The Facts About the Districtwide Boundary Analysis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Translation: Instead of fixing broken schools, we're going to use "diversity" as an excuse to bus the problem around.

That is the exact opposite of what the letter said.

[Anonymous]

I've posted this a million times on DCUM already, in other threads, but my DC went to a high-FARMS school one year. Almost everyone got free lunch, and everyone qualified for free breakfast -- all they had to do was show up. My DC was the only white kid in their class for half the school year (then one other white kid was transferred into his class around Christmas). The parents of many of these kids could speak practically no English at all.

The school was kick-ass. Every single teacher, right down to the gym teacher and the art teacher, was top-notch. That was one of the best years we've had at any MCPS school. My kid learned so much -- and was excited about what they'd learned in school every afternoon.

Besides that, I know that life is what you make it. Plenty of people go to less-than-stellar schools and grow up to be successful. Many kids grow up in the best schools and fail.

Roll with it. Your family is way more influential on your kids than their school is anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've posted this a million times on DCUM already, in other threads, but my DC went to a high-FARMS school one year. Almost everyone got free lunch, and everyone qualified for free breakfast -- all they had to do was show up. My DC was the only white kid in their class for half the school year (then one other white kid was transferred into his class around Christmas). The parents of many of these kids could speak practically no English at all.

The school was kick-ass. Every single teacher, right down to the gym teacher and the art teacher, was top-notch. That was one of the best years we've had at any MCPS school. My kid learned so much -- and was excited about what they'd learned in school every afternoon.

Besides that, I know that life is what you make it. Plenty of people go to less-than-stellar schools and grow up to be successful. Many kids grow up in the best schools and fail.

Roll with it. Your family is way more influential on your kids than their school is anyway.

I had a similar experience with Dd ES. We moved to a W pyramid after second grade and I liked the fist (Focus) school much better. However, that was ES. In high school, I think many are worried about potential safety issues (gangs, etc.). In fact, the reason we moved was that I heard about gang issues in the MS we were set to go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once an immigrant came to the U.S. The big man on the campus did not want to hear his ideas. But, somehow this poor immigrant got someone to hear his ideas. Now we have electricity because of that man, while the guy who tried to discredit him killed elephants to prove that immigrant wrong. Imagine what we could have if we let immigrants into better schools?

Fortunately all the trumpers on this board don't run mcps.

Yep. These threads have been eye opening! I live surrounded by bigots who only talk about inclusivity, but ran away if actually faced with it. Nothing has been even said! The future of education in MCPS is white kids in private schools, others in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've posted this a million times on DCUM already, in other threads, but my DC went to a high-FARMS school one year. Almost everyone got free lunch, and everyone qualified for free breakfast -- all they had to do was show up. My DC was the only white kid in their class for half the school year (then one other white kid was transferred into his class around Christmas). The parents of many of these kids could speak practically no English at all.

The school was kick-ass. Every single teacher, right down to the gym teacher and the art teacher, was top-notch. That was one of the best years we've had at any MCPS school. My kid learned so much -- and was excited about what they'd learned in school every afternoon.

Besides that, I know that life is what you make it. Plenty of people go to less-than-stellar schools and grow up to be successful. Many kids grow up in the best schools and fail.

Roll with it. Your family is way more influential on your kids than their school is anyway.

I had a similar experience with Dd ES. We moved to a W pyramid after second grade and I liked the fist (Focus) school much better. However, that was ES. In high school, I think many are worried about potential safety issues (gangs, etc.). In fact, the reason we moved was that I heard about gang issues in the MS we were set to go to.

I have heard a lot about gang issues at the MS my child attends. Which is a bit surprising, because this is her third year there, and the number of gang issues so far has been 0.

[Anonymous]

The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

No, the word was not added in at the last minute. And diversity was already a factor. The only change was the addition of the word "especially".

Why did they add it in? Presumably because they want the options to especially strive to create a diversre student body in each of the affected schools.

Now, please explain how this relates to potential legal action related to the boundary analysis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

No, the word was not added in at the last minute. And diversity was already a factor. The only change was the addition of the word "especially".

Why did they add it in? Presumably because they want the options to especially strive to create a diversre student body in each of the affected schools.

Now, please explain how this relates to potential legal action related to the boundary analysis.

If you look at Regulation FAA-RA, it goes into further detail:

Options should
especially strive to create a diverse student body in each of the
affected schools in alignment with Board Policy ACD, Quality
Integrated Education. This means that a key consideration is
significant disparity in the demographic characteristics between
schools in the affected geographic areas that cannot be justified by
any other factor.

Emphasis mine. This means that diversity does not trump all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

No, the word was not added in at the last minute. And diversity was already a factor. The only change was the addition of the word "especially".

Why did they add it in? Presumably because they want the options to especially strive to create a diversre student body in each of the affected schools.

Now, please explain how this relates to potential legal action related to the boundary analysis.

If you look at Regulation FAA-RA, it goes into further detail:

Options should
especially strive to create a diverse student body in each of the
affected schools in alignment with Board Policy ACD, Quality
Integrated Education. This means that a key consideration is
significant disparity in the demographic characteristics between
schools in the affected geographic areas that cannot be justified by
any other factor.

Emphasis mine. This means that diversity does not trump all.

And in fact this was demonstrated in the upcounty study when the option which did the most to advance the demographics factor was NOT selected, because it was not acceptable per the geography factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

No, the word was not added in at the last minute. And diversity was already a factor. The only change was the addition of the word "especially".

Why did they add it in? Presumably because they want the options to especially strive to create a diversre student body in each of the affected schools.

Now, please explain how this relates to potential legal action related to the boundary analysis.

I don’t think it matters, but it was added as an amendment made after the revised policy was put out publicly for comments. So it’s a change that people did not have the opportunity to comment on before it was adopted. Whether one thinks that is “last minute” or somehow sneaky or nefarious, well, I don’t but you’re going to think what you’re going to think.

I believe it was added because some individuals were very upset that in the RM ES #5 boundary study Twinbrook was left with a much higher FARMs Emirates than the other cluster ESs. It was not the Twinbrook community that was upset about it, it was other people in the system who didn’t think it should be ok for one ES in a cluster to have that much higher if a FARMs rate than the others.

[Anonymous]

Why don't people against this propose a law that kids can only go X distance away from their homes to go to school? That way MCPS wouldn't have any say in the matter and would solve the "problem" and if MCPS wants to address equity issues, they can make every single school just as good as any other school in the system, no matter who the student body population is made up of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't people against this propose a law that kids can only go X distance away from their homes to go to school? That way MCPS wouldn't have any say in the matter and would solve the "problem" and if MCPS wants to address equity issues, they can make every single school just as good as any other school in the system, no matter who the student body population is made up of.

In order to accomplish this, guess what MCPS would have to do? Change a lot of current school boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

No, the word was not added in at the last minute. And diversity was already a factor. The only change was the addition of the word "especially".

Why did they add it in? Presumably because they want the options to especially strive to create a diversre student body in each of the affected schools.

Now, please explain how this relates to potential legal action related to the boundary analysis.

I don’t think it matters, but it was added as an amendment made after the revised policy was put out publicly for comments. So it’s a change that people did not have the opportunity to comment on before it was adopted. Whether one thinks that is “last minute” or somehow sneaky or nefarious, well, I don’t but you’re going to think what you’re going to think.

I believe it was added because some individuals were very upset that in the RM ES #5 boundary study Twinbrook was left with a much higher FARMs Emirates than the other cluster ESs. It was not the Twinbrook community that was upset about it, it was other people in the system who didn’t think it should be ok for one ES in a cluster to have that much higher if a FARMs rate than the others.

Doesn’t matter? It does matter. A lot. Because we live in a democracy.

[Anonymous]

In fact, one of the Board members moved to separate this out to allow for that comment but couldn’t get anyone to second that motion.

The video of that meeting is moving as you see how they’ve struggled with this, as well as educational on the process and the history. Highly recommend watching to anyone interested in this. These are hard choices the BOE must make.

Nothing but respect for ALL of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary decisions will be made in line with MCPS policy FAA, which the board approved recently, and which according to the RFP, the consultant should follow:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf

Have a look at page 7, section G (2)(a):

Analyses of options take into account the impact of various options on the
overall populations of affected schools. Options should especially strive to
create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment
with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education.

Emphasis mine. That word was added in at the last minute before they approved the policy (and there was some objection by a few board members -- it's in the minutes).

Now.. why did they add that in? To me, that shows diversity trumps the other factors.

No, the word was not added in at the last minute. And diversity was already a factor. The only change was the addition of the word "especially".

Why did they add it in? Presumably because they want the options to especially strive to create a diversre student body in each of the affected schools.

Now, please explain how this relates to potential legal action related to the boundary analysis.

If you look at Regulation FAA-RA, it goes into further detail:

Options should
especially strive to create a diverse student body in each of the
affected schools in alignment with Board Policy ACD, Quality
Integrated Education. This means that a key consideration is
significant disparity in the demographic characteristics between
schools in the affected geographic areas that cannot be justified by
any other factor.

Emphasis mine. This means that diversity does not trump all.

And in fact this was demonstrated in the upcounty study when the option which did the most to advance the demographics factor was NOT selected, because it was not acceptable per the geography factor.

Option 4 was only put in there so the BOE could say that. It was never a real option. They still took an option that didn't optimize geography and facility utilization. They took an option that definitely prioritized demographics over facility and geography.