Concerned about buying in WJ cluster because of re-zoning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Einstein is also slated for an expansion and has a big piece of property. I would build it big and add a county-wide test in magnet (maybe both stem and humanities).

Einstein is only getting a small expansion. The campus can’t support anything major.

Woodward's site is located between B-CC, Einstein, and WJ.

Woodward has room for 2700 seats, but I seriously doubt they'd fill it to capacity on day 1.

I'd imagine WJ will contribute 800-1000 students to Woodward. Around 700 to address it's overcrowding directly and shift a few hundred from Whitman to WJ to address overcrowding there too.

That still leaves 1700-1900 seats to fill at Woodward. The simplest solution is to fill them from the adjacent schools.

Since Einstein is around 700 over capacity it would likely contribute the lions share. I'd wager B-CC ends up giving 400-500 too, but 200 minimum to offset future overcrowding at B-CC.

Now Northwood is right next to Blair and it's expansion creates 1200 additional seats there. Roughly 700 are needed to address Northwood's overcrowding by 2022. That means 400-500 will likely go to address Blair's overcrowding. Now Blair will need around 700 total seats so they'll a couple hundred short. Those seats will likely come from the two schools directly adjacent to its West. Those schools are also adjacent to Woodward so it's easy to make the room. Sure the County could put the burden entirely on Einstein but why wouldn't B-CC get a pass?

It's all total speculation so I wouldn't get worked up over it. Do you remember those puzzle games you played as a kid that you solve by shifting the blocks? If your goal is to optimally fill these schools, make minimal changes to the overall map without busing people across the county that's how it could play out.

Isn't Whitman getting an addition?

Yep

weird because I didn’t see that in the capital improvement plan?

[Anonymous]

Will woottons boundaries change?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will woottons boundaries change?

Nobody knows for sure, but looking at the County's estimates for overcrowding that were posted earlier and the CIP I wouldn't think so.

[Anonymous]

The CIP only had provisions for Northwood and Kennedy in addition to reopening Woodward, and these changes need to accomodate serious overcrowding at twice as many nearby schools. This can be done but it won't be without some boundary changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will woottons boundaries change?

Not in near future.

[Anonymous]

Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

Agree with almost all of this, except Langley Park is in PG, so not zoned for Blair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

Agree with almost all of this, except Langley Park is in PG, so not zoned for Blair.

Good point, but I was referring to the Langley Park area, specifically the area around the intersection of University and NH. Agreed that the area in the MoCo line is technically Takoma Park, but I don't think the average person thinks of this area when they think of Takoma Park, specifically the "nice" areas of TP. Posters who are worrying about kids from DCC coming to Woodward would freak if kids from this area of MoCo were bused to Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

Agree with almost all of this, except Langley Park is in PG, so not zoned for Blair.

This is dead on. I imagine there will be some revisions to boundaries of some schools like WJ, Einstein, B-CC etc, but it will have little or no impact on the quality of education at these schools or Woodward. If anything things will be better because the schools will be less crowded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

Langley Park is in PG County. Its schools are PG County Schools.

Come east sometime - I'd be happy to show you around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

This is just silly (and frankly very naive.) Your logic presumes that MCPS is pursuing a comprehensive, thoughtful development strategy with this decision to re-open Woodward. That's simply not what the school system does (or even what it is remotely empowered to do.) This is a facilities decision -- MCPS needs to address space constraints at several area HS on a fairly urgent basis, and they have decided that the most efficient/economical way to do that is to re-open Woodward.

They will factor in politics in the way that this decision is implemented, and they will surely factor in the issue of equity since that looms large as a priority for the MCPS leadership. But it is not MCPS' role to shape a conducive environment for a potential Amazon HQ2, or to place the home values of any of us over the operational needs of the school system. The County Council may care about that (ha!); the Planning staff may care about that (even more skepticism from me, but hey who knows.) But it's not the driving force around shaping school boundary decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

This is just silly (and frankly very naive.) Your logic presumes that MCPS is pursuing a comprehensive, thoughtful development strategy with this decision to re-open Woodward. That's simply not what the school system does (or even what it is remotely empowered to do.) This is a facilities decision -- MCPS needs to address space constraints at several area HS on a fairly urgent basis, and they have decided that the most efficient/economical way to do that is to re-open Woodward.

They will factor in politics in the way that this decision is implemented, and they will surely factor in the issue of equity since that looms large as a priority for the MCPS leadership. But it is not MCPS' role to shape a conducive environment for a potential Amazon HQ2, or to place the home values of any of us over the operational needs of the school system. The County Council may care about that (ha!); the Planning staff may care about that (even more skepticism from me, but hey who knows.) But it's not the driving force around shaping school boundary decisions.

MCPS boundary decisions are 4-5 years out and long after AMZN has commited to a location for its HQ2 so either way it's moot.

[Anonymous]

New School boundaries are announced 18 months prior to the school’s opening. Woodward is currently scheduled to open fall 2022, so boundary will be announced spring of 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New School boundaries are announced 18 months prior to the school’s opening. Woodward is currently scheduled to open fall 2022, so boundary will be announced spring of 2021.

At the earliest since this will likely get pushed back to 2023 based on their track record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for the hysterics in this thread who think WJ and Woodward are going to somehow both turn into 4/10 schools and the whole real estate market in North Bethesda, Garrett Park and Kensington is going to crash: Can you please explain the logic behind MoCo and the state government purposefully tanking two public high schools in an area that they're priming as the main site in the state for Amazon's HQ2? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Look at the map. The only elementary schools that make sense from the DCC to go to Woodward are either Rock View ES or Viers Mill ES. Combining kids from these two elementaries with kids from WJ and some kids from BCC is not going to result in test scores plummeting and the high school being a 4/10 and your property values plummeting. Langley Park is zoned for Blair and a lot of kids in Blair are excelling and home prices in Takoma Park are booming. Calm down. You're living in one of the most desirable counties in the entire country, in one of the most desirable public school districts in the area and you're close to a city that is recession proof. Your home values are going to be fine and your kids are going to be alright. Breathe.

MCPS is not going to care about house prices or Amazon. That's not their job. MCPS is simply going to look at over crowding issue because that's the biggest issues right now. Woodward will have 2000 empty seats. BCC/Whitman will provide maximum 200-300 students. MCPS still needs to fill Woodward with minimum 1500 students leaving some capacity for future.

Mixing 1500 DCC students with 1000 WJ students shouldn't result in 4/10, but it won't result in 8/10 either. It's simple math. 6/10 high school does matter for many parents and it will be surely less desirable for anyone having kids.