowners. A government does not exist in isolation of the people, it's supposed to represent the people but clearly the county is not representing the affected families and homeowners either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't with the posters who think believe that

1. the purpose of school boundaries is to maintain the property values of affluent property owners.
2. the purpose of school boundary changes is to punish "the professional classes" by making their kids go to the same public schools poor people's kids go to.

Talk about entitlement and victimhood.

Actually, we ARE entitled to what we earned. We worked for it. What's entitled is others thinking THEY are entitled to our hard-earned wealth. Can you tell me why we should be forced to give away what we worked for?

Nobody's taking your hard-earned wealth, and you're not giving anything away.

The money you put into your property is an investment, just like the money you put into the stock market. There's no guaranteed return on investment. It's a gamble. Sometimes you win (when you go to sell, the sales price is higher than the price you paid to buy), sometimes you break even (when you go to sell, the sales price is about the same as the price you paid to buy), sometimes you lose (when you go to sell, the sales price is lower than the price you paid to buy). If you can't tolerate that risk, then you shouldn't buy property. Rent, let your landlord take the risk, and put your money in a federally-insured bank account.

In this case, Government is deliberately shifting boundaries to meet socio-economic equity goals. This means punishing one class of people to benefit another. This is social engineering designed specifically to pick my pocket. That is most definitely deliberately taking something from me.

Government policies very frequently have socioeconomic goals. For example, if you live in an area where only single-family detached houses are allowed, that is a policy with socioeconomic goals - one might call it social engineering. Transportation policies that favor some modes of transportation over others (for example, driving over taking buses or walking) are also social engineering. If rezoning for socioeconomic equity is social engineering, then so were the zoning decisions that established and maintained the socioeconomic inequity.

But is the policy designed specifically to make you poorer? I seriously doubt it. I mean, maybe the Board of Education has been meeting secretly in Columbia's smoky back rooms, saying, "Ha ha! Let's do a bunch of stuff so that affluent people will lose money! Wheeeee!", but it seems unlikely. More likely, the policy is designed to balance capacity issues and make sure that the poor kids aren't all in these schools over there while the rich kids are in those schools over here.

Mildly curious - are there actual problems in the Columbia schools? I mean, we're talking about Howard County schools, not Baltimore schools.

River Hill is partly in Columbia so it does have a mix of apartments/condos/townhouses along with SFH. The proposed county shifts will, from what I can tell, mostly move kids from the more affordable parts of River Hill to Wilde Lake while the richer kids in the bigger houses deeper in Clarksville are largely unaffected, so it's rather ironic. The county may have good intentions, and I don't doubt it, but you also cannot forget or ignore that those "good intentions" have significant financial implications for the affected homeowners. That is also not fair and needs to be addressed realistically. The government's job is not to punish people or to disregard their well-being.