Option H is permanent and the old Wootton HS campus will be closed for good?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not trolling but trying to understand whether there is any valid basis to the “illegality” argument other than just posturing: these boundary study options are merely just options - Taylor may ultimately decide to propose to the council a modified version of one of the options or something entirely different. Survey responses aren’t votes and aren’t binding on them. If they do decide to close Wootton, they have plenty of time to notice public hearings and conduct impact studies. What is the basis for folks believing that all this work must be done prematurely?

Because you are genuinely asking: any lawyer worth their salt would know there is no legal standing yet because you are right there is no harm done. That’s why the argument isn’t mcps is violating the law—the argument is Option H is violating the law. Hence, if Option H is chosen, MCPS is in violation of the law.

Lawyers use notices all the time to warn institutions. If you do this, we will be forced to sue you.

Switching buildings isn't closing a school, nor is changing boundaries. Lawyers send bogus threats all the time- it doesn't mean there's a credible case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not trolling but trying to understand whether there is any valid basis to the “illegality” argument other than just posturing: these boundary study options are merely just options - Taylor may ultimately decide to propose to the council a modified version of one of the options or something entirely different. Survey responses aren’t votes and aren’t binding on them. If they do decide to close Wootton, they have plenty of time to notice public hearings and conduct impact studies. What is the basis for folks believing that all this work must be done prematurely?

Because you are genuinely asking: any lawyer worth their salt would know there is no legal standing yet because you are right there is no harm done. That’s why the argument isn’t mcps is violating the law—the argument is Option H is violating the law. Hence, if Option H is chosen, MCPS is in violation of the law.

Lawyers use notices all the time to warn institutions. If you do this, we will be forced to sue you.

Response got cut off.
To your second part—can’t they start all this process after going with H. The answer is no. MCPS can’t decide to do something without first doing all the things required. The point of the law isn’t so that MCPS can perform a checklist for the sake of doing so. The point of the law is to have good-faith engagement and impact studies. Thats why procedure matters. If Mcps decides first to close, then there is no point in doing all the things the state requires—their minds are made up. That’s why the law requires these protections before a decision is made.

That doesn't make any sense. You need to make a decision to begin the process at all. Proposing something is not the same thing as making the final decision.

The whole thing is silly, though. Option H isn't closing a school. Keep the name and the boundary the same for a year if it is important to emphasize that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If option H is installed, the older town houses value will collapse. The new development near Wootton wok loose value.

There needs to be stronger protest from the community.

Not enough protest was going on when Horizon Hills, next to Wootton, was rezoned. Not environmental friendly either.

Wootton is a quieter bunch and less litigious than Churchill and Whitman. People keep throwing words around like elitist, when in reality Wootton is average in wealth for this county.

This is honestly is the most worked up I’ve ever seen the cluster, and yet people keep saying that they are “gangsters” for simply advocating for their kids. Hell I wish Wootton would be louder—maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with because we would’ve gotten renovations done years ago. Instead, we keep getting ignored and sidelined. And now instead of renovations, they want Wootton to take the fall and fill in a school that doesn’t have enough kids to attend. If Crown truly doesn’t have enough kids, why build it in the first place? Or maybe it does have enough kids if we did a reasonable boundary study… but god forbid we ever touch the almighty Potomac Churchill kids. No we can’t touch Wayside or Potomac ES, so let’s pick on Wootton and make them take the fall for our poor choices.

That said, looks like finally something woke the sleeping giants and the Wootton cluster is protesting and making noise!

You don't really believe Wootton is "average" for wealth, do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not trolling but trying to understand whether there is any valid basis to the “illegality” argument other than just posturing: these boundary study options are merely just options - Taylor may ultimately decide to propose to the council a modified version of one of the options or something entirely different. Survey responses aren’t votes and aren’t binding on them. If they do decide to close Wootton, they have plenty of time to notice public hearings and conduct impact studies. What is the basis for folks believing that all this work must be done prematurely?

Because you are genuinely asking: any lawyer worth their salt would know there is no legal standing yet because you are right there is no harm done. That’s why the argument isn’t mcps is violating the law—the argument is Option H is violating the law. Hence, if Option H is chosen, MCPS is in violation of the law.

Lawyers use notices all the time to warn institutions. If you do this, we will be forced to sue you.

Response got cut off.
To your second part—can’t they start all this process after going with H. The answer is no. MCPS can’t decide to do something without first doing all the things required. The point of the law isn’t so that MCPS can perform a checklist for the sake of doing so. The point of the law is to have good-faith engagement and impact studies. Thats why procedure matters. If Mcps decides first to close, then there is no point in doing all the things the state requires—their minds are made up. That’s why the law requires these protections before a decision is made.

That doesn't make any sense. You need to make a decision to begin the process at all. Proposing something is not the same thing as making the final decision.

The whole thing is silly, though. Option H isn't closing a school. Keep the name and the boundary the same for a year if it is important to emphasize that.

So that’s precisely why option H is dangerous. It’s mixing school closure and boundary at the same time (and even CIP). All of these are separate administrative and procedural decisions. They aren’t supposed to influence or be decided based on each other. That’s why the water surrounding H is already dirty.

To consider whether or not to close a school isn’t really a fair decision when it comes at the tail end and as a result of millions of dollars spent on a farce of a boundary study spanning across years. It would mean MCPS gave the illusion of choice and are only looking for facts to support its conclusion.

I’m not going to feed the trolls and explain why this is a school closure. There’s pages and pages on this thread about this. There’s also that modified H being floated.

Plus the person above made is super clear. What is staying the same? Name, kids, teachers, location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes - the Wootton cluster is finally getting worked up. Hopefully it is not too late.

With regard to your almighty Churchill comments: You are exactly right. Churchill is unified and they take pride in their school. They are defending Wayside and Potomac. Perhaps Wootton can stick together in the same way?

The only approach that will work is to fight to keep Wootton, fully as Wootton (that is what the almighty Churchill would do). You start compromising on the name, and jettisoning elementary schools and we are headed for closure.

Part of the issue was that Churchill had only one maybe two schools in question and it was all mostly the same goal.

Wootton is dealing with an entire cluster, with the feeder schools at different locations relative to the new Crown site and the current Wootton site. Since the area is broader, the range of what people are supporting or opposing is broader too. When the question used to be just one or two schools, the Wootton cluster did circle the wagons and insist on keeping all of it's schools. It's one of the things that some posters are saying the Wootton cluster whined about.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If they do a total rezone just send Dufief, Travilah and Stone Mill all to Crown. Dufief's main issue initially with A-D was that they were the only ones being pulled from the Wootton cluster and it was being done in a way that made no sense. If it's all three schools that are clearly closer to Crown than Wootton, have at it.

Also, it's becoming more and more obvious that Fallsmead/Lakewood care more about Wootton staying on the Parkway than keeping the cluster together. The North Potomac schools that don't really care about Option H have been quiet and going along with anti-H anyway, but now that it's clear no one cares about keeping them in the cluster hopefully they get more vocal about getting their kids into a safe school. Because this sudden change to "actually, we don't want repairs" doesn't help the kids.

Technically, Dufief, Travilah and Stone Mill may be closer to Crown HS than to Wootton HS. If they split Wootton like this by rezoning, pull out some to Crown and take some in to Wootton, both Crown HS and Wootton HS exist may work. I am sure Dufief would be fine with this option since they are not alone.

I would say when they build so many houses all over everywhere in MoCo, rezoning is unavoidable.

Yeah, I was looking at the map, that seems to be the case. Seems like Wootton should be folded into the Rockville System(s) for the families that are actually in Rockville.

It is really disingenuous to take families in Rockville, who are paying to Rockville taxes for Rockville amenities and ship them 3 miles away to Gaithersburg.

Pretty simple, take the outer county residents who bought into car commuting, send them to Crown their only issue is likely demographics. They knew what they were signing up for before they bought when it comes to car commuting. Leave the ones in Rockville at Wootton, fix the school with the light attendance, then rebalance Wootton, Richard Montgomery and Rockville High School as necessary.

Anonymous wrote:
Rockville high school isn’t even a part of the discussion. Also it’s no where near any of the neighborhoods in question.

Yes, it is all the affected neighborhoods would be in Rockville. You would need to rebalance the schools. RM is overcrowded and RHS is near capacity so it would make sense if they ended up back filling Wootton with a generally westward migration. RHS->RM->Wootton then a northward migration Wootton-> crown, but only in the outer county areas like Travilah.

Do you know how this works? Clearly not.

I like that idea though. The Wootton walkers are happy because they get the location and that’s clearly the only thing they care about. The more open-minded parts of the cluster go to the new school. Those are backfilled with overflow from RMHS and RHS who would be happy to go to Wootton (though it wouldn’t be “Wootton” anymore). Sounds like a win-win to me.

Wootton cannot have those students join their school as Wootton parents think they are inferior.

They have to pick a lane and they have already abandoned half their cluster who contributed to its reputation. You want the dumpy school on Wootton parkway? Then you risk boundaries being changed around you. But you can walk!

So you want the boundaries to make no geographical sense whatsoever? Clearly a fan of bussing kids. RM makes sense to redistrict some to Wootton. The neighborhoods that feed to RHS are too far away for it to make sense. They would pass two high schools on the way-which is the whole problem with this boundary study in the first place. If they just redraw all the boundaries when Crown opens they can make all the boundaries make more sense.

Yes that’s what I want. I want boundaries to make absolutely no sense and for kids to be bussed to Timbuktu and back. If we’re making assumptions, I assume you are in Wootton’s walk zone. Where a three-mile bus ride is “nonsensical” and once again proof of self-interest. How dare you take umbrage with “bussing” when everyone but you already busses to Wootton!!!! So obtuse. And one of woottons feeder schools drives past frost to get to cabin John. It is already happening. Maybe you all take a turn for once and stop thinking you’re the only neighborhood impacted by this.

That’s why i’m saying the boundaries need to be redrawn-because the kids shouldn’t be passing one school to get to another one. That was kind of my whole point that you seemed to have missed. All the moco boundaries need to be redrawn-not just the ones on the boundary study.

What does it matter? Particularly once you get out of the walk zone. There's no reason to limit things to the closest schools. That just leads people to not care about the quality of the district as a whole.

Seriously? Then maybe we should bus some Gaithersburg and RHS students to Wootton. That will be caring about the district as a whole and improving the diversity in Wootton.

First: Wootton is actually one of the most diverse schools in the county. O wait are you not counting Asians as diverse? Not the right kind of minority for you? Are we supposed to or not supposed to see color?

Second: For the love of god, moving high performing kids around doesn’t actually solve education issues at their root. Maybe instead of wasting god knows how much money on bussing and boundary studies, we tackle the root issue of increasing the education performance at lower performing schools?

So, leave the high performing kids in your failing building and any low performers can go to Crown since only high performers are welcome at Wootton.

I see we’re back to the whole high performing means we should hate on Wootton. Does this mean you anti-Wootton folks have given up and realized option H is illegal?

No it means you are obsessed with only high performers so the mid to low performers should be moved to other schools as they are not welcome. We are a kind school. We will take them.

There is nothing wrong with wanting your child to go to a school that historically turns out high test scores. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to preserve that and its history, either. What is wrong is not supporting one of the options that were offered and instead creating your own. What is wrong is not even considering the option that would keep the entire cluster together, and hence theoretically, its high performance. Staying on Wootton Parkway is the priority. It is insane. Performance could be even higher in the beautiful new school with all of its new resources.

There is no hate here for Wootton. I’m an alum (and actually remember the traffic turning out of that school and getting off of the one lane Parkway was horrendous). But you’re not seeing the forest through the trees and instead are passing up a really nice offer. Smells like entitlement.

You do know that the school is being combined with GHS students correct? So why would you think its performance would be even higher? GHS is the lowest performing school in the country with an abysmal graduation rate. and no, even if it wasn’t being combined (which it is-that’s a fact) the students will have to get up so much earlier than they already do just to get to school on time. And you think that will increase their performance when they are all exhausted now that their school is 30+ minutes away??

Are you talking about Fields Road ES? If so, they have always been QO and are only in the survey options being moved to Gaithersburg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes - the Wootton cluster is finally getting worked up. Hopefully it is not too late.

With regard to your almighty Churchill comments: You are exactly right. Churchill is unified and they take pride in their school. They are defending Wayside and Potomac. Perhaps Wootton can stick together in the same way?

The only approach that will work is to fight to keep Wootton, fully as Wootton (that is what the almighty Churchill would do). You start compromising on the name, and jettisoning elementary schools and we are headed for closure.

Part of the issue was that Churchill had only one maybe two schools in question and it was all mostly the same goal.

Wootton is dealing with an entire cluster, with the feeder schools at different locations relative to the new Crown site and the current Wootton site. Since the area is broader, the range of what people are supporting or opposing is broader too. When the question used to be just one or two schools, the Wootton cluster did circle the wagons and insist on keeping all of it's schools. It's one of the things that some posters are saying the Wootton cluster whined about.

Exactly. No other school or cluster has been threatened with closure. What makes Wootton different? It’s the one mcps school with the most amount of Asians kids. As this thread shows, Asians kids aren’t diverse. Guess they are white? Asian kids according to this thread can also be used as tools to increase test scores.

O wait that’s why this is a civil rights issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not trolling but trying to understand whether there is any valid basis to the “illegality” argument other than just posturing: these boundary study options are merely just options - Taylor may ultimately decide to propose to the council a modified version of one of the options or something entirely different. Survey responses aren’t votes and aren’t binding on them. If they do decide to close Wootton, they have plenty of time to notice public hearings and conduct impact studies. What is the basis for folks believing that all this work must be done prematurely?

Because you are genuinely asking: any lawyer worth their salt would know there is no legal standing yet because you are right there is no harm done. That’s why the argument isn’t mcps is violating the law—the argument is Option H is violating the law. Hence, if Option H is chosen, MCPS is in violation of the law.

Lawyers use notices all the time to warn institutions. If you do this, we will be forced to sue you.

Response got cut off.
To your second part—can’t they start all this process after going with H. The answer is no. MCPS can’t decide to do something without first doing all the things required. The point of the law isn’t so that MCPS can perform a checklist for the sake of doing so. The point of the law is to have good-faith engagement and impact studies. Thats why procedure matters. If Mcps decides first to close, then there is no point in doing all the things the state requires—their minds are made up. That’s why the law requires these protections before a decision is made.

That doesn't make any sense. You need to make a decision to begin the process at all. Proposing something is not the same thing as making the final decision.

The whole thing is silly, though. Option H isn't closing a school. Keep the name and the boundary the same for a year if it is important to emphasize that.

So that’s precisely why option H is dangerous. It’s mixing school closure and boundary at the same time (and even CIP). All of these are separate administrative and procedural decisions. They aren’t supposed to influence or be decided based on each other. That’s why the water surrounding H is already dirty.

To consider whether or not to close a school isn’t really a fair decision when it comes at the tail end and as a result of millions of dollars spent on a farce of a boundary study spanning across years. It would mean MCPS gave the illusion of choice and are only looking for facts to support its conclusion.

I’m not going to feed the trolls and explain why this is a school closure. There’s pages and pages on this thread about this. There’s also that modified H being floated.

Plus the person above made is super clear. What is staying the same? Name, kids, teachers, location.

Yes, decisions get complicated. That isn't a reason to avoid them.

Even if you consider this a school closure, they're already following the spirit of the law regarding transparency and engagement , and to the extent that there might be additional steps, there are opportunities to do that. School closures never come up lightly. What you're suggesting now is that a district could never propose closing a school, as you're saying you can't even make the decision to even propose a closure without first going through a process. Turtles all the way down.

I'm coming around to the idea of phasing in the boundary changes a year after moving the school, just to emphasize the ridiculousness of the Wootton position and avoid attempts to drag it into court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes - the Wootton cluster is finally getting worked up. Hopefully it is not too late.

With regard to your almighty Churchill comments: You are exactly right. Churchill is unified and they take pride in their school. They are defending Wayside and Potomac. Perhaps Wootton can stick together in the same way?

The only approach that will work is to fight to keep Wootton, fully as Wootton (that is what the almighty Churchill would do). You start compromising on the name, and jettisoning elementary schools and we are headed for closure.

Part of the issue was that Churchill had only one maybe two schools in question and it was all mostly the same goal.

Wootton is dealing with an entire cluster, with the feeder schools at different locations relative to the new Crown site and the current Wootton site. Since the area is broader, the range of what people are supporting or opposing is broader too. When the question used to be just one or two schools, the Wootton cluster did circle the wagons and insist on keeping all of it's schools. It's one of the things that some posters are saying the Wootton cluster whined about.

Except in the early days when survey options moved only Dufief to a new cluster and the rest of Wootton were radio silent. So much for keeping the community together…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If they do a total rezone just send Dufief, Travilah and Stone Mill all to Crown. Dufief's main issue initially with A-D was that they were the only ones being pulled from the Wootton cluster and it was being done in a way that made no sense. If it's all three schools that are clearly closer to Crown than Wootton, have at it.

Also, it's becoming more and more obvious that Fallsmead/Lakewood care more about Wootton staying on the Parkway than keeping the cluster together. The North Potomac schools that don't really care about Option H have been quiet and going along with anti-H anyway, but now that it's clear no one cares about keeping them in the cluster hopefully they get more vocal about getting their kids into a safe school. Because this sudden change to "actually, we don't want repairs" doesn't help the kids.

Technically, Dufief, Travilah and Stone Mill may be closer to Crown HS than to Wootton HS. If they split Wootton like this by rezoning, pull out some to Crown and take some in to Wootton, both Crown HS and Wootton HS exist may work. I am sure Dufief would be fine with this option since they are not alone.

I would say when they build so many houses all over everywhere in MoCo, rezoning is unavoidable.

Yeah, I was looking at the map, that seems to be the case. Seems like Wootton should be folded into the Rockville System(s) for the families that are actually in Rockville.

It is really disingenuous to take families in Rockville, who are paying to Rockville taxes for Rockville amenities and ship them 3 miles away to Gaithersburg.

Pretty simple, take the outer county residents who bought into car commuting, send them to Crown their only issue is likely demographics. They knew what they were signing up for before they bought when it comes to car commuting. Leave the ones in Rockville at Wootton, fix the school with the light attendance, then rebalance Wootton, Richard Montgomery and Rockville High School as necessary.

Anonymous wrote:
Rockville high school isn’t even a part of the discussion. Also it’s no where near any of the neighborhoods in question.

Yes, it is all the affected neighborhoods would be in Rockville. You would need to rebalance the schools. RM is overcrowded and RHS is near capacity so it would make sense if they ended up back filling Wootton with a generally westward migration. RHS->RM->Wootton then a northward migration Wootton-> crown, but only in the outer county areas like Travilah.

Do you know how this works? Clearly not.

I like that idea though. The Wootton walkers are happy because they get the location and that’s clearly the only thing they care about. The more open-minded parts of the cluster go to the new school. Those are backfilled with overflow from RMHS and RHS who would be happy to go to Wootton (though it wouldn’t be “Wootton” anymore). Sounds like a win-win to me.

Wootton cannot have those students join their school as Wootton parents think they are inferior.

They have to pick a lane and they have already abandoned half their cluster who contributed to its reputation. You want the dumpy school on Wootton parkway? Then you risk boundaries being changed around you. But you can walk!

So you want the boundaries to make no geographical sense whatsoever? Clearly a fan of bussing kids. RM makes sense to redistrict some to Wootton. The neighborhoods that feed to RHS are too far away for it to make sense. They would pass two high schools on the way-which is the whole problem with this boundary study in the first place. If they just redraw all the boundaries when Crown opens they can make all the boundaries make more sense.

Yes that’s what I want. I want boundaries to make absolutely no sense and for kids to be bussed to Timbuktu and back. If we’re making assumptions, I assume you are in Wootton’s walk zone. Where a three-mile bus ride is “nonsensical” and once again proof of self-interest. How dare you take umbrage with “bussing” when everyone but you already busses to Wootton!!!! So obtuse. And one of woottons feeder schools drives past frost to get to cabin John. It is already happening. Maybe you all take a turn for once and stop thinking you’re the only neighborhood impacted by this.

That’s why i’m saying the boundaries need to be redrawn-because the kids shouldn’t be passing one school to get to another one. That was kind of my whole point that you seemed to have missed. All the moco boundaries need to be redrawn-not just the ones on the boundary study.

What does it matter? Particularly once you get out of the walk zone. There's no reason to limit things to the closest schools. That just leads people to not care about the quality of the district as a whole.

Seriously? Then maybe we should bus some Gaithersburg and RHS students to Wootton. That will be caring about the district as a whole and improving the diversity in Wootton.

First: Wootton is actually one of the most diverse schools in the county. O wait are you not counting Asians as diverse? Not the right kind of minority for you? Are we supposed to or not supposed to see color?

Second: For the love of god, moving high performing kids around doesn’t actually solve education issues at their root. Maybe instead of wasting god knows how much money on bussing and boundary studies, we tackle the root issue of increasing the education performance at lower performing schools?

So, leave the high performing kids in your failing building and any low performers can go to Crown since only high performers are welcome at Wootton.

I see we’re back to the whole high performing means we should hate on Wootton. Does this mean you anti-Wootton folks have given up and realized option H is illegal?

No it means you are obsessed with only high performers so the mid to low performers should be moved to other schools as they are not welcome. We are a kind school. We will take them.

There is nothing wrong with wanting your child to go to a school that historically turns out high test scores. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to preserve that and its history, either. What is wrong is not supporting one of the options that were offered and instead creating your own. What is wrong is not even considering the option that would keep the entire cluster together, and hence theoretically, its high performance. Staying on Wootton Parkway is the priority. It is insane. Performance could be even higher in the beautiful new school with all of its new resources.

There is no hate here for Wootton. I’m an alum (and actually remember the traffic turning out of that school and getting off of the one lane Parkway was horrendous). But you’re not seeing the forest through the trees and instead are passing up a really nice offer. Smells like entitlement.

You do know that the school is being combined with GHS students correct? So why would you think its performance would be even higher? GHS is the lowest performing school in the country with an abysmal graduation rate. and no, even if it wasn’t being combined (which it is-that’s a fact) the students will have to get up so much earlier than they already do just to get to school on time. And you think that will increase their performance when they are all exhausted now that their school is 30+ minutes away??

Are you talking about Fields Road ES? If so, they have always been QO and are only in the survey options being moved to Gaithersburg.

Did you actually read the survey options? Clearly you didn’t because Fields road isn’t even on the option for H-Rosemont is. And Rosemont feeds to GHS. Please don’t participate when you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not trolling but trying to understand whether there is any valid basis to the “illegality” argument other than just posturing: these boundary study options are merely just options - Taylor may ultimately decide to propose to the council a modified version of one of the options or something entirely different. Survey responses aren’t votes and aren’t binding on them. If they do decide to close Wootton, they have plenty of time to notice public hearings and conduct impact studies. What is the basis for folks believing that all this work must be done prematurely?

Because you are genuinely asking: any lawyer worth their salt would know there is no legal standing yet because you are right there is no harm done. That’s why the argument isn’t mcps is violating the law—the argument is Option H is violating the law. Hence, if Option H is chosen, MCPS is in violation of the law.

Lawyers use notices all the time to warn institutions. If you do this, we will be forced to sue you.

Response got cut off.
To your second part—can’t they start all this process after going with H. The answer is no. MCPS can’t decide to do something without first doing all the things required. The point of the law isn’t so that MCPS can perform a checklist for the sake of doing so. The point of the law is to have good-faith engagement and impact studies. Thats why procedure matters. If Mcps decides first to close, then there is no point in doing all the things the state requires—their minds are made up. That’s why the law requires these protections before a decision is made.

That doesn't make any sense. You need to make a decision to begin the process at all. Proposing something is not the same thing as making the final decision.

The whole thing is silly, though. Option H isn't closing a school. Keep the name and the boundary the same for a year if it is important to emphasize that.

So that’s precisely why option H is dangerous. It’s mixing school closure and boundary at the same time (and even CIP). All of these are separate administrative and procedural decisions. They aren’t supposed to influence or be decided based on each other. That’s why the water surrounding H is already dirty.

To consider whether or not to close a school isn’t really a fair decision when it comes at the tail end and as a result of millions of dollars spent on a farce of a boundary study spanning across years. It would mean MCPS gave the illusion of choice and are only looking for facts to support its conclusion.

I’m not going to feed the trolls and explain why this is a school closure. There’s pages and pages on this thread about this. There’s also that modified H being floated.

Plus the person above made is super clear. What is staying the same? Name, kids, teachers, location.

Other than location, all of those things change regularly. Locations change, to varying degrees, anytime a new building is put up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If option H is installed, the older town houses value will collapse. The new development near Wootton wok loose value.

There needs to be stronger protest from the community.

Not enough protest was going on when Horizon Hills, next to Wootton, was rezoned. Not environmental friendly either.

Wootton is a quieter bunch and less litigious than Churchill and Whitman. People keep throwing words around like elitist, when in reality Wootton is average in wealth for this county.

This is honestly is the most worked up I’ve ever seen the cluster, and yet people keep saying that they are “gangsters” for simply advocating for their kids. Hell I wish Wootton would be louder—maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with because we would’ve gotten renovations done years ago. Instead, we keep getting ignored and sidelined. And now instead of renovations, they want Wootton to take the fall and fill in a school that doesn’t have enough kids to attend. If Crown truly doesn’t have enough kids, why build it in the first place? Or maybe it does have enough kids if we did a reasonable boundary study… but god forbid we ever touch the almighty Potomac Churchill kids. No we can’t touch Wayside or Potomac ES, so let’s pick on Wootton and make them take the fall for our poor choices.

That said, looks like finally something woke the sleeping giants and the Wootton cluster is protesting and making noise!

Look at the Census tracks. The zoned tracts closest to Wootton have household incomes twice the median level for the county. Most of the others are have HHIs 50% above the county's median.

No, Wootton is not "average" wealth for the county. They're well above that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If option H is installed, the older town houses value will collapse. The new development near Wootton wok loose value.

There needs to be stronger protest from the community.

Not enough protest was going on when Horizon Hills, next to Wootton, was rezoned. Not environmental friendly either.

Wootton is a quieter bunch and less litigious than Churchill and Whitman. People keep throwing words around like elitist, when in reality Wootton is average in wealth for this county.

This is honestly is the most worked up I’ve ever seen the cluster, and yet people keep saying that they are “gangsters” for simply advocating for their kids. Hell I wish Wootton would be louder—maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with because we would’ve gotten renovations done years ago. Instead, we keep getting ignored and sidelined. And now instead of renovations, they want Wootton to take the fall and fill in a school that doesn’t have enough kids to attend. If Crown truly doesn’t have enough kids, why build it in the first place? Or maybe it does have enough kids if we did a reasonable boundary study… but god forbid we ever touch the almighty Potomac Churchill kids. No we can’t touch Wayside or Potomac ES, so let’s pick on Wootton and make them take the fall for our poor choices.

That said, looks like finally something woke the sleeping giants and the Wootton cluster is protesting and making noise!

+1

The FARMS rate is 13%. Only 3 schools -- Whitman, Churchill, and Poolesville -- have lower than that. If 1-2 high FARMS % ES clusters are added and the location moved to Crown, that school would be around 20-25% FARMS. Similar to BCC.

Look at the Census tracks. The zoned tracts closest to Wootton have household incomes twice the median level for the county. Most of the others are have HHIs 50% above the county's median.

No, Wootton is not "average" wealth for the county. They're well above that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If option H is installed, the older town houses value will collapse. The new development near Wootton wok loose value.

There needs to be stronger protest from the community.

Not enough protest was going on when Horizon Hills, next to Wootton, was rezoned. Not environmental friendly either.

Wootton is a quieter bunch and less litigious than Churchill and Whitman. People keep throwing words around like elitist, when in reality Wootton is average in wealth for this county.

This is honestly is the most worked up I’ve ever seen the cluster, and yet people keep saying that they are “gangsters” for simply advocating for their kids. Hell I wish Wootton would be louder—maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with because we would’ve gotten renovations done years ago. Instead, we keep getting ignored and sidelined. And now instead of renovations, they want Wootton to take the fall and fill in a school that doesn’t have enough kids to attend. If Crown truly doesn’t have enough kids, why build it in the first place? Or maybe it does have enough kids if we did a reasonable boundary study… but god forbid we ever touch the almighty Potomac Churchill kids. No we can’t touch Wayside or Potomac ES, so let’s pick on Wootton and make them take the fall for our poor choices.

That said, looks like finally something woke the sleeping giants and the Wootton cluster is protesting and making noise!

Look at the Census tracks. The zoned tracts closest to Wootton have household incomes twice the median level for the county. Most of the others are have HHIs 50% above the county's median.

No, Wootton is not "average" wealth for the county. They're well above that.

+1

The FARMS rate is 13%. Only 3 schools -- Whitman, Churchill, and Poolesville -- have lower than that. If 1-2 high FARMS % ES clusters are added and the location moved to Crown, that school would be around 20-25% FARMS. Similar to BCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not trolling but trying to understand whether there is any valid basis to the “illegality” argument other than just posturing: these boundary study options are merely just options - Taylor may ultimately decide to propose to the council a modified version of one of the options or something entirely different. Survey responses aren’t votes and aren’t binding on them. If they do decide to close Wootton, they have plenty of time to notice public hearings and conduct impact studies. What is the basis for folks believing that all this work must be done prematurely?

Because you are genuinely asking: any lawyer worth their salt would know there is no legal standing yet because you are right there is no harm done. That’s why the argument isn’t mcps is violating the law—the argument is Option H is violating the law. Hence, if Option H is chosen, MCPS is in violation of the law.

Lawyers use notices all the time to warn institutions. If you do this, we will be forced to sue you.

Response got cut off.
To your second part—can’t they start all this process after going with H. The answer is no. MCPS can’t decide to do something without first doing all the things required. The point of the law isn’t so that MCPS can perform a checklist for the sake of doing so. The point of the law is to have good-faith engagement and impact studies. Thats why procedure matters. If Mcps decides first to close, then there is no point in doing all the things the state requires—their minds are made up. That’s why the law requires these protections before a decision is made.

That doesn't make any sense. You need to make a decision to begin the process at all. Proposing something is not the same thing as making the final decision.

The whole thing is silly, though. Option H isn't closing a school. Keep the name and the boundary the same for a year if it is important to emphasize that.

So that’s precisely why option H is dangerous. It’s mixing school closure and boundary at the same time (and even CIP). All of these are separate administrative and procedural decisions. They aren’t supposed to influence or be decided based on each other. That’s why the water surrounding H is already dirty.

To consider whether or not to close a school isn’t really a fair decision when it comes at the tail end and as a result of millions of dollars spent on a farce of a boundary study spanning across years. It would mean MCPS gave the illusion of choice and are only looking for facts to support its conclusion.

I’m not going to feed the trolls and explain why this is a school closure. There’s pages and pages on this thread about this. There’s also that modified H being floated.

Plus the person above made is super clear. What is staying the same? Name, kids, teachers, location.

Yes, decisions get complicated. That isn't a reason to avoid them.

Even if you consider this a school closure, they're already following the spirit of the law regarding transparency and engagement , and to the extent that there might be additional steps, there are opportunities to do that. School closures never come up lightly. What you're suggesting now is that a district could never propose closing a school, as you're saying you can't even make the decision to even propose a closure without first going through a process. Turtles all the way down.

I'm coming around to the idea of phasing in the boundary changes a year after moving the school, just to emphasize the ridiculousness of the Wootton position and avoid attempts to drag it into court.

You pretended to act like the defendant’s attorney, but you can’t avoid attempts to drag this into court. Wootton families feel threatened to lose their 55 year school and no way they’ll not attempt to bring lawsuits to MCPS. Any other schools facing the same situation would sue MCPS.