Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maximizing walkers is the low hanging fruit. It doesn't cost extra money, it's (usually) popular with the neighboring areas, and it's good for sustainability. Obviously some schools' walk zones will need to be larger or smaller than others, based on the building capacity, nearby highways or other barriers considered hazardous, etc. But I would really like to see them come up with new options with this as a foundational goal, and show their work.

Increasing walking zones won’t help lower the absentee rate. Kids already skip school when it is actually raining or when it’s predicted to rain on their walk home.

+1
Also, how many kids at the 1.9.mile mark actually walk to school, especially inexpensive areas? I'd wager most carpool.

Carpooling only works if parents or other kids can drive them. I know many who walk that far. Or, bike or scooter.

What issue are you raising wrt the boundary studies?

[Anonymous]

what we should do is randomly assign every child to a high school. That's the only fair way to do it. Provide door-to-door busing. Only by luck does anyone get to walk to their school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what we should do is randomly assign every child to a high school. That's the only fair way to do it. Provide door-to-door busing. Only by luck does anyone get to walk to their school.

And who would pay for all that?

[Anonymous]

It will not take 45 minutes and going to a nicer school even with a longer bus ride might entice some low income kids to get to scholl on time and stay in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what we should do is randomly assign every child to a high school. That's the only fair way to do it. Provide door-to-door busing. Only by luck does anyone get to walk to their school.

And who would pay for all that?

only equity matters.

[Anonymous]

Equity sucks.

Let's move to Virginia. Lower taxes. Better colleges. It's not worth moving to Whitman or WJ to still get crappy College Park. Might as well go all in on UVA with the move. Woodward zone sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every school should be required to have 20% farms. Logistically: set aside 20% of seats for low income moco kids. Low income Parents will apply and can be lotteried if necessary and busing will be handled. The remaining 80% can be walk zone. Done. No more playing favorites with rich-kid only schools. Will some schools still have more? sure. No more re-districting every few years. the fairness goes up and the burden is eased on the heavy farms schools. Moco only has 35% farms rate overall. This is a very wealthy county and easy to solve this issue.

I like this plan.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think most people can agree that going from a 30 to a 40 minute bus ride is really not the end of the world.

But some of these contemplate going from zero bus to 45 min.

It has already been explained numerous times to you that high schools are not perfectly located across the county. Currently, many students are bussed to schools even though they could walk to another school nearby. That is not a crime. It is life. Life is hard sometimes.

Beyond the oft-cited example of Kensington and Einstein HS, where are the "many" other places this happens?

DP. Here are some current examples that I know of, and while I don't think these are "crimes," I do think the options should be trying to fix these and other instances of unnecessary bussing, and not creating additional instances:

Students who could walk to Wheaton are bussed to Northwood
Students who could walk to Wootton are bussed to RM
Students who could walk to QO are bussed to Northwest
Students who could walk to Sligo are bussed to SSIMS
Students who could walk to Westland are bussed to Pyle
Students who could walk to Silver Creek are bussed to North Bethesda

Feel free to draw your own maps to make all the students that could possibly walk to a nearby HS assigned to that school. And no, you don't get $180 million + land costs to build a new high school.

That is literally what MCPS is paying Flo Analytics to figure out. But they didn't, even in the options theoretically emphasizing proximity. They only used the existing boundaries' walk zones.

They didn't achieve what you want because what you want is impossible.

Creating new walk zones regardless of current boundary lines is impossible?

You know walk zones aren't just based on distance, right? It is a massive undertaking to identify these for multiple high schools. But what I am saying is impossible is to have all the students than could walk to a school be assigned to that school.

MCPS hired consultants - they shoudl be able to do this Otherwise just have AI draw the maps. -DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like so many people here could have done it better. So I would suggest you all get together and develop some better maps with projected walk zones for every option. There's been a lot of talk here about all the volunteering folks are willing to do (unlike those lazy parents at other schools) so let's see it!

Sure, have Flo Analytics work for DCUM instead of MCPS and we will get better maps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maximizing walkers is the low hanging fruit. It doesn't cost extra money, it's (usually) popular with the neighboring areas, and it's good for sustainability. Obviously some schools' walk zones will need to be larger or smaller than others, based on the building capacity, nearby highways or other barriers considered hazardous, etc. But I would really like to see them come up with new options with this as a foundational goal, and show their work.

Increasing walking zones won’t help lower the absentee rate. Kids already skip school when it is actually raining or when it’s predicted to rain on their walk home.

+1
Also, how many kids at the 1.9.mile mark actually walk to school, especially inexpensive areas? I'd wager most carpool.

Carpooling only works if parents or other kids can drive them. I know many who walk that far. Or, bike or scooter.

What issue are you raising wrt the boundary studies?

Read the previous post. Hs kids only get a bus if it’s past two miles. Some of the walks are dangerous. We don’t have sidewalks and busy streets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maximizing walkers is the low hanging fruit. It doesn't cost extra money, it's (usually) popular with the neighboring areas, and it's good for sustainability. Obviously some schools' walk zones will need to be larger or smaller than others, based on the building capacity, nearby highways or other barriers considered hazardous, etc. But I would really like to see them come up with new options with this as a foundational goal, and show their work.

Increasing walking zones won’t help lower the absentee rate. Kids already skip school when it is actually raining or when it’s predicted to rain on their walk home.

+1
Also, how many kids at the 1.9.mile mark actually walk to school, especially inexpensive areas? I'd wager most carpool.

Carpooling only works if parents or other kids can drive them. I know many who walk that far. Or, bike or scooter.

It feels like there would be data on this.

Narrators voice: and yet, there was no data.

How would there be data?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maximizing walkers is the low hanging fruit. It doesn't cost extra money, it's (usually) popular with the neighboring areas, and it's good for sustainability. Obviously some schools' walk zones will need to be larger or smaller than others, based on the building capacity, nearby highways or other barriers considered hazardous, etc. But I would really like to see them come up with new options with this as a foundational goal, and show their work.

Increasing walking zones won’t help lower the absentee rate. Kids already skip school when it is actually raining or when it’s predicted to rain on their walk home.

+1
Also, how many kids at the 1.9.mile mark actually walk to school, especially inexpensive areas? I'd wager most carpool.

Carpooling only works if parents or other kids can drive them. I know many who walk that far. Or, bike or scooter.

So….decrease the walk zones to a mile?

That would help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the reason it’s not as simple as Tilden Middle School plus 1-2 middles from Wheaton at Woodward? Blair magnet moves to Northwood with the extra space. Are too many middles in the walk zone for Wheaton?

Has anyone seen why this cant be a possibility?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maximizing walkers is the low hanging fruit. It doesn't cost extra money, it's (usually) popular with the neighboring areas, and it's good for sustainability. Obviously some schools' walk zones will need to be larger or smaller than others, based on the building capacity, nearby highways or other barriers considered hazardous, etc. But I would really like to see them come up with new options with this as a foundational goal, and show their work.

Increasing walking zones won’t help lower the absentee rate. Kids already skip school when it is actually raining or when it’s predicted to rain on their walk home.

+1
Also, how many kids at the 1.9.mile mark actually walk to school, especially inexpensive areas? I'd wager most carpool.

Carpooling only works if parents or other kids can drive them. I know many who walk that far. Or, bike or scooter.

What issue agaaure you raising wrt the boundary studies?

Read the previous post. Hs kids only get a bus if it’s past two miles. Some of the walks are dangerous. We don’t have sidewalks and busy streets.

+1 for HS it can easily be better to be bussed to a further school for kids without cars. I lived just within the 2 mile boundary for my W school. Approximately zero kids from my neighborhood walked to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maximizing walkers is the low hanging fruit. It doesn't cost extra money, it's (usually) popular with the neighboring areas, and it's good for sustainability. Obviously some schools' walk zones will need to be larger or smaller than others, based on the building capacity, nearby highways or other barriers considered hazardous, etc. But I would really like to see them come up with new options with this as a foundational goal, and show their work.

Increasing walking zones won’t help lower the absentee rate. Kids already skip school when it is actually raining or when it’s predicted to rain on their walk home.

+1
Also, how many kids at the 1.9.mile mark actually walk to school, especially inexpensive areas? I'd wager most carpool.

Carpooling only works if parents or other kids can drive them. I know many who walk that far. Or, bike or scooter.

What issue are you raising wrt the boundary studies?

Read the previous post. Hs kids only get a bus if it’s past two miles. Some of the walks are dangerous. We don’t have sidewalks and busy streets.

That's not a hard and fast rule. Some closer neighborhoods get bus service if the kids would have to cross a highway for example.