Woodward boundary study public hearing

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is painful to read the (pretend) outrage toward Woodward families because they are requesting for WJ and Woodward - and every high school ideally! - to have similar utilization rates.

There is something very, very wrong when utilization rates differ so widely among schools. This is the opportunity to even it out and this recommendation absolutely does not do that.

The truth is parents are mostly outraged at the numbers of FARMS kids now attending their kids school. I guarantee they would have said nothing about utilization rates if two wealthier elementary schools were zoned for Woodward. This sentiment about FARMS kids does not just apply to these Farmland and Luxmanor parents, it really applies to all these Bethesda and Potomac parents who would be protesting if this situation happened to them. These families don’t mind financially supporting these FARMS families and schools, but they definitely don’t want them coming to their kids school. Let’s not kid ourselves that it’s anything other than that….

+1

It's simple: Caucasian Farmland and Luxmanor home owners do not want poor, brown Wheaton kids affecting the value of their homes and the perceived quality of the school.

They repeatedly said they were OK with the options presented and pretended as if they thought those were the only menu of options that could be picked (so they are either liars or stupid if they really didn't know the Super couldn't propose something else). But in theory they were OK with up to 32% FARMS and 90% Utilizations. So they get 3% more FARMS kids with the superintendent's recommendation and they cry foul now. Why didn't they comment all year strongly opposed to say Option D and F?

Option A had 27% FARMS for Woodward and 80% Utilization
Option B had 28% FARMS and 73% Utilization
Option C had 27% FARMS and 81% Utilization
Option D had 32% FARMS and 86% Utilization
Option E had 27% FARMS and 80% Utilization
Option F had 30% FARMS and 90% Utilization
Option G had 27% FARMS and 81% Utilization

+1

No sympathy. I’m zoned for Woodward and like the recommendation fine. Sorry my kids rely on FARMS

The post you’re quoting is actually really helpful for showing that the consultants proposed a range of recommended options and where Taylor landed is not anywhere within the range shown. This decision impacts thousands of children. Taylor has not faced enough scrutiny for his changes.

It’s really helpful for Taylor to illustrate it was single digit changes from what he proposed in farms and utilization. Not catastrophic 11th hour changes like the orange shirts want everyone to think.

The GP split articulation between WJ and Woodward was an unwelcome surprise. Maybe they should split articulate VM instead, sending all of GP to Woodward. That probably would satisfy a lot of folks as long as it keeps the utilization down below 90% (ideally well below 90%). This doesn’t have to be so hard.

Why? Because you want the rich white kids in GP at Woodward instead?

Because years ago, MCPS asked WJ families to vote (survey) on whether to expand WJ or build Woodward. The vote was to build Woodward, so long as the Tilden MS feeders — all of them — went to Woodward TOGETHER. Garrett Park, Farmland, Luxmanor. WJ then helped advocate for funding for Woodward etc. FOR YEARS. That was the deal. Under modified B, yes the wealthier GP families (majority of the single family homes) are going to WJ, but that’s not why.

Sounds like you don't live there and those people are long gone. The Garrett Park guy at the 2/24 BOE meeting mentioned the support of the community for the Superintendent's proposal or original option B. Apparently he was the SMOB on the BOE back in the day so I bet he remembers the history too.

Interesting. There seems to be the misguided belief that they are going to use an option provided by the consultants. Looks like that ship has sailed. “Those people” (like me) are certainly not long gone. What we want is for Woodward to be a wonderful new school for all students. A performing arts magnet, that is top notch, would be a wonderful addition to our county. (Major gap today.)

Also let’s not forget that Viers Mills once WAS part of Woodward and got excluded when the other three schools went to WJ. (And no, I wasn’t here then but know plenty of people who were. It didn’t go terribly well.)

You really are in favor of a fashion design magnet? Dance? Backstage theater set up? They should mix it up. OK fine have some program for the drama nerds and kids who like to play music. But they should have some rigorous science, math or language arts program in there too. Middle college means shipping your kid up the road to be with community college people...ie, people not smart enough to get into a real college. Dilutes the high school experience.

Did you realize there are actually jobs in performing arts, it’s actually a major industry in LA but elsewhere? And some kids from our county will go on to work in this field? We can’t all be engineers PP.

An elective or 2? Sure. An entire school curriculum? No

Art will not support Montgomery county. And it is Montgomery county tax dollars funding that school. Census data indicates the vast majority of Americans end up living within 50 miles of where they grew up.

What are you talking about? It's not going to be the entire school's curriculum. It *is* going to be just a couple of electives. It's just that kids who want to will go through those classes in a cohort, and kids from other schools can come to take them too.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Fyi there was a VMES parent who testified in support of moving VMES to WJ (see 2nd video testimony)

She doesn’t even really have a child in MCPS so put that one in the category of Farmland realtors looking at property value preservation

I’ve been told this poster is going around spreading lies on all the message boards. I am that woman who testified my child literally has a student ID and will be attending VMES starting in August. Jesus Christ

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fyi there was a VMES parent who testified in support of moving VMES to WJ (see 2nd video testimony)

She doesn’t even really have a child in MCPS so put that one in the category of Farmland realtors looking at property value preservation

I’ve been told this poster is going around spreading lies on all the message boards. I am that woman who testified my child literally has a student ID and will be attending VMES starting in August. Jesus Christ

My guess is it's a bunch of future WJ people who are gleefully calling the Farmland and Luxmanor people "racists", trying to discredit you with vague and ridiculous accusations while hiding behind the anonymity of DCUM

[Anonymous]

No fairly certain it’s a Wheaton dad who doesn’t want overcrowding at Wheaton due to the ghost 500 seats. Instead of talking about that, he likes to create division among future Woodward/WJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No fairly certain it’s a Wheaton dad who doesn’t want overcrowding at Wheaton due to the ghost 500 seats. Instead of talking about that, he likes to create division among future Woodward/WJ.

And he seems to hate Option B as that pushes more students into Wheaton.

[Anonymous]

The strategic blunder of current WJ cluster (blame PTA reps) was not being united on Option B from the start. They’re lucky Taylor only modestly tweaked option B, but boy do they wish they had original option B back now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The strategic blunder of current WJ cluster (blame PTA reps) was not being united on Option B from the start. They’re lucky Taylor only modestly tweaked option B, but boy do they wish they had original option B back now.

Agree. They took no position regarding what the policymakers presented. And when we heard ideas coming out they were fairy tail dreams that were unrealistic. Should have just picked the best option from the menu which was B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strategic blunder of current WJ cluster (blame PTA reps) was not being united on Option B from the start. They’re lucky Taylor only modestly tweaked option B, but boy do they wish they had original option B back now.

Agree. They took no position regarding what the policymakers presented. And when we heard ideas coming out they were fairy tail dreams that were unrealistic. Should have just picked the best option from the menu which was B.

+1 it was do this instead, modify that, tweak A or D, all distractions. Split articulation irrelevant points with elementary study coming up next. Focus on best high school possible. Plus zero advocacy on programs.

Should have coalesced on what was presented. B was Best. It’s too little too late now

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No fairly certain it’s a Wheaton dad who doesn’t want overcrowding at Wheaton due to the ghost 500 seats. Instead of talking about that, he likes to create division among future Woodward/WJ.

And he seems to hate Option B as that pushes more students into Wheaton.

Eh I think a lot of the Wheaton people want to stay at Wheaton and then demand money to build out Edison as Taylor has irresponsibly promised them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No fairly certain it’s a Wheaton dad who doesn’t want overcrowding at Wheaton due to the ghost 500 seats. Instead of talking about that, he likes to create division among future Woodward/WJ.

And he seems to hate Option B as that pushes more students into Wheaton.

Eh I think a lot of the Wheaton people want to stay at Wheaton and then demand money to build out Edison as Taylor has irresponsibly promised them

I think over time Wheaton goes from really good to excellent (new Blair), with the engineering program. They don’t really need to tear apart WJ and Woodward on the way up though.

Engineering parents are a lot of fun though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fyi there was a VMES parent who testified in support of moving VMES to WJ (see 2nd video testimony)

She doesn’t even really have a child in MCPS so put that one in the category of Farmland realtors looking at property value preservation

I’ve been told this poster is going around spreading lies on all the message boards. I am that woman who testified my child literally has a student ID and will be attending VMES starting in August. Jesus Christ

My guess is it's a bunch of future WJ people who are gleefully calling the Farmland and Luxmanor people "racists", trying to discredit you with vague and ridiculous accusations while hiding behind the anonymity of DCUM

Disagree. WJ family here. Stronger high schools in the region benefit everyone. And Woodward will be fine with any of the options. Though, a better magnet would be something with a direct benefit to my family and a broad benefit to the whole region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fyi there was a VMES parent who testified in support of moving VMES to WJ (see 2nd video testimony)

She doesn’t even really have a child in MCPS so put that one in the category of Farmland realtors looking at property value preservation

I’ve been told this poster is going around spreading lies on all the message boards. I am that woman who testified my child literally has a student ID and will be attending VMES starting in August. Jesus Christ

My guess is it's a bunch of future WJ people who are gleefully calling the Farmland and Luxmanor people "racists", trying to discredit you with vague and ridiculous accusations while hiding behind the anonymity of DCUM

Disagree. WJ family here. Stronger high schools in the region benefit everyone. And Woodward will be fine with any of the options. Though, a better magnet would be something with a direct benefit to my family and a broad benefit to the whole region.

Uh huh...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fyi there was a VMES parent who testified in support of moving VMES to WJ (see 2nd video testimony)

She doesn’t even really have a child in MCPS so put that one in the category of Farmland realtors looking at property value preservation

I’ve been told this poster is going around spreading lies on all the message boards. I am that woman who testified my child literally has a student ID and will be attending VMES starting in August. Jesus Christ

My guess is it's a bunch of future WJ people who are gleefully calling the Farmland and Luxmanor people "racists", trying to discredit you with vague and ridiculous accusations while hiding behind the anonymity of DCUM

Disagree. WJ family here. Stronger high schools in the region benefit everyone. And Woodward will be fine with any of the options. Though, a better magnet would be something with a direct benefit to my family and a broad benefit to the whole region.

You are probably right in the long run, but not in the short run. That particular poster doesn't strike me as someone with a strong relationship to any school, and is more likely property value obsessed that he then projects on everybody else.

Taylor with his recommendation made, completely unnecessary I would add, a very sharp line in North Bethesda. If you are zoned for WJ and next to a weak Woodward, and you plan to sell in the next year or two, you may gain a lot. This is the area that attracts educated families that are known to open their wallets when they see 9/10 vs 7/10 school. This could be a difference of $100k or more in sale proceeds for someone. So why not spend hours trolling on DCUM. It doesn't cost anything.

In the long run, I don't think it will matter much. The whole region has many good things going on.

With respect to property values, the recommendation helps WJ much more than it hurts Woodward.

On the other hand, with respect to school, the proposal hurts Woodward much more than it helps WJ.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I did not watch the hearing, but recently heard from a neighbor that there is growing advocacy to push for option B. Is there truth to this and did it come up in the public meeting? That option would be terrible for our neighborhood- we are walking sitance to Sligo but kids would be sent to SSIMS- I don't know why that was thrown out there as a potential option to begin with. So overall I was ok with Taylor's recommendation as it relates to our neighborhood. It's just hard to keep up with the changes and to anticipate what MCPS will throw out there next. The options for our neighborhood changed pretty drastically from the first to second round and caught a lot of people off guard.

There is some push for original Option B with regard to the now Current WJ cluster (sounds mainly like the Farmland/Luxmanor crew at the BOE mtg), not necessarily rest of map (but clearly would send WW back to Wheaton High).

Wasn't there someone from Silver Spring who mentioned it too? Either way, there were definitely SSiMS folks who wanted to increase the number of kids assigned to SSIMS and wanted to go back to one of the original maps, and I can't imagine the Board would choose the option B map for WJ/Wheaton and a totally different map for Silver Spring...

The Northwood Cluster Coordinator from MCCPTA testified about SSIMS going down to 55% utilization being an attempt to start the closure without appropriate process and being problematic for the kids who go there at that low utilization.



The options really treat the 2 regions as separate entities and the Board could adopt a different option for region 3 and for region 1 without causing domino effect problems but so far no one seems to be talking about it that way. I think the Board would have to vote to consider a different option and then also vote to adopt it but I’m not sure. I am not a Robert’s Rules of Order aficionado.

+1

After being called out by the BOE, Elrich, Kate Stewart and others for lack of community engagement, Taylor is trying to use the boundary study to justify a future closure of SSIMS. It’s laughably transparent and also very manipulative. If this goes through he is inviting a law suit.

I don't think it has anything to do with justifying the closure-- he will either get support for closing it or not, no one's going to say "you assigned fewer kids there and now there are fewer kids there, it's my deciding reason to close it!"

I think it is about trying to make it simpler and less disruptive to families if/when it does get closed. No one at other schools wants to get sent there for a couple years just to live through the dying years of a closing school and then get reassigned away again. So they minimized the new students they added-- just a portion of Woodlin-- so fewer families have to go through that (and fewer families get upset and protest being assigned to SSIMS.) They could have kept the current Forest Knolls and Montgomery Knolls kids there, which probably would have made the most sense, but I think I heard that SSIMS families all supported them leaving? So that all adds up to only 650-700 kids left at SSIMS.

They're upset about going down to 650-700 kids? I mean, that's a tad low, but there's a bunch of MCPS middle schools will less than 800 kids. Sligo only has about 700. When I first heard about it I thought they were talking about going down to like 400-500 kids or something.

(Plus isn't that only "resident students" and doesn't factor in all the immersion kids transferring in? That adds another 150 kids or so, right? So they'd actually be at like 800-850.)

I don't think the concern is the absolute number of students. Many would agree that small middle schools can be great and may even be preferred. It's more that it's clearly being done to justify a future closure.

MCPS has said that it will use facility condition and facility utilization to decide which schools to close. Taylor has been very clear and adamant that he wants to close SSIMS. He couldn't get the closure through the appropriate ways (expedited closure was voted down unanimously by BOE and then funding for expansions to Sligo and Eastern were pulled by Elrich from CIP) so he is obviously trying another way.

This community has been lied to and jerked around so many times that they are rightfully not willing to trust Taylor here. There's no way he is doing this to help SSIMS and make it smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fyi there was a VMES parent who testified in support of moving VMES to WJ (see 2nd video testimony)

She doesn’t even really have a child in MCPS so put that one in the category of Farmland realtors looking at property value preservation

I’ve been told this poster is going around spreading lies on all the message boards. I am that woman who testified my child literally has a student ID and will be attending VMES starting in August. Jesus Christ

My guess is it's a bunch of future WJ people who are gleefully calling the Farmland and Luxmanor people "racists", trying to discredit you with vague and ridiculous accusations while hiding behind the anonymity of DCUM

Disagree. WJ family here. Stronger high schools in the region benefit everyone. And Woodward will be fine with any of the options. Though, a better magnet would be something with a direct benefit to my family and a broad benefit to the whole region.

You are probably right in the long run, but not in the short run. That particular poster doesn't strike me as someone with a strong relationship to any school, and is more likely property value obsessed that he then projects on everybody else.

Taylor with his recommendation made, completely unnecessary I would add, a very sharp line in North Bethesda. If you are zoned for WJ and next to a weak Woodward, and you plan to sell in the next year or two, you may gain a lot. This is the area that attracts educated families that are known to open their wallets when they see 9/10 vs 7/10 school. This could be a difference of $100k or more in sale proceeds for someone. So why not spend hours trolling on DCUM. It doesn't cost anything.

In the long run, I don't think it will matter much. The whole region has many good things going on.

With respect to property values, the recommendation helps WJ much more than it hurts Woodward.

On the other hand, with respect to school, the proposal hurts Woodward much more than it helps WJ.

Don’t see how trolling on DCUM moves property values or the BOE decision.

Woodward will mainly be worth less bc it’s an arts school with kids from the wrong side of the tracks