MCPS Redisricting - offshoot from open enrollment/busing thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The rest of the county burns while BFES, Wayside and CSES haveessentially a 3:1 student teacher ratio.

Beverly Farms: student/instructional staff ratio 14.7, average kindergarten class size 20.5, average grade 1-3 class size 23.3, average grade 4-5 class size 25.9
Wayside: 10.6/20.3/25.2/24.9
Cold Spring: 13.3/17.5/20.2/23.5
Ritchie Park: 15.1/23.5/21.9/22.8

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02226.pdf
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02235.pdf
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02238.pdf
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02227.pdf

Now, what are the numbers for your school? You can find them on the second page of your school's at-a-glance report, near the top, in the box titled Class Size/Staff Ratio

I find the ratios misleading (not just at the schools listed above but at all schools). Are they including art, music and PE and others? Those only meet once per week. Most of the time the kids are in their main classroom so that ratio is useless.

Art, music, and PE teachers are instructional staff, aren't they? It's the ratio of students to instructional staff, not the ratio of students to classroom teachers.

Also you can just compare the average class sizes.

Yes, they are instructional staff. But the student is never going to see that ratio. They all teach the same number of kids at the same time. That's why I think it's misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup, that is true. My DS goes to Lakewood. 17 kids in each first grade class. We are hoping it gets less crowded next year.

My heart bleeds.

- Rosemary Hills parent with 24 kids in K next year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is in a 24 child class at BFES. A fine class size, but how do you get a 3:1 ratio?? My friend's kid at Oakland Terrace (they are in a lovely home in Kensington) has 16 kids in her class. Oh, and they have other people, too. Their compacted math class has 10 people in it and a dedicated teacher- BFES definitely does not have that! Stop assuming everything is more magical in some of these schools! ALL schools follow the same rules.

Seriously. Wood Acres is in the Whitman cluster. Class size for my kids has run as high as 28-29. Right now the school is nearly 250 overcapacity with nearly 800 kids. 800! The school is so overcrowded, the kids start their lunch shifts at 10:45 and kids complain they have to hork their food down in 10 minutes to make way for the next shift. Man, the anti-W myths being spread are maddening.

Let's change that to Wootton and Churchill cluster... most of the ESs in those clusters are under capacity.

One thing that seems clear from this thread is that MoCo has done a horrible job of planning all over the place. These issues do not spring up overnight. The issues identified on this thread were years in the making. MCPS deserves some of the blame for its decision process regarding school construction (i.e. not making overcrowding more of a factor in deciding which schools get help when). But the county council is equally to blame. How do you encourage development and growth without planning properly for it? Seems like there needs to be better coordination between planning divisions. Unfortunately, it's too late for kids already in the system. They'll have to deal with overcrowded schools for their entire MCPS education. Hopefully the county ca can get their act together for the next generation of kids.

Yup. There are plans to build lots of apartment units in the Westbard area, currently zoned for Wood Acres. I am not at all against the idea of more affordable housing options in Bethesda, but there really must be coordination between all the stakeholders working on this development, and redistricting and/or new school construction should be on the table (nearby Westbrook was just expanded and it has spare capacity now). They simply cannot put more children into Wood Acres. Can you imagine an ES with 900 kids in it? BTW, they are going to expand the school over the next 1-2 years, but I understand it will not expand the cafeteria, so I guess we will just have the kids start lunch shifts at 9:30.

[Anonymous]

College Gardens was just around 1000 for the last few years. Lunch starts at 10:30 and ends at 1:30. No need to imagine..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is in a 24 child class at BFES. A fine class size, but how do you get a 3:1 ratio?? My friend's kid at Oakland Terrace (they are in a lovely home in Kensington) has 16 kids in her class. Oh, and they have other people, too. Their compacted math class has 10 people in it and a dedicated teacher- BFES definitely does not have that! Stop assuming everything is more magical in some of these schools! ALL schools follow the same rules.

Seriously. Wood Acres is in the Whitman cluster. Class size for my kids has run as high as 28-29. Right now the school is nearly 250 overcapacity with nearly 800 kids. 800! The school is so overcrowded, the kids start their lunch shifts at 10:45 and kids complain they have to hork their food down in 10 minutes to make way for the next shift. Man, the anti-W myths being spread are maddening.

Let's change that to Wootton and Churchill cluster... most of the ESs in those clusters are under capacity.

One thing that seems clear from this thread is that MoCo has done a horrible job of planning all over the place. These issues do not spring up overnight. The issues identified on this thread were years in the making. MCPS deserves some of the blame for its decision process regarding school construction (i.e. not making overcrowding more of a factor in deciding which schools get help when). But the county council is equally to blame. How do you encourage development and growth without planning properly for it? Seems like there needs to be better coordination between planning divisions. Unfortunately, it's too late for kids already in the system. They'll have to deal with overcrowded schools for their entire MCPS education. Hopefully the county ca can get their act together for the next generation of kids.

Yup. There are plans to build lots of apartment units in the Westbard area, currently zoned for Wood Acres. I am not at all against the idea of more affordable housing options in Bethesda, but there really must be coordination between all the stakeholders working on this development, and redistricting and/or new school construction should be on the table (nearby Westbrook was just expanded and it has spare capacity now). They simply cannot put more children into Wood Acres. Can you imagine an ES with 900 kids in it? BTW, they are going to expand the school over the next 1-2 years, but I understand it will not expand the cafeteria, so I guess we will just have the kids start lunch shifts at 9:30.

No, I can't imagine it but the way things are going this may be a reality sooner than you think. There just doesn't seem to be a cap on enrollment, i.e. the county saying school cannot be bigger than this, or class sizes cannot be bigger than this. At what point do they say enough? It seems to vary from cluster to cluster.

[Anonymous]

The place I moved from had a much smaller school district than MCPS. However, if the local ES was full, then a new enrollee had to go to the neighboring ES that was not full. It was first come, first serve. My ex-neighbor's kids ended up going to a neighboring ES a mile away instead of the one down the street where my kids went because of the over-enrollment at the time.

Why can't they do that here? Once enrollment for K reaches capacity, why not have the overflow go to a neighboring school? Yes, I know busing becomes a problem, but I'm sure it must be better than an over-crowded school. Why not open the enrollment up at these under-capacity schools - I know there is another thread about open enrollment. But this should be an option for the schools that are at over capacity - by 100+ kids. That's just ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The place I moved from had a much smaller school district than MCPS. However, if the local ES was full, then a new enrollee had to go to the neighboring ES that was not full. It was first come, first serve. My ex-neighbor's kids ended up going to a neighboring ES a mile away instead of the one down the street where my kids went because of the over-enrollment at the time.

Why can't they do that here? Once enrollment for K reaches capacity, why not have the overflow go to a neighboring school? Yes, I know busing becomes a problem, but I'm sure it must be better than an over-crowded school. Why not open the enrollment up at these under-capacity schools - I know there is another thread about open enrollment. But this should be an option for the schools that are at over capacity - by 100+ kids. That's just ridiculous.

As I understand it, it definitely is possible to get a COSA to an under-capacity school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The place I moved from had a much smaller school district than MCPS. However, if the local ES was full, then a new enrollee had to go to the neighboring ES that was not full. It was first come, first serve. My ex-neighbor's kids ended up going to a neighboring ES a mile away instead of the one down the street where my kids went because of the over-enrollment at the time.

Why can't they do that here? Once enrollment for K reaches capacity, why not have the overflow go to a neighboring school? Yes, I know busing becomes a problem, but I'm sure it must be better than an over-crowded school. Why not open the enrollment up at these under-capacity schools - I know there is another thread about open enrollment. But this should be an option for the schools that are at over capacity - by 100+ kids. That's just ridiculous.

As I understand it, it definitely is possible to get a COSA to an under-capacity school.

But don't you have to first show undue hardship? That was my understanding. I don't think "over-crowding" will be accepted as undue hardship.

[Anonymous]

They better not send any of those kids to Wayside. We like our school uncrowded and with no poor kids (just sayin)

[Anonymous]

13:23, shame on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College Gardens was just around 1000 for the last few years. Lunch starts at 10:30 and ends at 1:30. No need to imagine..

College Gardens enrollment is around 860 and the first lunch is at 11.

[Anonymous]

People like 13:23 will make sure that the Wootton/Churchill clusters are always undercrowded at the expense of the other neighboring clusters. Thanks, Boss Starr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College Gardens was just around 1000 for the last few years. Lunch starts at 10:30 and ends at 1:30. No need to imagine..

College Gardens enrollment is around 860 and the first lunch is at 11.

Do they get some kind of snack time later in the day? My kids eat breakfast around 7:45. They wouldn't be that hungry by 11 so probably would eat a small lunch, and then be starving by 2:30.

This is such a bad situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College Gardens was just around 1000 for the last few years. Lunch starts at 10:30 and ends at 1:30. No need to imagine..

College Gardens enrollment is around 860 and the first lunch is at 11.

When my kids were there a few years back they were close to 1000 (under but close to) and my DD 3rd grade lunch was from 1:30-2:00. Glad to know it has gotten a bit better.

[Anonymous]

At BFES, they have a leisurely lunch period where the kids are served better food than at other schools. It is not crowded and kids eat at regular times. It's glorious. Yet another perk of BFES.