Taylor Meeting at Wootton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

I'm so sick of this argument- its so misleading. You guys REALLY don't understand how this whole Wootton holding school thing is supposed to work huh?

They do in fact need to do work to make it safe for the other kids. Guess what, there's no money for that right now. There is zero funding and zero timeline to turn Wootton into the holding school. But they at least have a building they can use if and when the funding and opportunity arise. Not once has MCPS provided any data on when and how Wootton becomes a holding school. My guess? 5-10 years from now.

You should get on boarddocs because lots of the other information you want has been released in the board work sessions.

So Magruder just sits and rots for 5-10 years right? The alternative is Magruder gets to and wants to (rightfully so) go straight to Crown.

Agree to the fullest and rightfully!!

Magruder could go and sit there for 5-10 years yeah, but there wouldn't be funding to repair Magruder before then. Do they want to relocate that far away for ten years? I also don't know for sure they can get approval to use it as a holding school without a project actually happening.

Literally yes. Speak with Magruder advocates. They rather go to Crown for X years than stay where they are for the same amount of years or go to Wootton for the same amount of years.

Your last part is exactly why Magruder has such a huge stake in this. Making Crown into a holding school is exactly what’s going to make sure Magruder and others won’t be ignore. There will finally be some urgency to getting Magruder on CIP!

I cannot believe Magruder was forgotten in all of this. Say what everyone will - they were ignored. MCPS won't fess up to it and it's now creating yet another mess that doesn't have a happy ending at all. Nice job Dr. Taylor. Magruder folks - I hope you get what you deserve - quality education, quality facility, and an apology.

I hope Magruder sues.

We're hoping to!!!!

Good! Magruder absolutely should!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh no, some kids will have to take a bus to school. Such torture

Just more traffic for Montgomery County. Adding to that will be the 250 new school buses in the Wootton cluster on the road every morning.

Don’t worry, MCPS already got all the.m extra busses needed. O wait wasn’t that bus contract illegal? Didn’t two MCPS also get arrested for embezzlement of $300,000? Wasn’t there were significant issues in procurement? And the contract had no delay penalties? And MCPS was found to have significantly wasted taxpayers money by the inspector general?

Can’t be! Surely MCPS never does anything illegal!

The FAR exists in federal contracting for a reason. Accountability exists for a reason. MCPS seems to have decided it's above both with all of the backdoor deals. The OIG has already been invited into this fight. One can only hope they take a wider look while they're here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

I'm so sick of this argument- its so misleading. You guys REALLY don't understand how this whole Wootton holding school thing is supposed to work huh?

They do in fact need to do work to make it safe for the other kids. Guess what, there's no money for that right now. There is zero funding and zero timeline to turn Wootton into the holding school. But they at least have a building they can use if and when the funding and opportunity arise. Not once has MCPS provided any data on when and how Wootton becomes a holding school. My guess? 5-10 years from now.

You should get on boarddocs because lots of the other information you want has been released in the board work sessions.

So Magruder just sits and rots for 5-10 years right? The alternative is Magruder gets to and wants to (rightfully so) go straight to Crown.

Agree to the fullest and rightfully!!

Magruder could go and sit there for 5-10 years yeah, but there wouldn't be funding to repair Magruder before then. Do they want to relocate that far away for ten years? I also don't know for sure they can get approval to use it as a holding school without a project actually happening.

Literally yes. Speak with Magruder advocates. They rather go to Crown for X years than stay where they are for the same amount of years or go to Wootton for the same amount of years.

Your last part is exactly why Magruder has such a huge stake in this. Making Crown into a holding school is exactly what’s going to make sure Magruder and others won’t be ignore. There will finally be some urgency to getting Magruder on CIP!

I cannot believe Magruder was forgotten in all of this. Say what everyone will - they were ignored. MCPS won't fess up to it and it's now creating yet another mess that doesn't have a happy ending at all. Nice job Dr. Taylor. Magruder folks - I hope you get what you deserve - quality education, quality facility, and an apology.

I hope Magruder sues.

We're hoping to!!!!

Good! Magruder absolutely should!

Rallying people in such a short period of time feels like a mountain. So many people care, but those same people feel so defeated by this administration with the little time we have left - from the SI to the BOE. Zero folks up there looking out for us and our families. While I see everyone here dumping on the Wootton folks calling them entitled, the racist tones, etc - that's exactly what makes the Magruder cluster so depressed to speak up when we're likely to be met with the same degree of hate from whoever the rest of this audience is. Sad. I cannot believe how nasty some people have been on this thread. The lack of empathy is sad.

[Anonymous]

For the people arguing about this is just people complaining about their property value going down, so what if it is? It's absolutely not the only thing these people are upset about; you would be just as upset if your kids could walk to your high school and now have a 25 minute bus ride. But back to property values, we as a county SHOULD want property values to increase, it raises more revenue for the county and MCPS.

Same goes with the Woodward situation with the Luxmanor people complaining. Their property values will go down, and so will county revenue! Why do so many people want that??? Those Wheaton families getting bussed (40 minutes!) to Woodward aren't going to see an increase in property value because they are at Woodward vs. Wheaton.

Just give the people what they want. Magruder at Crown, kids across the ENTIRE county staying close to home versus excessive bus rides, and not splitting articulation. The county says this is hard, it's really not. FLO analytics proved that with many of their solutions that Taylor ignored.

And don't get me started on all the gaslighting from Taylor and Swiatocha with their cooked data. Can't wait until we need to suffer through another boundary study immediately after the elementary school one because of their flawed process. The only thing good out of this is maybe we'll get some more competent people running for BOE after they've gone out of their way to piss off so many clusters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

For the next time or iteration you post this, it might "land better" without the "sure", "cool", "totally" etc additions that weaken the whole tone of this and probably matches how you talk. Also, be aware that Wootton is certainly moving to Crown so all of this is sour grapes. But you knew that (another favorite line of people who talk like you). Wonder how long this revolving door of complaints will last. My guess is until it posts its first GPA or AP score list and everyone realizes everything is ok. Like totally.

Appreciate the writing workshop from someone whose entire counter-argument was "it's happening, get over it." Bold contribution to the discourse.

And you're right, the casual language was imprecise. You know what else is imprecise? Calling a March 26 board vote a foregone conclusion the same week the state board of education received a formal complaint, the IG was asked to investigate, and multiple elected officials publicly called for a pause. But sure, totally settled. Nothing left to litigate here. Move along.

"Sour grapes" is a cute framing if you'd like to keep ignoring what was actually argued. The argument was never "Wootton deserves to stay in a crumbling building forever." It was that 90 days is an indefensible timeline for a permanent decision affecting thousands of families, that the independent cost analysis was requested and never produced, that multilingual outreach was documented as inadequate for a cluster over one-third Asian American, and that the district's own enrollment data directly contradicts its own justifications. None of that inconvenient reality dissolves because a vote is calendared.

The AP score prediction is genuinely my favorite part though. That's the move you make when you've run out of actual responses and need the conversation to stop. "Everyone will be fine eventually" is not a process defense. It's a concession that the process doesn't matter which, ironically, is the entire problem people are upset about.

But I'm sure you'll explain how I talk next.

Was generally trying to help sweetie. You all are deeply wired for conflict. Wonder if the parkway people 55 years ago were thankful or resentful about their new school. Was probably much of the same. You had your distance mongers, your change mongers, your traffic mongers, your life isn't fair mongers. But it all worked out so, so swimmingly. Well, until now it's a complete disaster but you know what I mean - had a great run there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

I'm so sick of this argument- its so misleading. You guys REALLY don't understand how this whole Wootton holding school thing is supposed to work huh?

They do in fact need to do work to make it safe for the other kids. Guess what, there's no money for that right now. There is zero funding and zero timeline to turn Wootton into the holding school. But they at least have a building they can use if and when the funding and opportunity arise. Not once has MCPS provided any data on when and how Wootton becomes a holding school. My guess? 5-10 years from now.

You should get on boarddocs because lots of the other information you want has been released in the board work sessions.

So Magruder just sits and rots for 5-10 years right? The alternative is Magruder gets to and wants to (rightfully so) go straight to Crown.

Agree to the fullest and rightfully!!

Magruder could go and sit there for 5-10 years yeah, but there wouldn't be funding to repair Magruder before then. Do they want to relocate that far away for ten years? I also don't know for sure they can get approval to use it as a holding school without a project actually happening.

Literally yes. Speak with Magruder advocates. They rather go to Crown for X years than stay where they are for the same amount of years or go to Wootton for the same amount of years.

Your last part is exactly why Magruder has such a huge stake in this. Making Crown into a holding school is exactly what’s going to make sure Magruder and others won’t be ignore. There will finally be some urgency to getting Magruder on CIP!

I cannot believe Magruder was forgotten in all of this. Say what everyone will - they were ignored. MCPS won't fess up to it and it's now creating yet another mess that doesn't have a happy ending at all. Nice job Dr. Taylor. Magruder folks - I hope you get what you deserve - quality education, quality facility, and an apology.

I hope Magruder sues.

We're hoping to!!!!

Good! Magruder absolutely should!

Rallying people in such a short period of time feels like a mountain. So many people care, but those same people feel so defeated by this administration with the little time we have left - from the SI to the BOE. Zero folks up there looking out for us and our families. While I see everyone here dumping on the Wootton folks calling them entitled, the racist tones, etc - that's exactly what makes the Magruder cluster so depressed to speak up when we're likely to be met with the same degree of hate from whoever the rest of this audience is. Sad. I cannot believe how nasty some people have been on this thread. The lack of empathy is sad.

Even if the Asian community was engaged with, they still wouldn't effectively stand up for themselves. They are passive by nature. The fact that it's ok to call them Wontons on here... wow! Crazy that people can talk like that in a forum! Thank goodness us Churchill Bulldogs are not impacted by this nonsense! I feel bad for all of you fighting an unwinnable war and making fake enemies out of each other in the process! I just don't know that we'll be able to call Wootton, Wootton... What will the name of the school be? Crown? Wootton? Crootton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the people arguing about this is just people complaining about their property value going down, so what if it is? It's absolutely not the only thing these people are upset about; you would be just as upset if your kids could walk to your high school and now have a 25 minute bus ride. But back to property values, we as a county SHOULD want property values to increase, it raises more revenue for the county and MCPS.

Same goes with the Woodward situation with the Luxmanor people complaining. Their property values will go down, and so will county revenue! Why do so many people want that??? Those Wheaton families getting bussed (40 minutes!) to Woodward aren't going to see an increase in property value because they are at Woodward vs. Wheaton.

Just give the people what they want. Magruder at Crown, kids across the ENTIRE county staying close to home versus excessive bus rides, and not splitting articulation. The county says this is hard, it's really not. FLO analytics proved that with many of their solutions that Taylor ignored.

And don't get me started on all the gaslighting from Taylor and Swiatocha with their cooked data. Can't wait until we need to suffer through another boundary study immediately after the elementary school one because of their flawed process. The only thing good out of this is maybe we'll get some more competent people running for BOE after they've gone out of their way to piss off so many clusters.

Think of property values like a seesaw. Today, Wootton high, Gaithersburg low. Tomorrow, fat boy sits on seesaw and Wootton low. jajajajaja. Total is same though. Money money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

I'm so sick of this argument- its so misleading. You guys REALLY don't understand how this whole Wootton holding school thing is supposed to work huh?

They do in fact need to do work to make it safe for the other kids. Guess what, there's no money for that right now. There is zero funding and zero timeline to turn Wootton into the holding school. But they at least have a building they can use if and when the funding and opportunity arise. Not once has MCPS provided any data on when and how Wootton becomes a holding school. My guess? 5-10 years from now.

You should get on boarddocs because lots of the other information you want has been released in the board work sessions.

So Magruder just sits and rots for 5-10 years right? The alternative is Magruder gets to and wants to (rightfully so) go straight to Crown.

Agree to the fullest and rightfully!!

Magruder could go and sit there for 5-10 years yeah, but there wouldn't be funding to repair Magruder before then. Do they want to relocate that far away for ten years? I also don't know for sure they can get approval to use it as a holding school without a project actually happening.

Literally yes. Speak with Magruder advocates. They rather go to Crown for X years than stay where they are for the same amount of years or go to Wootton for the same amount of years.

Your last part is exactly why Magruder has such a huge stake in this. Making Crown into a holding school is exactly what’s going to make sure Magruder and others won’t be ignore. There will finally be some urgency to getting Magruder on CIP!

I cannot believe Magruder was forgotten in all of this. Say what everyone will - they were ignored. MCPS won't fess up to it and it's now creating yet another mess that doesn't have a happy ending at all. Nice job Dr. Taylor. Magruder folks - I hope you get what you deserve - quality education, quality facility, and an apology.

I hope Magruder sues.

We're hoping to!!!!

Good! Magruder absolutely should!

Rallying people in such a short period of time feels like a mountain. So many people care, but those same people feel so defeated by this administration with the little time we have left - from the SI to the BOE. Zero folks up there looking out for us and our families. While I see everyone here dumping on the Wootton folks calling them entitled, the racist tones, etc - that's exactly what makes the Magruder cluster so depressed to speak up when we're likely to be met with the same degree of hate from whoever the rest of this audience is. Sad. I cannot believe how nasty some people have been on this thread. The lack of empathy is sad.

It kind of depends. There is some sort of vitriol directed towards the Wootton community due to the perceived status and demographics there.

Sentiment might be more sympathetic for Magruder residents.

It's as I mentioned, I've lived in both communities and have posted about how Magruder how to shut down multiple times due to burst pipes and antiquated HVAC system. So think Magruder should definitely be renovated.

The things that the Wootton community is doing is no different then what families from Poolesville, Clarksburg and other families have done in the past. Some differences are there are literally different sides of the Wootton community that might not be asking for the same things and are undermining efforts.

But to get what you want in this school system, you really do need to advocate for yourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

For the next time or iteration you post this, it might "land better" without the "sure", "cool", "totally" etc additions that weaken the whole tone of this and probably matches how you talk. Also, be aware that Wootton is certainly moving to Crown so all of this is sour grapes. But you knew that (another favorite line of people who talk like you). Wonder how long this revolving door of complaints will last. My guess is until it posts its first GPA or AP score list and everyone realizes everything is ok. Like totally.

Appreciate the writing workshop from someone whose entire counter-argument was "it's happening, get over it." Bold contribution to the discourse.

And you're right, the casual language was imprecise. You know what else is imprecise? Calling a March 26 board vote a foregone conclusion the same week the state board of education received a formal complaint, the IG was asked to investigate, and multiple elected officials publicly called for a pause. But sure, totally settled. Nothing left to litigate here. Move along.

"Sour grapes" is a cute framing if you'd like to keep ignoring what was actually argued. The argument was never "Wootton deserves to stay in a crumbling building forever." It was that 90 days is an indefensible timeline for a permanent decision affecting thousands of families, that the independent cost analysis was requested and never produced, that multilingual outreach was documented as inadequate for a cluster over one-third Asian American, and that the district's own enrollment data directly contradicts its own justifications. None of that inconvenient reality dissolves because a vote is calendared.

The AP score prediction is genuinely my favorite part though. That's the move you make when you've run out of actual responses and need the conversation to stop. "Everyone will be fine eventually" is not a process defense. It's a concession that the process doesn't matter which, ironically, is the entire problem people are upset about.

But I'm sure you'll explain how I talk next.

Was generally trying to help sweetie. You all are deeply wired for conflict. Wonder if the parkway people 55 years ago were thankful or resentful about their new school. Was probably much of the same. You had your distance mongers, your change mongers, your traffic mongers, your life isn't fair mongers. But it all worked out so, so swimmingly. Well, until now it's a complete disaster but you know what I mean - had a great run there.

If the plan is strong, it should stand up to tough questions. Dismissing concerns instead of addressing them is usually a sign that something isn’t being fully answered (and you’re afraid the answers will show that the emperor has no clothes)

Go ahead and call the Wootton parents “sweetie” in front of a judge. Your condescending attitude isn’t going to fly at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the people arguing about this is just people complaining about their property value going down, so what if it is? It's absolutely not the only thing these people are upset about; you would be just as upset if your kids could walk to your high school and now have a 25 minute bus ride. But back to property values, we as a county SHOULD want property values to increase, it raises more revenue for the county and MCPS.

Same goes with the Woodward situation with the Luxmanor people complaining. Their property values will go down, and so will county revenue! Why do so many people want that??? Those Wheaton families getting bussed (40 minutes!) to Woodward aren't going to see an increase in property value because they are at Woodward vs. Wheaton.

Just give the people what they want. Magruder at Crown, kids across the ENTIRE county staying close to home versus excessive bus rides, and not splitting articulation. The county says this is hard, it's really not. FLO analytics proved that with many of their solutions that Taylor ignored.

And don't get me started on all the gaslighting from Taylor and Swiatocha with their cooked data. Can't wait until we need to suffer through another boundary study immediately after the elementary school one because of their flawed process. The only thing good out of this is maybe we'll get some more competent people running for BOE after they've gone out of their way to piss off so many clusters.

Oh the property values will definitely go down. It's already happening at the Woodward side. And the revenue aspect is spot on. As a county, we want more revenue via property value increases. It helps EVERYONE. Agreed on points above. MCPS paid a fortune for these analytics too - only to not use them - maybe because they were not favorable to what Taylor wanted. We will all deal with the outcome of this while Taylor roams off to his next state or county to run the same playbook. Has anyone seen his running video?! Quite amazing. Wonder how much was spent on that video production!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

I'm so sick of this argument- its so misleading. You guys REALLY don't understand how this whole Wootton holding school thing is supposed to work huh?

They do in fact need to do work to make it safe for the other kids. Guess what, there's no money for that right now. There is zero funding and zero timeline to turn Wootton into the holding school. But they at least have a building they can use if and when the funding and opportunity arise. Not once has MCPS provided any data on when and how Wootton becomes a holding school. My guess? 5-10 years from now.

You should get on boarddocs because lots of the other information you want has been released in the board work sessions.

So Magruder just sits and rots for 5-10 years right? The alternative is Magruder gets to and wants to (rightfully so) go straight to Crown.

Agree to the fullest and rightfully!!

Magruder could go and sit there for 5-10 years yeah, but there wouldn't be funding to repair Magruder before then. Do they want to relocate that far away for ten years? I also don't know for sure they can get approval to use it as a holding school without a project actually happening.

Literally yes. Speak with Magruder advocates. They rather go to Crown for X years than stay where they are for the same amount of years or go to Wootton for the same amount of years.

Your last part is exactly why Magruder has such a huge stake in this. Making Crown into a holding school is exactly what’s going to make sure Magruder and others won’t be ignore. There will finally be some urgency to getting Magruder on CIP!

I cannot believe Magruder was forgotten in all of this. Say what everyone will - they were ignored. MCPS won't fess up to it and it's now creating yet another mess that doesn't have a happy ending at all. Nice job Dr. Taylor. Magruder folks - I hope you get what you deserve - quality education, quality facility, and an apology.

I hope Magruder sues.

We're hoping to!!!!

Good! Magruder absolutely should!

Rallying people in such a short period of time feels like a mountain. So many people care, but those same people feel so defeated by this administration with the little time we have left - from the SI to the BOE. Zero folks up there looking out for us and our families. While I see everyone here dumping on the Wootton folks calling them entitled, the racist tones, etc - that's exactly what makes the Magruder cluster so depressed to speak up when we're likely to be met with the same degree of hate from whoever the rest of this audience is. Sad. I cannot believe how nasty some people have been on this thread. The lack of empathy is sad.

It kind of depends. There is some sort of vitriol directed towards the Wootton community due to the perceived status and demographics there.

Sentiment might be more sympathetic for Magruder residents.

It's as I mentioned, I've lived in both communities and have posted about how Magruder how to shut down multiple times due to burst pipes and antiquated HVAC system. So think Magruder should definitely be renovated.

The things that the Wootton community is doing is no different then what families from Poolesville, Clarksburg and other families have done in the past. Some differences are there are literally different sides of the Wootton community that might not be asking for the same things and are undermining efforts.

But to get what you want in this school system, you really do need to advocate for yourselves.

What is happening at Magruder is a powder keg of lawsuitS waiting to happen, as in multiple.

Please don’t be discouraged. Continue to speak up. Magruder deserves better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the people arguing about this is just people complaining about their property value going down, so what if it is? It's absolutely not the only thing these people are upset about; you would be just as upset if your kids could walk to your high school and now have a 25 minute bus ride. But back to property values, we as a county SHOULD want property values to increase, it raises more revenue for the county and MCPS.

Same goes with the Woodward situation with the Luxmanor people complaining. Their property values will go down, and so will county revenue! Why do so many people want that??? Those Wheaton families getting bussed (40 minutes!) to Woodward aren't going to see an increase in property value because they are at Woodward vs. Wheaton.

Just give the people what they want. Magruder at Crown, kids across the ENTIRE county staying close to home versus excessive bus rides, and not splitting articulation. The county says this is hard, it's really not. FLO analytics proved that with many of their solutions that Taylor ignored.

And don't get me started on all the gaslighting from Taylor and Swiatocha with their cooked data. Can't wait until we need to suffer through another boundary study immediately after the elementary school one because of their flawed process. The only thing good out of this is maybe we'll get some more competent people running for BOE after they've gone out of their way to piss off so many clusters.

Oh the property values will definitely go down. It's already happening at the Woodward side. And the revenue aspect is spot on. As a county, we want more revenue via property value increases. It helps EVERYONE. Agreed on points above. MCPS paid a fortune for these analytics too - only to not use them - maybe because they were not favorable to what Taylor wanted. We will all deal with the outcome of this while Taylor roams off to his next state or county to run the same playbook. Has anyone seen his running video?! Quite amazing. Wonder how much was spent on that video production!

omg, you weren't joking about the running video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y9XZYrFqus

[Anonymous]

What is with the hyperbole? 250 new buses on Wootton Parkway? 37 stops for one bus?! Making up BS just further undermines your argument. Clearly you're unfamiliar with how public school busing works here, because they don't go from house to house picking up each kid. LOL. There are things called "bus stops" where they pick up dozens of kids at one place, for efficiency. The Wootton bus schedule is a public document, and you can see for yourself that every bus makes just a handful of stops - with one outlier at 16 stops. Oh, and it's 22 buses for Wootton. Moving Wootton to Crown will not make that number jump to 250. Even if none of these groups turn to walkers at Crown (which some of them will), it still will not require another 228 buses to transport the Wootton walkers to Crown. And since MCPS already said that Wootton wouldn't be used as a holding school for several years, you don't have to worry about another 22-30 (not 228) buses from another high school coming. IF and when it is used as a holding school, there will be plenty of time to stagger the holding school start time from Wootton. https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/Transportation/busroutes/04234bus.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh good, the "it's only 12 minutes" people are here. Love it. Please, tell me more about the school bus system you have apparently never ridden. Your kid is not getting picked up last and dropped off at Crown. They are stop four of thirty-seven at 6:45am. But sure. Twelve minutes. Totally.

Now that we've handled that, let's talk about what's actually happening here because some of you are out here defending a process that wouldn't pass a middle school civics test.

MCPS added 16,000 housing units between 2019 and 2024. Enrollment dropped by 6,000 students. That is their own data. They are using declining enrollment to justify moving Wootton. By that exact same logic, Crown doesn't need Wootton's students either. The district built a school for a growth wave that never came, and now Wootton's community gets to pay for that miscalculation with their kids' commutes. Cool system.

And my personal favorite: the Wootton building is apparently SO dangerous, SO deteriorated, SO uninhabitable that students must be relocated immediately to a brand new facility. Great. Totally logical. So why is the very next sentence of the plan "and then we'll put other people's children in that same building as a holding school"? WHICH IS IT? Is it a condemned hazard or a perfectly serviceable facility? Because it cannot be both, and nobody in the pro-move crowd has ever once attempted to explain this contradiction.

Option H... the actual plan on the table, was introduced in December. The board votes March 26. Ninety days. Permanent decision. Thousands of families. A cluster that is over one-third Asian American with documented inadequate multilingual outreach. The community asked for an independent cost comparison of renovation versus relocation. They still don't have one. The community asked for more time. They were told to be grateful for a new building.

The argument that this is just entitled homeowners protecting property values might land better if the district had done a single thing transparently. They didn't. They rushed a process, buried a conflict of interest between needing a holding school and needing to justify Crown, and then acted surprised when thousands of people showed up furious.

You don't have to oppose the move to recognize this process was a dumpster fire. But apparently nuance is also on the renovation delay list.

I'm so sick of this argument- its so misleading. You guys REALLY don't understand how this whole Wootton holding school thing is supposed to work huh?

They do in fact need to do work to make it safe for the other kids. Guess what, there's no money for that right now. There is zero funding and zero timeline to turn Wootton into the holding school. But they at least have a building they can use if and when the funding and opportunity arise. Not once has MCPS provided any data on when and how Wootton becomes a holding school. My guess? 5-10 years from now.

You should get on boarddocs because lots of the other information you want has been released in the board work sessions.

So Magruder just sits and rots for 5-10 years right? The alternative is Magruder gets to and wants to (rightfully so) go straight to Crown.

Agree to the fullest and rightfully!!

Magruder could go and sit there for 5-10 years yeah, but there wouldn't be funding to repair Magruder before then. Do they want to relocate that far away for ten years? I also don't know for sure they can get approval to use it as a holding school without a project actually happening.

Literally yes. Speak with Magruder advocates. They rather go to Crown for X years than stay where they are for the same amount of years or go to Wootton for the same amount of years.

Your last part is exactly why Magruder has such a huge stake in this. Making Crown into a holding school is exactly what’s going to make sure Magruder and others won’t be ignore. There will finally be some urgency to getting Magruder on CIP!

I cannot believe Magruder was forgotten in all of this. Say what everyone will - they were ignored. MCPS won't fess up to it and it's now creating yet another mess that doesn't have a happy ending at all. Nice job Dr. Taylor. Magruder folks - I hope you get what you deserve - quality education, quality facility, and an apology.

I hope Magruder sues.

We're hoping to!!!!

Good! Magruder absolutely should!

Rallying people in such a short period of time feels like a mountain. So many people care, but those same people feel so defeated by this administration with the little time we have left - from the SI to the BOE. Zero folks up there looking out for us and our families. While I see everyone here dumping on the Wootton folks calling them entitled, the racist tones, etc - that's exactly what makes the Magruder cluster so depressed to speak up when we're likely to be met with the same degree of hate from whoever the rest of this audience is. Sad. I cannot believe how nasty some people have been on this thread. The lack of empathy is sad.

It kind of depends. There is some sort of vitriol directed towards the Wootton community due to the perceived status and demographics there.

Sentiment might be more sympathetic for Magruder residents.

It's as I mentioned, I've lived in both communities and have posted about how Magruder how to shut down multiple times due to burst pipes and antiquated HVAC system. So think Magruder should definitely be renovated.

The things that the Wootton community is doing is no different then what families from Poolesville, Clarksburg and other families have done in the past. Some differences are there are literally different sides of the Wootton community that might not be asking for the same things and are undermining efforts.

But to get what you want in this school system, you really do need to advocate for yourselves.

Thank you. I know our folks are trying to put something together, while keeping their spirits up. It's literally fighting the mental side of the anger we all feel. Our kids have felt the issues within the Magruder facility for years. YEARS. I believe we only really started fighting back when we saw Wootton standing up. We want what's good for our kids, even if the distance for 5-10 years is the solution while we wait. We've already waited this long! Good luck to you all on the Wootton side too. Hope you get a meaningful outcome for the effort and advocacy you've put in. Nobody questions your passion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is with the hyperbole? 250 new buses on Wootton Parkway? 37 stops for one bus?! Making up BS just further undermines your argument. Clearly you're unfamiliar with how public school busing works here, because they don't go from house to house picking up each kid. LOL. There are things called "bus stops" where they pick up dozens of kids at one place, for efficiency. The Wootton bus schedule is a public document, and you can see for yourself that every bus makes just a handful of stops - with one outlier at 16 stops. Oh, and it's 22 buses for Wootton. Moving Wootton to Crown will not make that number jump to 250. Even if none of these groups turn to walkers at Crown (which some of them will), it still will not require another 228 buses to transport the Wootton walkers to Crown. And since MCPS already said that Wootton wouldn't be used as a holding school for several years, you don't have to worry about another 22-30 (not 228) buses from another high school coming. IF and when it is used as a holding school, there will be plenty of time to stagger the holding school start time from Wootton. https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/Transportation/busroutes/04234bus.pdf

If Wootton isn’t going to be used as a holding school for several years, what is the plan for Magruder and why is this pla equitable?