Woodward HS boundary study - BCC, Blair, Einstein, WJ, Kennedy, Northwood, Wheaton, Whitman impacts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Extending Northwood's use of the holding school for three years is really a terrible thing. The community wanted a holding school in the DCC but MCPS forced Woodward, which families were at least ok with because it would be new.

But how long are the kids not going to have athletic facilities or performing arts spaces...for a school that has a performing arts academy?

Plus Northwood is one of the poorer schools and transportation is an issue. They are flat out going to be eliminating many parents from being able to engage at all with their child's school for up to 75% of their high school career.

What other options were there that were less bad than Woodward?

There was an option discussed of an urban campus in DTSS or utilizing space on the Adventist campus in TkPk. Both would have required MCPS to spend more money, though, so Woodward was the best option.

A lot more money, I'm guessing.

Yes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/BAEVW7736805/$file/Northwood%20HS%20Holding%20Ctr%20Eval%20MGT%20Consulting%20Grp%20190314%20PPT.pdf

?

It appears the costs were fractional of that required to build Woodward. There was also a failure of vision.

Why didn't they sue to void the ridiculous contract that rules the old Montgomery Hills JHS property and combine that with the Woodlin property (which ended up being demolished anyway) to make a HS-sized holding school, needing, then, only to find space for an ES? How about refurbish the old Blair as a holding school and find smaller spaces for SSIMS and SCES? Perhaps the complete old Parkside property, asking the private-use Acorn Hill Waldorf to move? Perhaps one of the other options rejected for a HS but suitable for a MS? Perhaps one of the other options for an area elementary school rejected a decade ago over vocal objection from community members participating in the review because MCPS presented jaded views of the options and wouldn't evaluate independent ideas? Too many sacred cows and not enough dedication to the area, in comparison to that given others (though not exactly great, there, either).

Sure, they don't want to spend $. But their mandate should be to provide reasonably equivalent educational services, including facilities, to each community in the county, not to provide similar funding to each. The "it's their turn" approach only works when the turns result in that equivalence and are jiggered to address, for the most part, whatever facilities are most presently at a deficit in relation to others -- not aimed simply to spread facility improvement activity across the county. Unfortunately, MCPS hasn't lived up to that.

They were already going to build Woodward regardless, as a new high school. The idea of using it as a holding school was not the original purpose. These costs would have been in addition to the Woodward costs, not instead of.

But I agree with your other suggestions that should have been considered.

They didn't move forward to approve Woodward until they had dispensed with the idea of a HS serving the lower DCC area, then justifying Woodward with the idea that it amd the Northwood expansion would do the job.

The language they used was nebulous, failing to provide any of the specifics that they floated as ideas offline to ensure support. Totally unsurprising that they'd been walking back the commitment bit by bit ever since, but I doubt they will be able to dispense with it entirely. Then again, if past behaviors tell us anything...

It would have been nice if they added a new DCC school but they had this land and property. They need to redraw all the lines but a DCC school makes no sense.

Um, it makes sense to place services where they are needed.

Then they need to add another school DCC not in Bethesda/Rockville for DCC kids.

There's a shortage of affordable real estate down county. Woodward works - barely - but it's small.

Housing is more affordable DCC. Woodward is no where near DCC. They need another hs dcc but that’s not happening. Multiple other schools also need replaced.

Where is the 30 to 40 acres an MCPS HS needs?

MCPS says minimum preferred site size of 35 acres. That's for their current school design, which is based on a site size of 35 acres. It's obviously possible to put a school on a smaller site (see BCC), but they would have to use a different school design. I don't know how much of their school design is based on "This is how we do it because this is how we do it," and how much is based on state requirements.

This big issue is that structured parking gets really expensive really quickly, and is really easy for students to misbehave in.

A paved parking lot costs somewhere around $2500 per space. Structured parking is $25,000 and up per space. MCPS doesn't like structured parking!

The fact that BCC has parking beyond the bare minimum is ridiculous in a metro-accessible school on major bus lines with public parking garages 1.5 blocks away.

I agree. And the public parking garages have plenty of extra space, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During rush hour, I can go from my home near Northwood to an appointment near Woodward in about 25-30 minutes, but that doesn't count time in drop off lines, etc. They really need to make sure that this delay comes with money to support more activity buses and ways for parents to be connected with the school.

So, basically an hour round trip. If you can get there, you also have to factor in the fact that parents either need to do that trip twice (or more, we often drop off/pick up at the HS multiple times a day - before school, after school, then return a few hours later (usually 2-3 times a week) in the eventing for practice or an event/game. So, four trips for one child (or more with two or more kids). That doesn't include outside activity travel too.

Even with the school being close, to get in the pick up line, I often go 30 minutes before the end of school, so pick up takes me about 45 minutes and that's for a local school a few miles away.

Yep, having children can be burdensome like that. If more parents had their kids ride the buses, the pickup lines would not be so long.

Look, I would oppose assigning anyone in the Northwood cluster to Woodward. I can't imagine they are planning that. But the Wheaton and Einstein clusters are west of the Northwood cluster and therefore be more reasonable. But those kids will still have to get to school and back, which I get, is annoying and inconvenient.

And to clarify, I mean planning permanently assigning the Northwood kids to Woodward. Obviously, they will have to be bussed to the holding school, which sucks, but if you don't have a better solution it's pointless to whine about it.

The solution is to make Northwood bigger and to replace Einstein and make it bigger as well. Einstein is falling apart. Or, buy land somewhere and build another high school down county. All the new HS are focused on mid-upper county. They also should have made Wheaton bigger when they replaced Wheaton. But, moving DCC kids mid-county is not a solution, especially when many of the families are lower-mid income and the distance/transportation is a problem and there is no easy transportation to Woodward from DCC.

They did. Wheaton's capacity is 2,237 now and it used to be 1,677.

They should have made it for 2500-2800. Its not nearly big enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During rush hour, I can go from my home near Northwood to an appointment near Woodward in about 25-30 minutes, but that doesn't count time in drop off lines, etc. They really need to make sure that this delay comes with money to support more activity buses and ways for parents to be connected with the school.

So, basically an hour round trip. If you can get there, you also have to factor in the fact that parents either need to do that trip twice (or more, we often drop off/pick up at the HS multiple times a day - before school, after school, then return a few hours later (usually 2-3 times a week) in the eventing for practice or an event/game. So, four trips for one child (or more with two or more kids). That doesn't include outside activity travel too.

Even with the school being close, to get in the pick up line, I often go 30 minutes before the end of school, so pick up takes me about 45 minutes and that's for a local school a few miles away.

Yep, having children can be burdensome like that. If more parents had their kids ride the buses, the pickup lines would not be so long.

Look, I would oppose assigning anyone in the Northwood cluster to Woodward. I can't imagine they are planning that. But the Wheaton and Einstein clusters are west of the Northwood cluster and therefore be more reasonable. But those kids will still have to get to school and back, which I get, is annoying and inconvenient.

And to clarify, I mean planning permanently assigning the Northwood kids to Woodward. Obviously, they will have to be bussed to the holding school, which sucks, but if you don't have a better solution it's pointless to whine about it.

The solution is to make Northwood bigger and to replace Einstein and make it bigger as well. Einstein is falling apart. Or, buy land somewhere and build another high school down county. All the new HS are focused on mid-upper county. They also should have made Wheaton bigger when they replaced Wheaton. But, moving DCC kids mid-county is not a solution, especially when many of the families are lower-mid income and the distance/transportation is a problem and there is no easy transportation to Woodward from DCC.

They did. Wheaton's capacity is 2,237 now and it used to be 1,677.

They should have made it for 2500-2800. Its not nearly big enough.

MCPS preferred range for high school size is 1,600 to 2,400 students.

[Anonymous]

Woodward wouldn’t have had to be reduced if the council hadn’t cut impact taxes. Friedson thinks developer profits are more important than expanding schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Woodward wouldn’t have had to be reduced if the council hadn’t cut impact taxes. Friedson thinks developer profits are more important than expanding schools.

In the new CIP, Woodward's capacity is shown as 2249, slightly up from 2159 in last year's. I wonder what changed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extending Northwood's use of the holding school for three years is really a terrible thing. The community wanted a holding school in the DCC but MCPS forced Woodward, which families were at least ok with because it would be new.

But how long are the kids not going to have athletic facilities or performing arts spaces...for a school that has a performing arts academy?

Plus Northwood is one of the poorer schools and transportation is an issue. They are flat out going to be eliminating many parents from being able to engage at all with their child's school for up to 75% of their high school career.

What other options were there that were less bad than Woodward?

There was an option discussed of an urban campus in DTSS or utilizing space on the Adventist campus in TkPk. Both would have required MCPS to spend more money, though, so Woodward was the best option.

A lot more money, I'm guessing.

Yes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/BAEVW7736805/$file/Northwood%20HS%20Holding%20Ctr%20Eval%20MGT%20Consulting%20Grp%20190314%20PPT.pdf

?

It appears the costs were fractional of that required to build Woodward. There was also a failure of vision.

Why didn't they sue to void the ridiculous contract that rules the old Montgomery Hills JHS property and combine that with the Woodlin property (which ended up being demolished anyway) to make a HS-sized holding school, needing, then, only to find space for an ES? How about refurbish the old Blair as a holding school and find smaller spaces for SSIMS and SCES? Perhaps the complete old Parkside property, asking the private-use Acorn Hill Waldorf to move? Perhaps one of the other options rejected for a HS but suitable for a MS? Perhaps one of the other options for an area elementary school rejected a decade ago over vocal objection from community members participating in the review because MCPS presented jaded views of the options and wouldn't evaluate independent ideas? Too many sacred cows and not enough dedication to the area, in comparison to that given others (though not exactly great, there, either).

Sure, they don't want to spend $. But their mandate should be to provide reasonably equivalent educational services, including facilities, to each community in the county, not to provide similar funding to each. The "it's their turn" approach only works when the turns result in that equivalence and are jiggered to address, for the most part, whatever facilities are most presently at a deficit in relation to others -- not aimed simply to spread facility improvement activity across the county. Unfortunately, MCPS hasn't lived up to that.

They were already going to build Woodward regardless, as a new high school. The idea of using it as a holding school was not the original purpose. These costs would have been in addition to the Woodward costs, not instead of.

But I agree with your other suggestions that should have been considered.

They didn't move forward to approve Woodward until they had dispensed with the idea of a HS serving the lower DCC area, then justifying Woodward with the idea that it amd the Northwood expansion would do the job.

The language they used was nebulous, failing to provide any of the specifics that they floated as ideas offline to ensure support. Totally unsurprising that they'd been walking back the commitment bit by bit ever since, but I doubt they will be able to dispense with it entirely. Then again, if past behaviors tell us anything...

It would have been nice if they added a new DCC school but they had this land and property. They need to redraw all the lines but a DCC school makes no sense.

Um, it makes sense to place services where they are needed.

Then they need to add another school DCC not in Bethesda/Rockville for DCC kids.

There's a shortage of affordable real estate down county. Woodward works - barely - but it's small.

Housing is more affordable DCC. Woodward is no where near DCC. They need another hs dcc but that’s not happening. Multiple other schools also need replaced.

Where is the 30 to 40 acres an MCPS HS needs?

MCPS says minimum preferred site size of 35 acres. That's for their current school design, which is based on a site size of 35 acres. It's obviously possible to put a school on a smaller site (see BCC), but they would have to use a different school design. I don't know how much of their school design is based on "This is how we do it because this is how we do it," and how much is based on state requirements.

This big issue is that structured parking gets really expensive really quickly, and is really easy for students to misbehave in.

A paved parking lot costs somewhere around $2500 per space. Structured parking is $25,000 and up per space. MCPS doesn't like structured parking!

The fact that BCC has parking beyond the bare minimum is ridiculous in a metro-accessible school on major bus lines with public parking garages 1.5 blocks away.

I agree. And the public parking garages have plenty of extra space, too.

I disagree. It’s bad enough I have to pay nearly $2 an hour to park to run an errand in Bethesda. It is not fair or reasonable to expect teachers to pay that hourly amount or pay round trip daily bus/metro fares (plus metro parking) to go to work at a suburban public high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During rush hour, I can go from my home near Northwood to an appointment near Woodward in about 25-30 minutes, but that doesn't count time in drop off lines, etc. They really need to make sure that this delay comes with money to support more activity buses and ways for parents to be connected with the school.

So, basically an hour round trip. If you can get there, you also have to factor in the fact that parents either need to do that trip twice (or more, we often drop off/pick up at the HS multiple times a day - before school, after school, then return a few hours later (usually 2-3 times a week) in the eventing for practice or an event/game. So, four trips for one child (or more with two or more kids). That doesn't include outside activity travel too.

Even with the school being close, to get in the pick up line, I often go 30 minutes before the end of school, so pick up takes me about 45 minutes and that's for a local school a few miles away.

Yep, having children can be burdensome like that. If more parents had their kids ride the buses, the pickup lines would not be so long.

Look, I would oppose assigning anyone in the Northwood cluster to Woodward. I can't imagine they are planning that. But the Wheaton and Einstein clusters are west of the Northwood cluster and therefore be more reasonable. But those kids will still have to get to school and back, which I get, is annoying and inconvenient.

And to clarify, I mean planning permanently assigning the Northwood kids to Woodward. Obviously, they will have to be bussed to the holding school, which sucks, but if you don't have a better solution it's pointless to whine about it.

The solution is to make Northwood bigger and to replace Einstein and make it bigger as well. Einstein is falling apart. Or, buy land somewhere and build another high school down county. All the new HS are focused on mid-upper county. They also should have made Wheaton bigger when they replaced Wheaton. But, moving DCC kids mid-county is not a solution, especially when many of the families are lower-mid income and the distance/transportation is a problem and there is no easy transportation to Woodward from DCC.

They did. Wheaton's capacity is 2,237 now and it used to be 1,677.

They should have made it for 2500-2800. Its not nearly big enough.

MCPS preferred range for high school size is 1,600 to 2,400 students.

Preferred and reality are two different things. Otherwise they need 1-2 more HS down county.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extending Northwood's use of the holding school for three years is really a terrible thing. The community wanted a holding school in the DCC but MCPS forced Woodward, which families were at least ok with because it would be new.

But how long are the kids not going to have athletic facilities or performing arts spaces...for a school that has a performing arts academy?

Plus Northwood is one of the poorer schools and transportation is an issue. They are flat out going to be eliminating many parents from being able to engage at all with their child's school for up to 75% of their high school career.

What other options were there that were less bad than Woodward?

There was an option discussed of an urban campus in DTSS or utilizing space on the Adventist campus in TkPk. Both would have required MCPS to spend more money, though, so Woodward was the best option.

A lot more money, I'm guessing.

Yes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/BAEVW7736805/$file/Northwood%20HS%20Holding%20Ctr%20Eval%20MGT%20Consulting%20Grp%20190314%20PPT.pdf

?

It appears the costs were fractional of that required to build Woodward. There was also a failure of vision.

Why didn't they sue to void the ridiculous contract that rules the old Montgomery Hills JHS property and combine that with the Woodlin property (which ended up being demolished anyway) to make a HS-sized holding school, needing, then, only to find space for an ES? How about refurbish the old Blair as a holding school and find smaller spaces for SSIMS and SCES? Perhaps the complete old Parkside property, asking the private-use Acorn Hill Waldorf to move? Perhaps one of the other options rejected for a HS but suitable for a MS? Perhaps one of the other options for an area elementary school rejected a decade ago over vocal objection from community members participating in the review because MCPS presented jaded views of the options and wouldn't evaluate independent ideas? Too many sacred cows and not enough dedication to the area, in comparison to that given others (though not exactly great, there, either).

Sure, they don't want to spend $. But their mandate should be to provide reasonably equivalent educational services, including facilities, to each community in the county, not to provide similar funding to each. The "it's their turn" approach only works when the turns result in that equivalence and are jiggered to address, for the most part, whatever facilities are most presently at a deficit in relation to others -- not aimed simply to spread facility improvement activity across the county. Unfortunately, MCPS hasn't lived up to that.

They were already going to build Woodward regardless, as a new high school. The idea of using it as a holding school was not the original purpose. These costs would have been in addition to the Woodward costs, not instead of.

But I agree with your other suggestions that should have been considered.

They didn't move forward to approve Woodward until they had dispensed with the idea of a HS serving the lower DCC area, then justifying Woodward with the idea that it amd the Northwood expansion would do the job.

The language they used was nebulous, failing to provide any of the specifics that they floated as ideas offline to ensure support. Totally unsurprising that they'd been walking back the commitment bit by bit ever since, but I doubt they will be able to dispense with it entirely. Then again, if past behaviors tell us anything...

It would have been nice if they added a new DCC school but they had this land and property. They need to redraw all the lines but a DCC school makes no sense.

Um, it makes sense to place services where they are needed.

Then they need to add another school DCC not in Bethesda/Rockville for DCC kids.

There's a shortage of affordable real estate down county. Woodward works - barely - but it's small.

Housing is more affordable DCC. Woodward is no where near DCC. They need another hs dcc but that’s not happening. Multiple other schools also need replaced.

Where is the 30 to 40 acres an MCPS HS needs?

MCPS says minimum preferred site size of 35 acres. That's for their current school design, which is based on a site size of 35 acres. It's obviously possible to put a school on a smaller site (see BCC), but they would have to use a different school design. I don't know how much of their school design is based on "This is how we do it because this is how we do it," and how much is based on state requirements.

This big issue is that structured parking gets really expensive really quickly, and is really easy for students to misbehave in.

A paved parking lot costs somewhere around $2500 per space. Structured parking is $25,000 and up per space. MCPS doesn't like structured parking!

The fact that BCC has parking beyond the bare minimum is ridiculous in a metro-accessible school on major bus lines with public parking garages 1.5 blocks away.

I agree. And the public parking garages have plenty of extra space, too.

I disagree. It’s bad enough I have to pay nearly $2 an hour to park to run an errand in Bethesda. It is not fair or reasonable to expect teachers to pay that hourly amount or pay round trip daily bus/metro fares (plus metro parking) to go to work at a suburban public high school.

Most schools have limited parking and teachers get priority. After that, students get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Woodward wouldn’t have had to be reduced if the council hadn’t cut impact taxes. Friedson thinks developer profits are more important than expanding schools.

They should make the developers pay for the new schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woodward wouldn’t have had to be reduced if the council hadn’t cut impact taxes. Friedson thinks developer profits are more important than expanding schools.

They should make the developers pay for the new schools.

That's what impact taxes are supposed to be for but the Council reduced them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During rush hour, I can go from my home near Northwood to an appointment near Woodward in about 25-30 minutes, but that doesn't count time in drop off lines, etc. They really need to make sure that this delay comes with money to support more activity buses and ways for parents to be connected with the school.

So, basically an hour round trip. If you can get there, you also have to factor in the fact that parents either need to do that trip twice (or more, we often drop off/pick up at the HS multiple times a day - before school, after school, then return a few hours later (usually 2-3 times a week) in the eventing for practice or an event/game. So, four trips for one child (or more with two or more kids). That doesn't include outside activity travel too.

Even with the school being close, to get in the pick up line, I often go 30 minutes before the end of school, so pick up takes me about 45 minutes and that's for a local school a few miles away.

Yep, having children can be burdensome like that. If more parents had their kids ride the buses, the pickup lines would not be so long.

Look, I would oppose assigning anyone in the Northwood cluster to Woodward. I can't imagine they are planning that. But the Wheaton and Einstein clusters are west of the Northwood cluster and therefore be more reasonable. But those kids will still have to get to school and back, which I get, is annoying and inconvenient.

And to clarify, I mean planning permanently assigning the Northwood kids to Woodward. Obviously, they will have to be bussed to the holding school, which sucks, but if you don't have a better solution it's pointless to whine about it.

The solution is to make Northwood bigger and to replace Einstein and make it bigger as well. Einstein is falling apart. Or, buy land somewhere and build another high school down county. All the new HS are focused on mid-upper county. They also should have made Wheaton bigger when they replaced Wheaton. But, moving DCC kids mid-county is not a solution, especially when many of the families are lower-mid income and the distance/transportation is a problem and there is no easy transportation to Woodward from DCC.

They did. Wheaton's capacity is 2,237 now and it used to be 1,677.

They should have made it for 2500-2800. Its not nearly big enough.

MCPS preferred range for high school size is 1,600 to 2,400 students.

Preferred and reality are two different things. Otherwise they need 1-2 more HS down county.

That is why they will be reassigning some students to Northwood and Woodward, not to mention the 300 unused seats at Kennedy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During rush hour, I can go from my home near Northwood to an appointment near Woodward in about 25-30 minutes, but that doesn't count time in drop off lines, etc. They really need to make sure that this delay comes with money to support more activity buses and ways for parents to be connected with the school.

So, basically an hour round trip. If you can get there, you also have to factor in the fact that parents either need to do that trip twice (or more, we often drop off/pick up at the HS multiple times a day - before school, after school, then return a few hours later (usually 2-3 times a week) in the eventing for practice or an event/game. So, four trips for one child (or more with two or more kids). That doesn't include outside activity travel too.

Even with the school being close, to get in the pick up line, I often go 30 minutes before the end of school, so pick up takes me about 45 minutes and that's for a local school a few miles away.

Yep, having children can be burdensome like that. If more parents had their kids ride the buses, the pickup lines would not be so long.

Look, I would oppose assigning anyone in the Northwood cluster to Woodward. I can't imagine they are planning that. But the Wheaton and Einstein clusters are west of the Northwood cluster and therefore be more reasonable. But those kids will still have to get to school and back, which I get, is annoying and inconvenient.

And to clarify, I mean planning permanently assigning the Northwood kids to Woodward. Obviously, they will have to be bussed to the holding school, which sucks, but if you don't have a better solution it's pointless to whine about it.

The solution is to make Northwood bigger and to replace Einstein and make it bigger as well. Einstein is falling apart. Or, buy land somewhere and build another high school down county. All the new HS are focused on mid-upper county. They also should have made Wheaton bigger when they replaced Wheaton. But, moving DCC kids mid-county is not a solution, especially when many of the families are lower-mid income and the distance/transportation is a problem and there is no easy transportation to Woodward from DCC.

They did. Wheaton's capacity is 2,237 now and it used to be 1,677.

They should have made it for 2500-2800. Its not nearly big enough.

MCPS preferred range for high school size is 1,600 to 2,400 students.

Preferred and reality are two different things. Otherwise they need 1-2 more HS down county.

That is why they will be reassigning some students to Northwood and Woodward, not to mention the 300 unused seats at Kennedy.

I doubt they will move kids from Northwood to Woodward given the distance. No one wants to go to Kennedy for good reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woodward wouldn’t have had to be reduced if the council hadn’t cut impact taxes. Friedson thinks developer profits are more important than expanding schools.

They should make the developers pay for the new schools.

That's what impact taxes are supposed to be for but the Council reduced them.

It was supposed to make housing prices go down. How has that worked out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During rush hour, I can go from my home near Northwood to an appointment near Woodward in about 25-30 minutes, but that doesn't count time in drop off lines, etc. They really need to make sure that this delay comes with money to support more activity buses and ways for parents to be connected with the school.

So, basically an hour round trip. If you can get there, you also have to factor in the fact that parents either need to do that trip twice (or more, we often drop off/pick up at the HS multiple times a day - before school, after school, then return a few hours later (usually 2-3 times a week) in the eventing for practice or an event/game. So, four trips for one child (or more with two or more kids). That doesn't include outside activity travel too.

Even with the school being close, to get in the pick up line, I often go 30 minutes before the end of school, so pick up takes me about 45 minutes and that's for a local school a few miles away.

Yep, having children can be burdensome like that. If more parents had their kids ride the buses, the pickup lines would not be so long.

Look, I would oppose assigning anyone in the Northwood cluster to Woodward. I can't imagine they are planning that. But the Wheaton and Einstein clusters are west of the Northwood cluster and therefore be more reasonable. But those kids will still have to get to school and back, which I get, is annoying and inconvenient.

And to clarify, I mean planning permanently assigning the Northwood kids to Woodward. Obviously, they will have to be bussed to the holding school, which sucks, but if you don't have a better solution it's pointless to whine about it.

The solution is to make Northwood bigger and to replace Einstein and make it bigger as well. Einstein is falling apart. Or, buy land somewhere and build another high school down county. All the new HS are focused on mid-upper county. They also should have made Wheaton bigger when they replaced Wheaton. But, moving DCC kids mid-county is not a solution, especially when many of the families are lower-mid income and the distance/transportation is a problem and there is no easy transportation to Woodward from DCC.

They did. Wheaton's capacity is 2,237 now and it used to be 1,677.

They should have made it for 2500-2800. Its not nearly big enough.

MCPS preferred range for high school size is 1,600 to 2,400 students.

Preferred and reality are two different things. Otherwise they need 1-2 more HS down county.

That is why they will be reassigning some students to Northwood and Woodward, not to mention the 300 unused seats at Kennedy.

I doubt they will move kids from Northwood to Woodward given the distance. No one wants to go to Kennedy for good reason.

No, Wheaton kids can move to available space at Northwood, Kennedy, and Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Extending Northwood's use of the holding school for three years is really a terrible thing. The community wanted a holding school in the DCC but MCPS forced Woodward, which families were at least ok with because it would be new.

But how long are the kids not going to have athletic facilities or performing arts spaces...for a school that has a performing arts academy?

Plus Northwood is one of the poorer schools and transportation is an issue. They are flat out going to be eliminating many parents from being able to engage at all with their child's school for up to 75% of their high school career.

What other options were there that were less bad than Woodward?

There was an option discussed of an urban campus in DTSS or utilizing space on the Adventist campus in TkPk. Both would have required MCPS to spend more money, though, so Woodward was the best option.

A lot more money, I'm guessing.

Yes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/BAEVW7736805/$file/Northwood%20HS%20Holding%20Ctr%20Eval%20MGT%20Consulting%20Grp%20190314%20PPT.pdf

?

It appears the costs were fractional of that required to build Woodward. There was also a failure of vision.

Why didn't they sue to void the ridiculous contract that rules the old Montgomery Hills JHS property and combine that with the Woodlin property (which ended up being demolished anyway) to make a HS-sized holding school, needing, then, only to find space for an ES? How about refurbish the old Blair as a holding school and find smaller spaces for SSIMS and SCES? Perhaps the complete old Parkside property, asking the private-use Acorn Hill Waldorf to move? Perhaps one of the other options rejected for a HS but suitable for a MS? Perhaps one of the other options for an area elementary school rejected a decade ago over vocal objection from community members participating in the review because MCPS presented jaded views of the options and wouldn't evaluate independent ideas? Too many sacred cows and not enough dedication to the area, in comparison to that given others (though not exactly great, there, either).

Sure, they don't want to spend $. But their mandate should be to provide reasonably equivalent educational services, including facilities, to each community in the county, not to provide similar funding to each. The "it's their turn" approach only works when the turns result in that equivalence and are jiggered to address, for the most part, whatever facilities are most presently at a deficit in relation to others -- not aimed simply to spread facility improvement activity across the county. Unfortunately, MCPS hasn't lived up to that.

They were already going to build Woodward regardless, as a new high school. The idea of using it as a holding school was not the original purpose. These costs would have been in addition to the Woodward costs, not instead of.

But I agree with your other suggestions that should have been considered.

They didn't move forward to approve Woodward until they had dispensed with the idea of a HS serving the lower DCC area, then justifying Woodward with the idea that it amd the Northwood expansion would do the job.

The language they used was nebulous, failing to provide any of the specifics that they floated as ideas offline to ensure support. Totally unsurprising that they'd been walking back the commitment bit by bit ever since, but I doubt they will be able to dispense with it entirely. Then again, if past behaviors tell us anything...

It would have been nice if they added a new DCC school but they had this land and property. They need to redraw all the lines but a DCC school makes no sense.

Um, it makes sense to place services where they are needed.

Then they need to add another school DCC not in Bethesda/Rockville for DCC kids.

There's a shortage of affordable real estate down county. Woodward works - barely - but it's small.

Housing is more affordable DCC. Woodward is no where near DCC. They need another hs dcc but that’s not happening. Multiple other schools also need replaced.

Where is the 30 to 40 acres an MCPS HS needs?

MCPS says minimum preferred site size of 35 acres. That's for their current school design, which is based on a site size of 35 acres. It's obviously possible to put a school on a smaller site (see BCC), but they would have to use a different school design. I don't know how much of their school design is based on "This is how we do it because this is how we do it," and how much is based on state requirements.

This big issue is that structured parking gets really expensive really quickly, and is really easy for students to misbehave in.

A paved parking lot costs somewhere around $2500 per space. Structured parking is $25,000 and up per space. MCPS doesn't like structured parking!

The fact that BCC has parking beyond the bare minimum is ridiculous in a metro-accessible school on major bus lines with public parking garages 1.5 blocks away.

I agree. And the public parking garages have plenty of extra space, too.

I disagree. It’s bad enough I have to pay nearly $2 an hour to park to run an errand in Bethesda. It is not fair or reasonable to expect teachers to pay that hourly amount or pay round trip daily bus/metro fares (plus metro parking) to go to work at a suburban public high school.

It is not actually bad that you have to pay nearly $2 an hour to park to run an errand in Bethesda.

However, there is no reason MCPS couldn't provide their employees with a transit subsidy, just like many other employers in Montgomery County do: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dot-dir/commuter/benefits/index.html

Or MCPS could even pay for their employees' parking in the empty county garages. It would still be cheaper than building structured parking.