DCC and NEC families, how do you feel about them (likely) going away?

[Anonymous]

DCC parent and I’m fine with it. Aside from magnets, the academy offerings at each school are much less specialized than they claim to be when kids apply in 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away.

Why do you say that?

It is extremely difficult to overcome the challenges of having so many students coming from various areas, both from a vertical articulation standpoint and getting the community to support the school.

High school counselors and administrators, in an ideal situation, work closely with their feeder middle schools to ensure smooth transitions to high school. It's much easier to do with one or two middle schools where almost every student goes to the same high school. Much more challenging when there are so many middle schools and they are split between either three or five high schools.

Getting students to participate in after school activities is a challenge when transportation is a challenge in the consortia.

The families and community are not connected to the consortia schools to the degree they are in the community schools.

I wonder if these issues will now be spread throughout the county with the regional model though. Maybe they should just focus on having a core set of AP/IB classes actually offered at each school.

That's part of the current plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away.

Why do you say that?

It is extremely difficult to overcome the challenges of having so many students coming from various areas, both from a vertical articulation standpoint and getting the community to support the school.

High school counselors and administrators, in an ideal situation, work closely with their feeder middle schools to ensure smooth transitions to high school. It's much easier to do with one or two middle schools where almost every student goes to the same high school. Much more challenging when there are so many middle schools and they are split between either three or five high schools.

Getting students to participate in after school activities is a challenge when transportation is a challenge in the consortia.

The families and community are not connected to the consortia schools to the degree they are in the community schools.

I wonder if these issues will now be spread throughout the county with the regional model though. Maybe they should just focus on having a core set of AP/IB classes actually offered at each school.

That's part of the current plan.

No, not really as the list is very basic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away.

Why do you say that?

It is extremely difficult to overcome the challenges of having so many students coming from various areas, both from a vertical articulation standpoint and getting the community to support the school.

High school counselors and administrators, in an ideal situation, work closely with their feeder middle schools to ensure smooth transitions to high school. It's much easier to do with one or two middle schools where almost every student goes to the same high school. Much more challenging when there are so many middle schools and they are split between either three or five high schools.

Getting students to participate in after school activities is a challenge when transportation is a challenge in the consortia.

The families and community are not connected to the consortia schools to the degree they are in the community schools.

I wonder if these issues will now be spread throughout the county with the regional model though. Maybe they should just focus on having a core set of AP/IB classes actually offered at each school.

That's part of the current plan.

No, not really as the list is very basic.

What's your definition of "a core set"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away.

Why do you say that?

It is extremely difficult to overcome the challenges of having so many students coming from various areas, both from a vertical articulation standpoint and getting the community to support the school.

High school counselors and administrators, in an ideal situation, work closely with their feeder middle schools to ensure smooth transitions to high school. It's much easier to do with one or two middle schools where almost every student goes to the same high school. Much more challenging when there are so many middle schools and they are split between either three or five high schools.

Getting students to participate in after school activities is a challenge when transportation is a challenge in the consortia.

The families and community are not connected to the consortia schools to the degree they are in the community schools.

I wonder if these issues will now be spread throughout the county with the regional model though. Maybe they should just focus on having a core set of AP/IB classes actually offered at each school.

That's part of the current plan.

No, not really as the list is very basic.

What's your definition of "a core set"?

I don't know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away.

Why do you say that?

It is extremely difficult to overcome the challenges of having so many students coming from various areas, both from a vertical articulation standpoint and getting the community to support the school.

High school counselors and administrators, in an ideal situation, work closely with their feeder middle schools to ensure smooth transitions to high school. It's much easier to do with one or two middle schools where almost every student goes to the same high school. Much more challenging when there are so many middle schools and they are split between either three or five high schools.

Getting students to participate in after school activities is a challenge when transportation is a challenge in the consortia.

The families and community are not connected to the consortia schools to the degree they are in the community schools.

I wonder if these issues will now be spread throughout the county with the regional model though. Maybe they should just focus on having a core set of AP/IB classes actually offered at each school.

That's part of the current plan.

No, not really as the list is very basic.

What's your definition of "a core set"?

I don't know

This is the slogan of everyone screaming about what the model should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While some parents and families have been happy to be able to select a school, the consortia model has been an abject failure.

The original reason the NEC and DCC were created was so that MCPS/BOE didn't have to draw hard boundary lines when Blake opened and Northwood reopened. Boundary studies and hard boundary lines are divisive and controversial (see what is happening now with Woodward/Crown). Instead, they opted to make soft boundary lines with a promise that families would have choices.

What has happened over time is:

1. The signature programs have become less and less "signature". There really is very little difference in course offerings from school to school within the consortia.

2. The schools in the consortia have very little sense of community, with lots of vertical articulation challenges. Listen to all the outcry about splitting elementary and middle schools in the Crown/Woodward studies. There is a reason those communities are against splitting their feeder schools. In the NEC and DCC, it is splitting feeders on steroids.

3. MCPS is spending significant money by sending five buses to every DCC bus stop and three to every NEC bus stop.

4. In the NEC in particular, there was a goal to try to socially engineer demographics in the three schools through the choice lottery system. As time went on though, the NEC as a whole became more and more homogenous. Twenty years ago, Blake was the "white" school, PB the "black" school and Springbrook the "Hispanic" school. The three schools look very similar to each other now.

5. Extracurricular activity involvement becomes a real challenge in the consortia. Getting rides home after practices or rehearsals or back to school for games or concerts is a big challenge when everyone lives to spread out. Add in the challenge that families don't know each other well and carpooling to/from school activities is extremely difficult.

6. In the DCC in particular, things were never going to be on an even playing field when comparing the schools. From Blair's specialty programs to Wheaton's brand new school, some of the schools were always going to get the short end of the stick (Kennedy and Northwood in particular). Northwood's new facility will hopefully improve things, but the long layover at Woodward exacerbated the gap.

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away. Families will initially be upset - any time choice is taken away it isn't popular. But going away from the consortia is in the best interests of MCPS and the individual schools.

It will be interesting to see if these "region" models have the same negative impacts on all 25 schools, or if the number of students going to their non-home school is minimal.

Northwood will get the CAP from Blair and has the Montgomery College program, so I am optimistic for Northwood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While some parents and families have been happy to be able to select a school, the consortia model has been an abject failure.

The original reason the NEC and DCC were created was so that MCPS/BOE didn't have to draw hard boundary lines when Blake opened and Northwood reopened. Boundary studies and hard boundary lines are divisive and controversial (see what is happening now with Woodward/Crown). Instead, they opted to make soft boundary lines with a promise that families would have choices.

What has happened over time is:

1. The signature programs have become less and less "signature". There really is very little difference in course offerings from school to school within the consortia.

2. The schools in the consortia have very little sense of community, with lots of vertical articulation challenges. Listen to all the outcry about splitting elementary and middle schools in the Crown/Woodward studies. There is a reason those communities are against splitting their feeder schools. In the NEC and DCC, it is splitting feeders on steroids.

3. MCPS is spending significant money by sending five buses to every DCC bus stop and three to every NEC bus stop.

4. In the NEC in particular, there was a goal to try to socially engineer demographics in the three schools through the choice lottery system. As time went on though, the NEC as a whole became more and more homogenous. Twenty years ago, Blake was the "white" school, PB the "black" school and Springbrook the "Hispanic" school. The three schools look very similar to each other now.

5. Extracurricular activity involvement becomes a real challenge in the consortia. Getting rides home after practices or rehearsals or back to school for games or concerts is a big challenge when everyone lives to spread out. Add in the challenge that families don't know each other well and carpooling to/from school activities is extremely difficult.

6. In the DCC in particular, things were never going to be on an even playing field when comparing the schools. From Blair's specialty programs to Wheaton's brand new school, some of the schools were always going to get the short end of the stick (Kennedy and Northwood in particular). Northwood's new facility will hopefully improve things, but the long layover at Woodward exacerbated the gap.

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away. Families will initially be upset - any time choice is taken away it isn't popular. But going away from the consortia is in the best interests of MCPS and the individual schools.

It will be interesting to see if these "region" models have the same negative impacts on all 25 schools, or if the number of students going to their non-home school is minimal.

Northwood will get the CAP from Blair and has the Montgomery College program, so I am optimistic for Northwood.

And they're getting a brand-new building. Northwood is going to be in a very good place in the near future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away.

Why do you say that?

It is extremely difficult to overcome the challenges of having so many students coming from various areas, both from a vertical articulation standpoint and getting the community to support the school.

High school counselors and administrators, in an ideal situation, work closely with their feeder middle schools to ensure smooth transitions to high school. It's much easier to do with one or two middle schools where almost every student goes to the same high school. Much more challenging when there are so many middle schools and they are split between either three or five high schools.

Getting students to participate in after school activities is a challenge when transportation is a challenge in the consortia.

The families and community are not connected to the consortia schools to the degree they are in the community schools.

I wonder if these issues will now be spread throughout the county with the regional model though. Maybe they should just focus on having a core set of AP/IB classes actually offered at each school.

That's part of the current plan.

No, not really as the list is very basic.

There's like 18 AP classes... I don't have kids in HS yet but how many more can you really expect them to mandate every school offer? That's over 4 per year if you took them all! There were only 4 AP classes in my whole high school growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While some parents and families have been happy to be able to select a school, the consortia model has been an abject failure.

The original reason the NEC and DCC were created was so that MCPS/BOE didn't have to draw hard boundary lines when Blake opened and Northwood reopened. Boundary studies and hard boundary lines are divisive and controversial (see what is happening now with Woodward/Crown). Instead, they opted to make soft boundary lines with a promise that families would have choices.

What has happened over time is:

1. The signature programs have become less and less "signature". There really is very little difference in course offerings from school to school within the consortia.

2. The schools in the consortia have very little sense of community, with lots of vertical articulation challenges. Listen to all the outcry about splitting elementary and middle schools in the Crown/Woodward studies. There is a reason those communities are against splitting their feeder schools. In the NEC and DCC, it is splitting feeders on steroids.

3. MCPS is spending significant money by sending five buses to every DCC bus stop and three to every NEC bus stop.

4. In the NEC in particular, there was a goal to try to socially engineer demographics in the three schools through the choice lottery system. As time went on though, the NEC as a whole became more and more homogenous. Twenty years ago, Blake was the "white" school, PB the "black" school and Springbrook the "Hispanic" school. The three schools look very similar to each other now.

5. Extracurricular activity involvement becomes a real challenge in the consortia. Getting rides home after practices or rehearsals or back to school for games or concerts is a big challenge when everyone lives to spread out. Add in the challenge that families don't know each other well and carpooling to/from school activities is extremely difficult.

6. In the DCC in particular, things were never going to be on an even playing field when comparing the schools. From Blair's specialty programs to Wheaton's brand new school, some of the schools were always going to get the short end of the stick (Kennedy and Northwood in particular). Northwood's new facility will hopefully improve things, but the long layover at Woodward exacerbated the gap.

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away. Families will initially be upset - any time choice is taken away it isn't popular. But going away from the consortia is in the best interests of MCPS and the individual schools.

It will be interesting to see if these "region" models have the same negative impacts on all 25 schools, or if the number of students going to their non-home school is minimal.

Northwood will get the CAP from Blair and has the Montgomery College program, so I am optimistic for Northwood.

And they're getting a brand-new building. Northwood is going to be in a very good place in the near future.

Does Northwood have good teachers and leadership?

[Anonymous]

I'm a DCC parent and have no issues with the consortium going away

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a DCC parent and have no issues with the consortium going away

Aren't the new regional programming going to mimic the system wee already have in the NEC and DCC (except for the countywide magnets going away)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a DCC parent and have no issues with the consortium going away

Aren't the new regional programming going to mimic the system wee already have in the NEC and DCC (except for the countywide magnets going away)?

If people are choosing their consortium school for the special academic programs, then yes, it will be largely replicated through the new regional system.

If people are choosing their consortium school for other reasons, then no. Are there many kids/families who choose their consortium school for other reasons? What are they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While some parents and families have been happy to be able to select a school, the consortia model has been an abject failure.

The original reason the NEC and DCC were created was so that MCPS/BOE didn't have to draw hard boundary lines when Blake opened and Northwood reopened. Boundary studies and hard boundary lines are divisive and controversial (see what is happening now with Woodward/Crown). Instead, they opted to make soft boundary lines with a promise that families would have choices.

What has happened over time is:

1. The signature programs have become less and less "signature". There really is very little difference in course offerings from school to school within the consortia.

2. The schools in the consortia have very little sense of community, with lots of vertical articulation challenges. Listen to all the outcry about splitting elementary and middle schools in the Crown/Woodward studies. There is a reason those communities are against splitting their feeder schools. In the NEC and DCC, it is splitting feeders on steroids.

3. MCPS is spending significant money by sending five buses to every DCC bus stop and three to every NEC bus stop.

4. In the NEC in particular, there was a goal to try to socially engineer demographics in the three schools through the choice lottery system. As time went on though, the NEC as a whole became more and more homogenous. Twenty years ago, Blake was the "white" school, PB the "black" school and Springbrook the "Hispanic" school. The three schools look very similar to each other now.

5. Extracurricular activity involvement becomes a real challenge in the consortia. Getting rides home after practices or rehearsals or back to school for games or concerts is a big challenge when everyone lives to spread out. Add in the challenge that families don't know each other well and carpooling to/from school activities is extremely difficult.

6. In the DCC in particular, things were never going to be on an even playing field when comparing the schools. From Blair's specialty programs to Wheaton's brand new school, some of the schools were always going to get the short end of the stick (Kennedy and Northwood in particular). Northwood's new facility will hopefully improve things, but the long layover at Woodward exacerbated the gap.

Staff at the schools will be ecstatic if/when the consortia go away. Families will initially be upset - any time choice is taken away it isn't popular. But going away from the consortia is in the best interests of MCPS and the individual schools.

It will be interesting to see if these "region" models have the same negative impacts on all 25 schools, or if the number of students going to their non-home school is minimal.

Northwood will get the CAP from Blair and has the Montgomery College program, so I am optimistic for Northwood.

And they're getting a brand-new building. Northwood is going to be in a very good place in the near future.

I’m watching the Northwood changes closely and selfishly. This is our home school, and will likely remain so under most of the proposed boundary studies. My kids are only 10 and 7 and I don’t anticipate they’ll be at the very top percentile (at least, my oldest won’t), but still very interested to see how things go here the next few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a DCC parent and have no issues with the consortium going away

Aren't the new regional programming going to mimic the system wee already have in the NEC and DCC (except for the countywide magnets going away)?

If people are choosing their consortium school for the special academic programs, then yes, it will be largely replicated through the new regional system.

If people are choosing their consortium school for other reasons, then no. Are there many kids/families who choose their consortium school for other reasons? What are they?

We chose a consortium school because it had a convenient bus stop on our corner, whereas our home school had none but was too long of a walk.