Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I understand that there will never be an option that pleases everyone, but it is interesting that they chose option H when all of the testimonies have been so against it.

Any school that is really affected by boundary changes (or this case) would have been vocal in opposition. The rest of us think it is fine.

Think about the regional model. Every testimony is against it. There are like 1000 posts about this on this board, and I believe I’ve only seen less than 3 posts fully embraced the current pan-out. So what? They have a predetermined agenda and BOE are basically trump’s cabinet. Zero spine and zero interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I understand that there will never be an option that pleases everyone, but it is interesting that they chose option H when all of the testimonies have been so against it.

Any school that is really affected by boundary changes (or this case) would have been vocal in opposition. The rest of us think it is fine.

Think about the regional model. Every testimony is against it. There are like 1000 posts about this on this board, and I believe I’ve only seen less than 3 posts fully embraced the current pan-out. So what? They have a predetermined agenda and BOE are basically trump’s cabinet. Zero spine and zero interest.

Because many on the BOE desire higher office and need to toe the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I understand that there will never be an option that pleases everyone, but it is interesting that they chose option H when all of the testimonies have been so against it.

Any school that is really affected by boundary changes (or this case) would have been vocal in opposition. The rest of us think it is fine.

yup similar to what is happening currently - if it doesn't affect you, it's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be an insanely irresponsible financial decision to open a 27th high school with declining enrollment. Wootton families have been complaining about the state of their building for years. They now get a brand new building and are complaining? Maybe it's not about the building after all....

This. Other schools have worse buildings but they aren’t as well organized or demanding. Schools should be fixed based on priority, not how loud a PTA is. The problem is they compare their school with Whitman (for real, years ago at a BOE meeting a Wootton mom put up a slide with Wootton and Whitman side by side saying Wootton isn’t a rich school, Whitman is). Visit some other areas outside your bubble. If MCPS is deciding what makes the best sense for THE MOST students in MCPS, it’s not building another new high school on the current site of Wootton. There is nothing more financially irresponsible than that, no matter what this community says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Wootton at Crown is the final decision I hope they do something about the regional magnets too - move Magruder to Region 4, Wootton at Crown still stays with Region 5 and becomes the STEM magnet and Gaithersburg houses the Humanities Magnet.

That’s just too greedy. Wootton cannot lose on every single aspect. That’s too unfair

Greedy? No. We want access to Crown. Don't care whether it is Wootton or Crown. Gaithersburg residents will have lost a chance to be at Crown if Wootton comes there, Region 5 magnets are all the weak High FARMS schools other than QO (which will change soon - currently QO is also HIGH Farms). And taking away access to even the magnet at Crown is saying we wash our hands off of this region.


QO is currently 36.5% FARMS. Saying that's "HIGH" is a stretch when you consider that Kennedy is at 70.4% FARMS, Watkins Mill 64.4%, Springbrook 61%, and several more are over 50%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be an insanely irresponsible financial decision to open a 27th high school with declining enrollment. Wootton families have been complaining about the state of their building for years. They now get a brand new building and are complaining? Maybe it's not about the building after all....

This. Other schools have worse buildings but they aren’t as well organized or demanding. Schools should be fixed based on priority, not how loud a PTA is. The problem is they compare their school with Whitman (for real, years ago at a BOE meeting a Wootton mom put up a slide with Wootton and Whitman side by side saying Wootton isn’t a rich school, Whitman is). Visit some other areas outside your bubble. If MCPS is deciding what makes the best sense for THE MOST students in MCPS, it’s not building another new high school on the current site of Wootton. There is nothing more financially irresponsible than that, no matter what this community says.

+1 this
RM was supposed to get an expansion years ago and that was squashed due to Crown. Now no one is moving out of RM cluster to relieve overcrowding. I don't understand. There are 10 portables at RM currently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be an insanely irresponsible financial decision to open a 27th high school with declining enrollment. Wootton families have been complaining about the state of their building for years. They now get a brand new building and are complaining? Maybe it's not about the building after all....

This. Other schools have worse buildings but they aren’t as well organized or demanding. Schools should be fixed based on priority, not how loud a PTA is. The problem is they compare their school with Whitman (for real, years ago at a BOE meeting a Wootton mom put up a slide with Wootton and Whitman side by side saying Wootton isn’t a rich school, Whitman is). Visit some other areas outside your bubble. If MCPS is deciding what makes the best sense for THE MOST students in MCPS, it’s not building another new high school on the current site of Wootton. There is nothing more financially irresponsible than that, no matter what this community says.

+1 this
RM was supposed to get an expansion years ago and that was squashed due to Crown. Now no one is moving out of RM cluster to relieve overcrowding. I don't understand. There are 10 portables at RM currently.

That's perplexing considering that even if HS #27 were to open at Crown Farm none of RM would have been redistricted anywhere...

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain how the projections had almost all of the schools (QO, Gaithersburg, RM, Churchill) as overcrowded during the original boundary study but now somehow very suddenly there's declining enrollment and not enough students to fill all the schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be an insanely irresponsible financial decision to open a 27th high school with declining enrollment. Wootton families have been complaining about the state of their building for years. They now get a brand new building and are complaining? Maybe it's not about the building after all....

This. Other schools have worse buildings but they aren’t as well organized or demanding. Schools should be fixed based on priority, not how loud a PTA is. The problem is they compare their school with Whitman (for real, years ago at a BOE meeting a Wootton mom put up a slide with Wootton and Whitman side by side saying Wootton isn’t a rich school, Whitman is). Visit some other areas outside your bubble. If MCPS is deciding what makes the best sense for THE MOST students in MCPS, it’s not building another new high school on the current site of Wootton. There is nothing more financially irresponsible than that, no matter what this community says.

+1 this
RM was supposed to get an expansion years ago and that was squashed due to Crown. Now no one is moving out of RM cluster to relieve overcrowding. I don't understand. There are 10 portables at RM currently.

That's perplexing considering that even if HS #27 were to open at Crown Farm none of RM would have been redistricted anywhere...

Some of RM was sent to Crown and/or Wootton in the original options.
And that was the rationale given for why the RM expansion did not get funded despite overcrowding for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how the projections had almost all of the schools (QO, Gaithersburg, RM, Churchill) as overcrowded during the original boundary study but now somehow very suddenly there's declining enrollment and not enough students to fill all the schools?

The study is only using numbers of "resident students," so they're all lower than the actual enrollment numbers in the CIP tables.

[Anonymous]

I saw an interesting post elsewhere. If enrollment is down in the county, MCPS could choose to open Crown as a new high school (while keeping Wootton open) and use Woodward as the holding school instead.

Wootton and Crown are 4 miles apart but Woodward and WJ are only 1 mile apart, so students can easily be zoned to either school. WJ is underenrolled in the recommended plan for the Woodward boundary study. Students could be shifted to Churchill, RM, etc who could then shift students to Wootton/Crown in order to alleviate the current WJ overcrowding and help fill both Wootton and Crown.

Another question on the same topic, why can Woodward open causing WJ to be underenrolled, but it's not ok to open Crown and have that school be underenrolled?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw an interesting post elsewhere. If enrollment is down in the county, MCPS could choose to open Crown as a new high school (while keeping Wootton open) and use Woodward as the holding school instead.

Wootton and Crown are 4 miles apart but Woodward and WJ are only 1 mile apart, so students can easily be zoned to either school. WJ is underenrolled in the recommended plan for the Woodward boundary study. Students could be shifted to Churchill, RM, etc who could then shift students to Wootton/Crown in order to alleviate the current WJ overcrowding and help fill both Wootton and Crown.

Another question on the same topic, why can Woodward open causing WJ to be underenrolled, but it's not ok to open Crown and have that school be underenrolled?

Woodward is way too far along to pull back on opening it. Also, if Woodward does not open, WJ's overcrowding gets no relief. It's not gonna happen.

That being said, I do agree that if it's ok for Woodward's opening to cause WJ to be underutilized, then it shouldn't be a problem for Crown to open and also be underutilized.

MCPS is not being consistent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw an interesting post elsewhere. If enrollment is down in the county, MCPS could choose to open Crown as a new high school (while keeping Wootton open) and use Woodward as the holding school instead.

Wootton and Crown are 4 miles apart but Woodward and WJ are only 1 mile apart, so students can easily be zoned to either school. WJ is underenrolled in the recommended plan for the Woodward boundary study. Students could be shifted to Churchill, RM, etc who could then shift students to Wootton/Crown in order to alleviate the current WJ overcrowding and help fill both Wootton and Crown.

Another question on the same topic, why can Woodward open causing WJ to be underenrolled, but it's not ok to open Crown and have that school be underenrolled?

Woodward is way too far along to pull back on opening it. Also, if Woodward does not open, WJ's overcrowding gets no relief. It's not gonna happen.

That being said, I do agree that if it's ok for Woodward's opening to cause WJ to be underutilized, then it shouldn't be a problem for Crown to open and also be underutilized.

MCPS is not being consistent.

It would be an embarrassment for MCPS to use Crown as a holding school after spending $400M to build it based on pre-Covid enrollment projections OR MCPS built Crown to avoid losing a valuable piece of property deeded in 2006 with a 20-year deadline to build a school.

Put simply, MCPS was either incompetent or evil - neither is a reason for kids to pay the price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw an interesting post elsewhere. If enrollment is down in the county, MCPS could choose to open Crown as a new high school (while keeping Wootton open) and use Woodward as the holding school instead.

Wootton and Crown are 4 miles apart but Woodward and WJ are only 1 mile apart, so students can easily be zoned to either school. WJ is underenrolled in the recommended plan for the Woodward boundary study. Students could be shifted to Churchill, RM, etc who could then shift students to Wootton/Crown in order to alleviate the current WJ overcrowding and help fill both Wootton and Crown.

Another question on the same topic, why can Woodward open causing WJ to be underenrolled, but it's not ok to open Crown and have that school be underenrolled?

Woodward is way too far along to pull back on opening it. Also, if Woodward does not open, WJ's overcrowding gets no relief. It's not gonna happen.

That being said, I do agree that if it's ok for Woodward's opening to cause WJ to be underutilized, then it shouldn't be a problem for Crown to open and also be underutilized.

MCPS is not being consistent.

They are trying to avoid opening a 27th high school at a time of declining enrollment, which would save money overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw an interesting post elsewhere. If enrollment is down in the county, MCPS could choose to open Crown as a new high school (while keeping Wootton open) and use Woodward as the holding school instead.

Wootton and Crown are 4 miles apart but Woodward and WJ are only 1 mile apart, so students can easily be zoned to either school. WJ is underenrolled in the recommended plan for the Woodward boundary study. Students could be shifted to Churchill, RM, etc who could then shift students to Wootton/Crown in order to alleviate the current WJ overcrowding and help fill both Wootton and Crown.

Another question on the same topic, why can Woodward open causing WJ to be underenrolled, but it's not ok to open Crown and have that school be underenrolled?

Woodward is way too far along to pull back on opening it. Also, if Woodward does not open, WJ's overcrowding gets no relief. It's not gonna happen.

That being said, I do agree that if it's ok for Woodward's opening to cause WJ to be underutilized, then it shouldn't be a problem for Crown to open and also be underutilized.

MCPS is not being consistent.

They are trying to avoid opening a 27th high school at a time of declining enrollment, which would save money overall.

So why open Crown? It’s only 50 percent built.