Thurs Feb 5: Board Work Session

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For Woodward, Taylor is moving forward with a modified Option B.

The most eyebrow raising thing to me at first glance is that this option will leave Walter Johnson with one of the lowest utilization rates: 77.7%

So one of the wealthiest parts of the county just got a high school that's now one of the less crowded, which will likely help with class sizes. Way to reward the wealthy and affluent, Taylor!

Woodward, the new high school that has been built to offload WJ's over capacity will have a significantly more stretched projected utilization rate of 91.2%.

This will change after the elementary school boundary study evens out.

Doubtful - that assumes 3D chess here.

Taylor is attempting 3D chess, with no knowledge of the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anything controversial in the Woodward recommendations? I personally like it for our neighborhood, but curious if there's any hot-button changes included.

I think split articulating Garrett Park and Kensington-Parkwood is going to generate a lot of opposition. There is also a ton of split articulation for Wheaton and Kennedy feeder schools. What I find weird is they do all this split articulation, and Woodward's FARMS rate ends up more than double that of Walter Johnson. That's insane to me for high schools that are so close to each other. Viers Mill ES should be zoned to WJ, not Woodward.

+1

Woodward and WJ should be getting one high FARMS ES each. Putting 2 in one and zero ion another makes no sense then both HS are less than mile apart. Ceoncentrating poverty should be avoided whenver it's possible.

Taylor is MAGA so he is against diversity, equity and inclusion. He uses the word equity a lot, but it is performative and it is clear in the way he uses it that he doesn't know what that word means and/or doesn't care.

I don't know him, but this makes no sense to me. it was a low hanging fruit to put one high FARMS ES each in Woodward and WJ. Not very complicated unless WJ PTA lobbied to make WJ Whitman 2.0 and got this result.

I am neither in Woodward nor in WJ but this jumps out. Putting 35% FARMS in new school is poor start specially given special program is also not much to do with academics. Worst possible combination of FARMS and program out of all choices.

But just picture this. Now, a BOE member gets to bravely stand up for equity by proposing moving Veirs Mill to Walter Johnson. The rest of the BOE gets to bravely vote in favor of this. All without impacting property values in the Town of Kensington. Yang and Silvestre will campaign on their bravery in their runs for Council.

Yup. Remember: Most of what happens in the BOE meetings is choreographed. The decisions aren't being made in real time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anything controversial in the Woodward recommendations? I personally like it for our neighborhood, but curious if there's any hot-button changes included.

I think split articulating Garrett Park and Kensington-Parkwood is going to generate a lot of opposition. There is also a ton of split articulation for Wheaton and Kennedy feeder schools. What I find weird is they do all this split articulation, and Woodward's FARMS rate ends up more than double that of Walter Johnson. That's insane to me for high schools that are so close to each other. Viers Mill ES should be zoned to WJ, not Woodward.

+1

Woodward and WJ should be getting one high FARMS ES each. Putting 2 in one and zero ion another makes no sense then both HS are less than mile apart. Ceoncentrating poverty should be avoided whenver it's possible.

Taylor is MAGA so he is against diversity, equity and inclusion. He uses the word equity a lot, but it is performative and it is clear in the way he uses it that he doesn't know what that word means and/or doesn't care.

How did he make it to his current job if he is MAGA?

He didn't wear his MAGA hat to the interview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now we're considering getting rid of elementary schools?!?!?

I mean, if there are 10,000+ empty spots in elementary schools it probably does make sense to close some... especially ones that are in bad shape that would otherwise cost a lot of money to repair or replace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have a second non-recommended version where they keep both Crown and Wootton as separate high schools.

I think that slide was developed out of sync with the final Crown report; they forgot to remove it from the slide deck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now we're considering getting rid of elementary schools?!?!?

I mean, if there are 10,000+ empty spots in elementary schools it probably does make sense to close some... especially ones that are in bad shape that would otherwise cost a lot of money to repair or replace.

Which likely means bigger class sizes. Yippee...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anything controversial in the Woodward recommendations? I personally like it for our neighborhood, but curious if there's any hot-button changes included.

I think split articulating Garrett Park and Kensington-Parkwood is going to generate a lot of opposition. There is also a ton of split articulation for Wheaton and Kennedy feeder schools. What I find weird is they do all this split articulation, and Woodward's FARMS rate ends up more than double that of Walter Johnson. That's insane to me for high schools that are so close to each other. Viers Mill ES should be zoned to WJ, not Woodward.

+1

Woodward and WJ should be getting one high FARMS ES each. Putting 2 in one and zero ion another makes no sense then both HS are less than mile apart. Ceoncentrating poverty should be avoided whenver it's possible.

Taylor is MAGA so he is against diversity, equity and inclusion. He uses the word equity a lot, but it is performative and it is clear in the way he uses it that he doesn't know what that word means and/or doesn't care.

I don't know him, but this makes no sense to me. it was a low hanging fruit to put one high FARMS ES each in Woodward and WJ. Not very complicated unless WJ PTA lobbied to make WJ Whitman 2.0 and got this result.

I am neither in Woodward nor in WJ but this jumps out. Putting 35% FARMS in new school is poor start specially given special program is also not much to do with academics. Worst possible combination of FARMS and program out of all choices.

you know that half of wj will go to woodward right? so the big bad wj pta you reference is made up of future woodward families

More than half of current WJ will attend future WJ(Whitman 2.0).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now we're considering getting rid of elementary schools?!?!?

I mean, if there are 10,000+ empty spots in elementary schools it probably does make sense to close some... especially ones that are in bad shape that would otherwise cost a lot of money to repair or replace.

Exactly. Looking at you, west county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now we're considering getting rid of elementary schools?!?!?

I mean, if there are 10,000+ empty spots in elementary schools it probably does make sense to close some... especially ones that are in bad shape that would otherwise cost a lot of money to repair or replace.

Which likely means bigger class sizes. Yippee...

I mean, if you were going to literally eliminate all of those slots and close 15% of elementary schools then yes, it would require higher class sizes. But realistically, they're not going to do that. There's enough underutilization that you can decrease class sizes and still close a good number of elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anything controversial in the Woodward recommendations? I personally like it for our neighborhood, but curious if there's any hot-button changes included.

I think split articulating Garrett Park and Kensington-Parkwood is going to generate a lot of opposition. There is also a ton of split articulation for Wheaton and Kennedy feeder schools. What I find weird is they do all this split articulation, and Woodward's FARMS rate ends up more than double that of Walter Johnson. That's insane to me for high schools that are so close to each other. Viers Mill ES should be zoned to WJ, not Woodward.

+1

Woodward and WJ should be getting one high FARMS ES each. Putting 2 in one and zero ion another makes no sense then both HS are less than mile apart. Ceoncentrating poverty should be avoided whenver it's possible.

Taylor is MAGA so he is against diversity, equity and inclusion. He uses the word equity a lot, but it is performative and it is clear in the way he uses it that he doesn't know what that word means and/or doesn't care.

I don't know him, but this makes no sense to me. it was a low hanging fruit to put one high FARMS ES each in Woodward and WJ. Not very complicated unless WJ PTA lobbied to make WJ Whitman 2.0 and got this result.

I am neither in Woodward nor in WJ but this jumps out. Putting 35% FARMS in new school is poor start specially given special program is also not much to do with academics. Worst possible combination of FARMS and program out of all choices.

But just picture this. Now, a BOE member gets to bravely stand up for equity by proposing moving Veirs Mill to Walter Johnson. The rest of the BOE gets to bravely vote in favor of this. All without impacting property values in the Town of Kensington. Yang and Silvestre will campaign on their bravery in their runs for Council.

It may not work as you are imagining and recommended option is liklely to be approved. There is no Woodward PTA to advocate for Woodward.

Does Viers Mill ES want to go to WJ?

The WJ PTA has not taken a position on any particular option.

[Anonymous]

I love that they’re proposing to reduce SSIMS to 56 percent utilization and chuck Rolling Terrace into TPMS. They’re gonna kill SSIMS and the TPMS magnet.

[Anonymous]

All of you realize he was brought in to fundamentally change the system, right? He wasn’t brought here to continue with the status quo or do anything the community asked for. That’s what he did today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have a second non-recommended version where they keep both Crown and Wootton as separate high schools.

I think that slide was developed out of sync with the final Crown report; they forgot to remove it from the slide deck.

No, the superintendent recommended the modified H, moving Wootton to Crown.

The staff prepared a second, not-recommended option opening up Crown as a separate high school. It was built to give the board analysis of the other option (no holding school) and the financial ramifications of opening up a completely new high school.

[Anonymous]

They should scrap everything and start over with real community engagement this time. This is a costly and hodgepodge mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of you realize he was brought in to fundamentally change the system, right? He wasn’t brought here to continue with the status quo or do anything the community asked for. That’s what he did today.

Ummm not for the new WJ cluster. That is VERY status quote.