Proposed New Regions
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Anonymous
MCPS overall average is 44% FARMS. Totally reasonable for a grouping of high schools to be at that average. Parents who are shocked by it are a symptom of how divided the system currently is and how out of touch some parents are. |
Anonymous
Using FARMS rate is just a nice way of trying to point out why a school isn't good, while trying not to offend anyone. The issue with region 5 is it groups the bottom ranked MCPS High Schools according to US News, which probably corresponds with FARMs rates together: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/districts/montgomery-county-public-schools-104047 Seneca Valley, Gaithersburg and Watkins Mill make up three of the bottom four regular pubic MCPS high schools according to the rankings. Northwest might be the strongest out of the group but it's not W school level in terms of rankings, test scores, FARMS rate, etc. Crown at best might be about Northwest level. So this region doesn't look that balanced compared to some of the other regions. But until more details come out, I don't really see the region groupings being that big of a deal and changing which schools a large group of students would go to. |
Anonymous
And that means that 2/3 IB programs would be replaced with something else. I can't imagine they would offer more than one program per region. |
Anonymous
This isn't necessarily the best way of looking at things and doesn't take into account the new schools and how schools would be affected after any changes are made. But the average US News ranking, based on current rankings, for each region is below: Region three: Winston Churchill in Potomac, Walter Johnson in Bethesda, Charles W. Woodward in Rockville, and Wheaton: 7 Region one: Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Walt Whitman in Bethesda, and Montgomery Blair, Albert Einstein and Northwood in Silver Spring: 10.4 (10.25 without Blair) Region six: Clarksburg, Damascus, Poolesville, and Quince Orchard in Gaithersburg: 11.25 (14.33 without Poolesville) Region four: John F. Kennedy in Silver Spring, and Col. Zadok Magruder, Richard Montgomery, Rockville, and Thomas S. Wootton in Rockville: 13.4 (14.75 without RM) Region two: James Hubert Blake and Springbrook in Silver Spring, Paint Branch in Burtonsville, and Sherwood in Sandy Spring: 16 Region five: Northwest in Germantown, and Crown, Gaithersburg and Seneca Valley in Germantown; and Watkins Mill: 19.75 |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Whitman gets Blair. They are winners as usual! |
Anonymous
| I wonder if they could pair two regions together for certain programs where it would make more sense to have 3 programs countywide than 6? How well would that work with this set of regions, or would you need to change the regions to make that work? Which regions would you pair together? 5&6 is already pretty close to the existing sending schools for upcounty programs, right? |
Anonymous
This particular grouping is always at least 46% FARMS when you add all the schools together and look at the four current realignment options. Current: 46.8% Option 1: 47.11% Option 2: 47.15% Option 3: 46.19% Option 4: 48.68% I haven't worked out all the other proposed regions yet. |
Anonymous
If the overall MCPS average is 44%, this is very close to it. Unless we see a region that is sub-34 or over-54 (or something like that), it's probably the best that can be done with some manageable regional proximity. Hopefully, all the regions end up averaging in the 40s. (Really hopefully, the overall FARMS rate decreases, and not for lack of identification, but with the way society is going, both nationally and locally, I'm not holding my breath.) |
Anonymous
The problem with averages is that it's not really spread out and you have the extremes balancing each other out. Not all the schools are represented in the boundary studies. But on mdreportcard, it says the FARMS rate is about 41% for MCPS and 40% if you limit to high schools. Looking at the schools in boundary studies with a current FARMS rate of over 40% the schools are: Blair 51.4 Gaithersburg HS 53.7 Kennedy 55.1 Northwood 50.8 Seneca Valley 47.2 Watkins Mill 54 Wheaton 62.7 According to MD Report Card, which may have different rules or source for FARMS, the schools not in the boundary studies and a FARMS population of more than 40% are: Blake 54.8 Magruder 49.3 Paint Branch 59.2 Rockville 48.9 Sherwood 21.6 Springbrook 63.6 So Region 2 has three of the schools above, with Sherwood balancing it out. These schools aren't in any of the boundary studies. So we're looking at about a 49.8 percent FARMS rate Region 5 has three schools above as well with Northwest and maybe Crown to balance it out. So let's say Crown has the same FARMS rate as Northwest the FARMS rate for this group would be 44.46, which we're saying is the average. But then no other region either has this number of high FARM schools or has very low FARMS schools to balance it out. For example: Region 1: 34.34, with Blair's numbers probably changing if they remove the countywide magnet program Region 3: 38.775, and this is counting Woodward's FARMS numbers to be the same as Wheatons 62.7 but likely isn't forecasted to be this high in any of the current proposed options Region 4: 37.02 Region 6: 28.82, with Quince Orchard's numbers actually going to be lower with ten percent of it's FARMS population going to Crown So while the overall average of FARMS in MCPS might be about 44 percent, only regions 2 and 5, looks like they'll have an average FARMS rate of above 40% Regions 3 and 4 are a little bit over 35 percent, not quite 40 percent. So would consider this the average. Region 1 is relatively low, below 35 percent. And region 6, with the lowest at 28.8 percent and likely will go lower with Crown taking some of Quince Orchard's FARMS students. So the FARMS distribution isn't that spread out across all the regions evenly and you still have disparity in the underserved areas, such as the East county and some of the Gaithersburg area |
Anonymous
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As others mentioned, the presentation that MCPS used to show the distribution of high performing students was flawed to begin with by using students with a 4.0. Where an A is meaningless if it doesn't take into account the rigors of the course.
They should identify students as high performing if they met any of the following criteria for the given school year: -met the MAP benchmark -earned a 3 or 4 proficiency level in the MCAP ELA or Math test -earned 3 or higher in any AP exam -earned 4 or higher in any IB exam -earned 530 or higher in math and 480 or higher in the ERBW in the SAT exam -earn a 21 or higher in the ACT -earn a 31 or higher in the AFQT for the ASVAB This would cover more grade levels and be based on something more standardized. And the high school level standards above are what MSDE checks to see if a student completed a well rounded curriculum. |
Anonymous
Just a correction, the MCAP and MAP standards should be based on tests taken in the given school year. The high school related criteria can be based off of if they met the criteria at anytime in the past or the current school year. |
Anonymous
100% agree that they are just moving chairs around the deck. I see nothing about providing academic instruction appropriate to kid's abilities. |
Anonymous
What about 1 with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6? Could do three high-level SMCS magnets-- keep Poolesville (for 5 & 6) and Blair (for 1 & 2) and then add one new one for the schools in regions 3 & 4. |
Anonymous
That actually doesn't look too bad. So it's kind of divided by lower county, with Whitman being kind of the outlier but not too different from how Poolesville is usually on the outer edge, miiddle county and upper county. Even if they keep the current proposed six regions, I think they can mix up regions five and six a little bit to balance it out. The large part of Crown basically used to go to Quince Orchard. And Quince Orchard is often grouped with Northwest. So they'd probably be able to swap some schools between the two regions and still make them contiguous areas with no islands. But it still goes back to I don't think these groupings will really matter. Where unless they put some really outstanding programs in a school, I don't really see many students leaving their home school for that program. For example is Argyle the middle school in Silver Spring with a magnet program? I remember several families looking into it and visiting it during it's open house. But decided it wasn't worth going to over their home school. Then the number of students that do choose to go to another school for a special program, won't really make that much of a change in anything at the school. Like maybe one or two classrooms of students in a high school? |