Superintendent's Recommendation for Richard Montgomery ES #5 Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This boundary proposal wasn't put forth by RP parents, and RP parents didn't ask for their school to wind up with 10% FARMS. There were limited options given during the initial boundary study for RP and 6 out of 8 of them would have resulted in the same demographic result for RP. The other 2 options put the farthest zone to RM #5 at the new school - no other zones were ever proposed to move out of RP including closer neighborhoods. Why put this outcome on the RP families? This is a cluster issue - pitting schools against other schools doesn't help and making blanket assumptions about how parents at each school feels doesn't help.

It's not about RP to be honest. We should avoid pitting one school vs other. We are all in RM.

Since boundary are being redrawn, it would make sense to not look at what exists right now and simply put the most efficient boundary balancing everything as much as possible for all schools. It looks like, there is no attempt to do that from MCPS. You are right, MCPS should have attempted to move some different portions of RP out and then take something in to distribute rater than simply listing 1-6 option which was not making any difference.

That is so stupid and the idea is about 2 years too late. The school is opening in August. They aren't going to scrap all their plans from the last 2 years. And they had 8 options and moved a couple of sections already. It has been a long work in progress that you obviously weren't very involved in.

Because Beall was over capacity even after RM#5 so that makes complete sense. All the schools are now under capacity with some more room to grow.



The superintendent's recommendation is different than any of the original 1-8 options. He calls it a "modified option 1" but it's really "Option 9." It I'd the extra zone moved from Beall to RM ES that accounts for the increased FARMS rate in ES #5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This boundary proposal wasn't put forth by RP parents, and RP parents didn't ask for their school to wind up with 10% FARMS. There were limited options given during the initial boundary study for RP and 6 out of 8 of them would have resulted in the same demographic result for RP. The other 2 options put the farthest zone to RM #5 at the new school - no other zones were ever proposed to move out of RP including closer neighborhoods. Why put this outcome on the RP families? This is a cluster issue - pitting schools against other schools doesn't help and making blanket assumptions about how parents at each school feels doesn't help.

It's not about RP to be honest. We should avoid pitting one school vs other. We are all in RM.

Since boundary are being redrawn, it would make sense to not look at what exists right now and simply put the most efficient boundary balancing everything as much as possible for all schools. It looks like, there is no attempt to do that from MCPS. You are right, MCPS should have attempted to move some different portions of RP out and then take something in to distribute rater than simply listing 1-6 option which was not making any difference.

That is so stupid and the idea is about 2 years too late. The school is opening in August. They aren't going to scrap all their plans from the last 2 years. And they had 8 options and moved a couple of sections already. It has been a long work in progress that you obviously weren't very involved in.

The superintendent's recommendation is different than any of the original 1-8 options. He calls it a "modified option 1" but it's really "Option 9." It I'd the extra zone moved from Beall to RM ES that accounts for the increased FARMS rate in ES #5.

Because Beall was over capacity even after RM#5 so that makes complete sense. All the schools are now under capacity with some more room to grow. Do you think they should have taken from an area that was under capacity and kept Beall over capacity?

[Anonymous]

Did any of you think the BOE or super would consider anything the public wants?

They never do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Because Beall was over capacity even after RM#5 so that makes complete sense. All the schools are now under capacity with some more room to grow. Do you think they should have taken from an area that was under capacity and kept Beall over capacity?

Do you think that only way to have all schools below 100% where RM#5 has concentration of poor kids? Many other options can be drawn with all schools below 100% without starting RM#5 with such a high farm rate. Clearly, there has been no attempt to do so.

Problem here is that all options discussed during study ( option 1-8) were without considering the extra shell built at RM#5. In those options, it was not possible to put all schools below 100%. There was absolutely no debate of various options to balance schools with increased capacity at Rm#5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did any of you think the BOE or super would consider anything the public wants?

They never do.

Probably true. It looks like a dog and pony show to me.

Here is what happened so far,

1 - 8 options presented without taking account of extra capacity at RM#5.
2 - Many concerns were raised to not segregate kids in rich and poor bucket after looking at options 1-8.
3 - Super decided to add extra capacity which makes all previous discussions meaningless and then he suggests a new option which is worse than all options discussed earlier when it comes to segregating kids based on SES.

Since we have more capacity in RM than kids right now, there are many different ways to distribute kids without any school going over 100%. One of those will be far better than option suggested by Super here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Right. The original Option 1 was 29% FARMS (37%without CI). None of the 8 options presented had 41% FARMS (52%without CI) or there would have been concerns and requests for additional options in the spring.

Anonymous wrote:
So how did it get to this? Are they not picking one of the 8 options?

RM#5 is getting extra capacity and that was not part of equation earlier during the discussion. Option 1-8 was discussed without extra capacity.

Extra capacity means some students need to move. In earlier discussions, many concerned parent raised a point about not starting with high farm rate. It would make sense to move some higher SES kids in RM#5 to fill extra capacity. That would have reduced farm rate at Rm#5 and alleviated the concerns raised by worried parents.

Super recommendation is doing an exact opposite. Taking more Farm students to fill the extra capacity and raising the farm rate even higher.

Hope it clears it for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about moving B7 to RP instead of RM #5, and moving Falls Ridge and Park Potomac neighborhoods (part of RP3) along with RP2 and RP6 to RM #5? Seems like the most minimal geographic disruption and possibly balances demographics at the schools a bit more.

RP6 was added later in the study and divided RP3 because part of RP3 is walkable and they didn't realize that in the initial proposal. So they took part of RP3 and turned it into RP6. At that point all cluster schools agreed these were the correct ways to break each area of their schools and it was deemed they wouldn't break any section/neighborhood up moving forward.

So you asking to now break up sections 18 months after this project/proposals started is about 12 months too late. You should have been more vocal at the meetings all last year. Not now when the decision is practically finalized.

That all said B7 has double the amount of kids the parts of RP3 you are talking about. Not even close to an even swap. RM#5 would be under enrolled, especially with them building out the shell, and RP would be over capacity.

This discussion of additional breakup of the seven locks zone was entertained. The problem was that it did not contain enough children for anonymous statistics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Because Beall was over capacity even after RM#5 so that makes complete sense. All the schools are now under capacity with some more room to grow. Do you think they should have taken from an area that was under capacity and kept Beall over capacity?

Do you think that only way to have all schools below 100% where RM#5 has concentration of poor kids? Many other options can be drawn with all schools below 100% without starting RM#5 with such a high farm rate. Clearly, there has been no attempt to do so.

Problem here is that all options discussed during study ( option 1-8) were without considering the extra shell built at RM#5. In those options, it was not possible to put all schools below 100%. There was absolutely no debate of various options to balance schools with increased capacity at Rm#5.

Because Beall and Twinbrook were the only ones over 100% after most of the options. Are there any other Beall sections that are less FARMS, not in walking distance to Beall, that can move to RM#5? I honestly do not know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Because Beall was over capacity even after RM#5 so that makes complete sense. All the schools are now under capacity with some more room to grow. Do you think they should have taken from an area that was under capacity and kept Beall over capacity?

Do you think that only way to have all schools below 100% where RM#5 has concentration of poor kids? Many other options can be drawn with all schools below 100% without starting RM#5 with such a high farm rate. Clearly, there has been no attempt to do so.

Problem here is that all options discussed during study ( option 1-8) were without considering the extra shell built at RM#5. In those options, it was not possible to put all schools below 100%. There was absolutely no debate of various options to balance schools with increased capacity at Rm#5.

Because Beall and Twinbrook were the only ones over 100% after most of the options. Are there any other Beall sections that are less FARMS, not in walking distance to Beall, that can move to RM#5? I honestly do not know.

Rose Hill??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about moving B7 to RP instead of RM #5, and moving Falls Ridge and Park Potomac neighborhoods (part of RP3) along with RP2 and RP6 to RM #5? Seems like the most minimal geographic disruption and possibly balances demographics at the schools a bit more.

RP6 was added later in the study and divided RP3 because part of RP3 is walkable and they didn't realize that in the initial proposal. So they took part of RP3 and turned it into RP6. At that point all cluster schools agreed these were the correct ways to break each area of their schools and it was deemed they wouldn't break any section/neighborhood up moving forward.

So you asking to now break up sections 18 months after this project/proposals started is about 12 months too late. You should have been more vocal at the meetings all last year. Not now when the decision is practically finalized.

That all said B7 has double the amount of kids the parts of RP3 you are talking about. Not even close to an even swap. RM#5 would be under enrolled, especially with them building out the shell, and RP would be over capacity.

This discussion of additional breakup of the seven locks zone was entertained. The problem was that it did not contain enough children for anonymous statistics

Property values (and owners' names attached to them) are not anonymous, are all online and easy to find whether or not you split up zones into smaller segments, simply by using the MD Real Property Search database. You can find the names and sales prices of all RP property owners in Park Potomac, and any other neighborhood in the RM cluster or the entire state. While there is not a 100% correlation between housing prices and HHI, one can assume a strong correlation in most cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about moving B7 to RP instead of RM #5, and moving Falls Ridge and Park Potomac neighborhoods (part of RP3) along with RP2 and RP6 to RM #5? Seems like the most minimal geographic disruption and possibly balances demographics at the schools a bit more.

RP6 was added later in the study and divided RP3 because part of RP3 is walkable and they didn't realize that in the initial proposal. So they took part of RP3 and turned it into RP6. At that point all cluster schools agreed these were the correct ways to break each area of their schools and it was deemed they wouldn't break any section/neighborhood up moving forward.

So you asking to now break up sections 18 months after this project/proposals started is about 12 months too late. You should have been more vocal at the meetings all last year. Not now when the decision is practically finalized.

That all said B7 has double the amount of kids the parts of RP3 you are talking about. Not even close to an even swap. RM#5 would be under enrolled, especially with them building out the shell, and RP would be over capacity.

This discussion of additional breakup of the seven locks zone was entertained. The problem was that it did not contain enough children for anonymous statistics

Property values (and owners' names attached to them) are not anonymous, are all online and easy to find whether or not you split up zones into smaller segments, simply by using the MD Real Property Search database. You can find the names and sales prices of all RP property owners in Park Potomac, and any other neighborhood in the RM cluster or the entire state. While there is not a 100% correlation between housing prices and HHI, one can assume a strong correlation in most cases.

That is so creepy and so over the top. You are really pushing it PP. Get over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Because Beall was over capacity even after RM#5 so that makes complete sense. All the schools are now under capacity with some more room to grow. Do you think they should have taken from an area that was under capacity and kept Beall over capacity?

Do you think that only way to have all schools below 100% where RM#5 has concentration of poor kids? Many other options can be drawn with all schools below 100% without starting RM#5 with such a high farm rate. Clearly, there has been no attempt to do so.

Problem here is that all options discussed during study ( option 1-8) were without considering the extra shell built at RM#5. In those options, it was not possible to put all schools below 100%. There was absolutely no debate of various options to balance schools with increased capacity at Rm#5.

Because Beall and Twinbrook were the only ones over 100% after most of the options. Are there any other Beall sections that are less FARMS, not in walking distance to Beall, that can move to RM#5? I honestly do not know.

Rose Hill??

They aren't pulling tiny sections from a numbered Beall cluster. It is all or none.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Because Beall and Twinbrook were the only ones over 100% after most of the options. Are there any other Beall sections that are less FARMS, not in walking distance to Beall, that can move to RM#5? I honestly do not know.

Rose Hills have a negligible farm rate. Moving it to RM#5 will surely balance the farm rate.


It's also possible to come up with more than one option to keep schools below 100% and also distribute SES. It will mean doing some work to change and play with different options which doesn't start with option 1-8. If you always start with option 1-8 then it it may be harder to come up with a good option. Option 1-8 was also not really drawn by consensus. I meant to say that it's not like everyone sat together and came up with those options. It was just drawn by one person from MCPS who was conducting the meeting. PTA and everyone else could only comment on those options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about moving B7 to RP instead of RM #5, and moving Falls Ridge and Park Potomac neighborhoods (part of RP3) along with RP2 and RP6 to RM #5? Seems like the most minimal geographic disruption and possibly balances demographics at the schools a bit more.

RP6 was added later in the study and divided RP3 because part of RP3 is walkable and they didn't realize that in the initial proposal. So they took part of RP3 and turned it into RP6. At that point all cluster schools agreed these were the correct ways to break each area of their schools and it was deemed they wouldn't break any section/neighborhood up moving forward.

So you asking to now break up sections 18 months after this project/proposals started is about 12 months too late. You should have been more vocal at the meetings all last year. Not now when the decision is practically finalized.

That all said B7 has double the amount of kids the parts of RP3 you are talking about. Not even close to an even swap. RM#5 would be under enrolled, especially with them building out the shell, and RP would be over capacity.

This discussion of additional breakup of the seven locks zone was entertained. The problem was that it did not contain enough children for anonymous statistics

Property values (and owners' names attached to them) are not anonymous, are all online and easy to find whether or not you split up zones into smaller segments, simply by using the MD Real Property Search database. You can find the names and sales prices of all RP property owners in Park Potomac, and any other neighborhood in the RM cluster or the entire state. While there is not a 100% correlation between housing prices and HHI, one can assume a strong correlation in most cases.

Fails for apartments

[Anonymous]

The superintendent is primarily concerned with keeping schools under capacity. If lower income kids living walking distance to the school then so be it.