Olney schools

[Anonymous]

Rosa has a great new principal and a Farquhar’s is fine. The kids at FMS are actually diverse and the school is better for it. Rosa has a richer less diverse population and more racism because of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school building for Belmont ES is very very very old and it has been scheduled for renovations for over a decade now. It should just be demolished at this point. The other issue is that, demographic-wise, it doesn't reflect the diversity of the county, either with students and definitely not with staff. (It felt very weird at times.) The upside of Belmont ES is that it has a very strong and outsized PTA.

Roughly five years ago the district opted to renovate rather than replace the building. If replaced, it would have more than doubled the capacity.

Not sure about the overall numbers for the county but here’s the at a glance for Belmont: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02513.pdf

61% white, not sure why that’s weird.

[Anonymous]

I would say it's weird because if you compare to other historically white regions, the percentages are lower. Damascus ES is 36% white. Sherwood ES is 38% white. Olney ES is 50%. Brook Grove is 34% white. Belmont is very much an outlier.

On top of that for all its talk about diversity MCPS actually makes it difficult for poc staff to feel welcome at certain schools. I would include Belmont ES in that, but I don't know if anyone's willing to change the culture there.

[Anonymous]

I'm not convinced there is a need for a Belmont ES. There are years when student enrollment went all the way down to just three hundred students. Replacing the building and doubling capacity would just mean an empty school. (There were empty rooms, then.) A renovation might work but they've been promising something along those lines for years now. Beyond that maybe it's time to shut it down, bus the students to other schools, and go from there. Or else skim off the overcapacity from Olney and Sherwood, at the same time as diversifying the teaching staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not convinced there is a need for a Belmont ES. There are years when student enrollment went all the way down to just three hundred students. Replacing the building and doubling capacity would just mean an empty school. (There were empty rooms, then.) A renovation might work but they've been promising something along those lines for years now. Beyond that maybe it's time to shut it down, bus the students to other schools, and go from there. Or else skim off the overcapacity from Olney and Sherwood, at the same time as diversifying the teaching staff.

There isn't enough capacity within the other Sherwood cluster ESs to absorb the ~350 Belmont students.

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/MP25_Chapter4Sherwood.pdf