What did the board say about the Regional model and the DCC for upcoming school year?

[Anonymous]

Are the high schools in each region fixed or will they evaluate this again now that Wootton moved to Crown? Any changes to regions 4, 5, 6?

And what happen to the DCC for next school year? Will current 7th graders still go their current middle school in DCC or not? Anything about the buses?

[Anonymous]

Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/school-info/downcounty/feeders/

I was asking what happens to current 7th graders who go to one of these middle schools. We are out of consortium and my kid goes to one of these.

[Anonymous]

Current 7th graders and all those who come after are f*cked. They will be under the first group under new system

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/school-info/downcounty/feeders/

I was asking what happens to current 7th graders who go to one of these middle schools. We are out of consortium and my kid goes to one of these.

Current 7th graders would not be affected (unless repeating 7th grade twice more). The MS changes won't start until they are starting HS in 2027-28. This applies to current 6th graders, as well, as they will be grandfathered in, keeping their current school assignment between 7th & 8th grade at that time. Current 5th graders are the only class which would be shifted between their 6th-grade year and their 7th-grade year (if their home address saw a boundary change). Current 4th graders (and below) would start (and presumably stay) at the middle school to which their home address then is assigned with the new boundaries.

However, per prior meetings, those placed in and attending (e.g., in 6th for the upcoming 2026-27 school year) a secondary program via a criteria- or choice-based process would not be subject to movement to a different school with the 2027-28 changes. For middle school, that would apply to

Humanities @ Eastern &MLK

Math/Science/CS @ Takoma Park/Clemente

MSMC @ Parkland/Loiederman/Argyle

(presumably) language immersion at various MS sites

(uncertain, but it would be difficult to justify different treatment) special education programs at various MS sites.

Of course, there are the HS-level programs, as well, and the same program/choice (i.e., NEC/DCC) protection applies to 2027-28, while others in the non-grandfathered grades would need to move to the school to which their address then was assigned, along with all the rising 9th graders.

[Anonymous]

TL;DR - current 7th graders are not affected for MS. They are affected for HS.

Current DCC 7th graders will not go through the DCC choice process in fall of 8th grade but will go through whatever process is set up for the new regional choice programs.

If you are currently at Eastern/Takoma or MSMC and your home address is in a different program Region than the current MS, I would expect your child will have to apply to programs in their home region but I have not heard that exact scenario addressed by MCPS yet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR - current 7th graders are not affected for MS. They are affected for HS.

Current DCC 7th graders will not go through the DCC choice process in fall of 8th grade but will go through whatever process is set up for the new regional choice programs.

If you are currently at Eastern/Takoma or MSMC and your home address is in a different program Region than the current MS, I would expect your child will have to apply to programs in their home region but I have not heard that exact scenario addressed by MCPS yet

The bolded is why all current 7th graders and beyond are f*cked

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/school-info/downcounty/feeders/

I was asking what happens to current 7th graders who go to one of these middle schools. We are out of consortium and my kid goes to one of these.

You need to be more specific. That is a list of all middle schools that happen to currently feed to one of the 5 DCC schools but otherwise they have nothing in common. Moving forward they will feed into one of the 5 schools individually.

When you say out of consortium do you mean that your kid goes to one of the MSMC schools (Argyle, Parkland, or Loiderman)? If so, say that or else people will be confused.

Either way, if you have a 7th grader, nothing is happening until they are in 9th so any changes to the MSMC (none have been announced) would not effect them anyway, right? By then they will be back in their home high school (unless they want to apply to a regional program in their home region), whatever that is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR - current 7th graders are not affected for MS. They are affected for HS.

Current DCC 7th graders will not go through the DCC choice process in fall of 8th grade but will go through whatever process is set up for the new regional choice programs.

If you are currently at Eastern/Takoma or MSMC and your home address is in a different program Region than the current MS, I would expect your child will have to apply to programs in their home region but I have not heard that exact scenario addressed by MCPS yet

The bolded is why all current 7th graders and beyond are f*cked

I have a current 7th grader and I think this is hyperbole. Yes, next year will likely be a little chaotic, but there are plenty of excellent high schools in MCPS.

The folks I've seen most up in arms about this are (white) folks who bought a house in a school zone with the explicit plan of trying to lottery out. Yes, if your entire plan for HS was predicated on not sending your child to school with their neighbors, you might feel f*cked, but that's a feeling not reality. Your neighbors are fine, and their children are fine, and it will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR - current 7th graders are not affected for MS. They are affected for HS.

Current DCC 7th graders will not go through the DCC choice process in fall of 8th grade but will go through whatever process is set up for the new regional choice programs.

If you are currently at Eastern/Takoma or MSMC and your home address is in a different program Region than the current MS, I would expect your child will have to apply to programs in their home region but I have not heard that exact scenario addressed by MCPS yet

The bolded is why all current 7th graders and beyond are f*cked

I have a current 7th grader and I think this is hyperbole. Yes, next year will likely be a little chaotic, but there are plenty of excellent high schools in MCPS.

The folks I've seen most up in arms about this are (white) folks who bought a house in a school zone with the explicit plan of trying to lottery out. Yes, if your entire plan for HS was predicated on not sending your child to school with their neighbors, you might feel f*cked, but that's a feeling not reality. Your neighbors are fine, and their children are fine, and it will be fine.

You probably also think it’s fine that not all high schools in MCPS offer the same classes, extracurriculars, and opportunities. I’d genuinely be happy to send my math-loving kid to our neighborhood school if it had the same higher-level math options as the one five miles away.
That’s what makes this argument so frustrating. It keeps getting framed like we don’t want our kids going to school with their neighbors (with that not-so-subtle implication), when really we’re just trying to make the best decision for our kid based on what’s actually offered.

If every high school truly had comparable academic opportunities, this wouldn’t even be a conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR - current 7th graders are not affected for MS. They are affected for HS.

Current DCC 7th graders will not go through the DCC choice process in fall of 8th grade but will go through whatever process is set up for the new regional choice programs.

If you are currently at Eastern/Takoma or MSMC and your home address is in a different program Region than the current MS, I would expect your child will have to apply to programs in their home region but I have not heard that exact scenario addressed by MCPS yet

The bolded is why all current 7th graders and beyond are f*cked

I have a current 7th grader and I think this is hyperbole. Yes, next year will likely be a little chaotic, but there are plenty of excellent high schools in MCPS.

The folks I've seen most up in arms about this are (white) folks who bought a house in a school zone with the explicit plan of trying to lottery out. Yes, if your entire plan for HS was predicated on not sending your child to school with their neighbors, you might feel f*cked, but that's a feeling not reality. Your neighbors are fine, and their children are fine, and it will be fine.

This is just not true, but it is a convenient talking point for MCPS. I have a child in early elementary. I have no idea what my child will be interested in when they are on their way to high school. But when we moved here, I had heard from parents about all the great programs the DCC offers. The benefit of the DCC is choice - if your kid is interested in STEM, Wheaton is a great option. If they are into art, Einstein has VAPA. These programs are sustained because kids can choose schools and get transportation based on their interests. The regional model will be more limited and, in Region 1, has a large risk of undermining the programs at Einstein and Northwood.

The DCC is not perfect. School choice is inherently problematic and I definitely think Kennedy HS has suffered. I would actually be supportive of eliminating the DCC and not replacing it with anything. But it feels like the regional model will just reproduce the harms of the DCC but more inequitably because of the lack of transportation.

MCPS likes to whine about how terrible parents are, but they could easily improve relationships with parents by not constantly misrepresenting parents' concerns and screeching the word "equity" while demonstrating they have no idea what that word actually means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

They likely mean the MSMC. For those of us in bounds for the 8 Elem schools that feed the 3 MSMC MS, it’s confusing. I’ve lived here over 12 years and only a year ago realized that the entire DCC doesn’t have the same access to the MSMC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/school-info/downcounty/feeders/

I was asking what happens to current 7th graders who go to one of these middle schools. We are out of consortium and my kid goes to one of these.

Current 7th graders would not be affected (unless repeating 7th grade twice more). The MS changes won't start until they are starting HS in 2027-28. This applies to current 6th graders, as well, as they will be grandfathered in, keeping their current school assignment between 7th & 8th grade at that time. Current 5th graders are the only class which would be shifted between their 6th-grade year and their 7th-grade year (if their home address saw a boundary change). Current 4th graders (and below) would start (and presumably stay) at the middle school to which their home address then is assigned with the new boundaries.

However, per prior meetings, those placed in and attending (e.g., in 6th for the upcoming 2026-27 school year) a secondary program via a criteria- or choice-based process would not be subject to movement to a different school with the 2027-28 changes. For middle school, that would apply to

Humanities @ Eastern &MLK

Math/Science/CS @ Takoma Park/Clemente

MSMC @ Parkland/Loiederman/Argyle

(presumably) language immersion at various MS sites

(uncertain, but it would be difficult to justify different treatment) special education programs at various MS sites.

Of course, there are the HS-level programs, as well, and the same program/choice (i.e., NEC/DCC) protection applies to 2027-28, while others in the non-grandfathered grades would need to move to the school to which their address then was assigned, along with all the rising 9th graders.

What’s unclear about the MSMC is whether they are grandfathering just the residential students or are they including the 80 kids per grade admitted from outside of the MSMC? We can’t afford transportation for all of the old and new at the same time. The language has made it pretty clear that transportation will definitely be cut back. Exactly how and when is yet to be seen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes next year, or for kids who are already at their DCC/NEC high schools next year. The DCC goes away for all entering classes in fall 2027 and beyond, kids go to their assigned school unless they leave for a specific program.

There are no DCC middle schools, not sure what you're talking about there.

They likely mean the MSMC. For those of us in bounds for the 8 Elem schools that feed the 3 MSMC MS, it’s confusing. I’ve lived here over 12 years and only a year ago realized that the entire DCC doesn’t have the same access to the MSMC

Is there overlap between the MSMC and the DCC? I thought they were separate regions (no shared ES clusters).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR - current 7th graders are not affected for MS. They are affected for HS.

Current DCC 7th graders will not go through the DCC choice process in fall of 8th grade but will go through whatever process is set up for the new regional choice programs.

If you are currently at Eastern/Takoma or MSMC and your home address is in a different program Region than the current MS, I would expect your child will have to apply to programs in their home region but I have not heard that exact scenario addressed by MCPS yet

The bolded is why all current 7th graders and beyond are f*cked

I have a current 7th grader and I think this is hyperbole. Yes, next year will likely be a little chaotic, but there are plenty of excellent high schools in MCPS.

The folks I've seen most up in arms about this are (white) folks who bought a house in a school zone with the explicit plan of trying to lottery out. Yes, if your entire plan for HS was predicated on not sending your child to school with their neighbors, you might feel f*cked, but that's a feeling not reality. Your neighbors are fine, and their children are fine, and it will be fine.

Starting in the fall 2027, most secondary schools will lose faculty. At the HS level the faculty gets lost to fill Woodward and the programs. At the MS level, allocations will be cut dramatically for the 10 schools below 80% capacity.

Look at Loeiderman as an example. Right now they have almost 1,000 students. After the boundary change, it will drop to 600something. That’s a LOT of teachers gone.

Even if no changes were made, teachers are getting cut due to declining enrollment. For example, Einstein lost 2.8 positions this spring and even WJ lost allocations. So MCPS knows they can’t keep offering so many different courses. These programs were designed to offer less overall. I expect that if my home HS doesn’t house a music program, we won’t have many (it all) music electives. If my home school doesn’t house a STEM program, I expect my home high school won’t have many advanced science and math electives