Taylor Meeting at Wootton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

That's Taylor's premature victory lap... Surprised he's not wearing a gold chain too.

[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

No idea what you are ranting about. Taylor is planting an MCPS school bus depot in the Wootton Cluster. He’s putting 250 buses on those roads that have nothing to do with your rant. But that was fun to read!

[Anonymous]

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.

Please show me a Wootton school bus route with 37 stops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

No idea what you are ranting about. Taylor is planting an MCPS school bus depot in the Wootton Cluster. He’s putting 250 buses on those roads that have nothing to do with your rant. But that was fun to read!

🤣 and somehow we are the ones ranting apparently.

Please educate yourself on the issues and why the community is so angry before you open your mouth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

No idea what you are ranting about. Taylor is planting an MCPS school bus depot in the Wootton Cluster. He’s putting 250 buses on those roads that have nothing to do with your rant. But that was fun to read!

Can you reference what you're talking about moving a bus depot to the Wootton Cluster? I could only find this article from a couple of years ago which talks about East Gude Drive and Seven Locks Road:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2022/10/08/county-drops-rockville-bus-depot-proposal-but-neighbors-still-opposed-to-restoration-center-location/

[Anonymous]

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!

Urgency is nice but the $$$ still needs to be available. MOCO is broke.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is good. Do they WANT to relocate? Suddenly we care about what Magruder wants? Yet we didn't care about what Wootton wants? 5-10 years? Maybe. Flip a coin. Who cares. Someone loses out, but give the new school to the one that needs it more vs caring about who wants it. Use data to determine that.

I'm Wootton. I want to move to Crown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 plan equitable?

It isn’t. Moving Wootton to Crown kills 2 birds with one stone for Taylor (really 3 birds). First, he fills Crown with high achieving kids, instant academic reputation that would otherwise take 20 years (if ever) to develop (and speaking of developers, they will be very happy). Second, it avoids MCPS having to spend money remediating Wootton, so it can spend that money on more sole source contracts that violate procurement regulations. Third, it means there isn’t a holding school for Magruder, so MCPS can delay that $300M+ renovation for years (if Crown was a holding school for Magruder, MCPS would have to find the money to begin renovations).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

That's Taylor's premature victory lap... Surprised he's not wearing a gold chain too.

Will he have a Mission Accomplished banner?

[Anonymous]

The real reason why certain Wootton families adamantly want to remain on the Parkway (knowing full well there is no money for renovations for several years) is because of what they have said in writing and orally publicly (we have many receipts): they're afraid that going to school with Crown kids will harm their kids. They have said that the Crown kids are violent, will disrupt the classes, are "low performers," will somehow affect their kids' grades and ability to get into a selective college. This racist fear is THE reason they're opposed. What is disgusting is their ploy to use Magruder for cover. Some of the Magruder parents I talked with said they disengaged once they saw that the intentions of the Rockville power brokers was not to actually advocate for Magruder to get money to get renovated. Comments from Wootton parents that Magruder should go to Crown because their demo and "culture" is more in tune with the Crown kids than Wootton's "excellence" are case in point.

[Anonymous]

Making my way through the insults to ask a sincere Q about why the IG complaints should delay the vote. Does the IG have authority to actually override a boundary decision? I went on the website and all I see are opinions written by the IG with loosey goosey recommendations. If the IGs do open an investigation, I for one will be interested in reading their recommendations, particularly for the next ES study. But they have no power to actually determine a proper boundary configuration, right?

[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

What this bus route document shows is just how far most CURRENT Wootton students live from Wootton on its current location on Wootton Parkway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

That's Taylor's premature victory lap... Surprised he's not wearing a gold chain too.

Will he have a Mission Accomplished banner?

He's already made that video. Planning to drop it the morning of the vote...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 plan equitable?

It isn’t. Moving Wootton to Crown kills 2 birds with one stone for Taylor (really 3 birds). First, he fills Crown with high achieving kids, instant academic reputation that would otherwise take 20 years (if ever) to develop (and speaking of developers, they will be very happy). Second, it avoids MCPS having to spend money remediating Wootton, so it can spend that money on more sole source contracts that violate procurement regulations. Third, it means there isn’t a holding school for Magruder, so MCPS can delay that $300M+ renovation for years (if Crown was a holding school for Magruder, MCPS would have to find the money to begin renovations).

Nobody is talking about the staffing elephant in the room. What happens when Wootton's teachers leave?

And they will. I would know since I am one. Teachers with 15-20 years in a community don't just pick up and relocate because a superintendent drew a new line on a map. Many of them chose Wootton specifically for the culture, the community, the commute from where they actually live. When this "relocation" happens and half the faculty walks out the door, suddenly you don't have Wootton at Crown. You have Crown with a Wootton nameplate.

My kids had some of those teachers (my colleagues) over a decade ago. The institutional knowledge, the relationships, the culture we've all built... it's not a building. That's years of investment that evaporates the moment this vote passes and the resignation letters start.

MCPS keeps saying this is a move, not a closure. Fine. But a school is its people, not its address. When you force a relocation without meaningful faculty buy-in and lose half your experienced staff in the process, you've effectively closed the school everyone knew and opened a new one with a familiar logo. We've had very little engagement from the county other than with each other as peers. There are mixed feelings of course, but nobody took our pulse at the county level.

That's not a relocation. That's a rebranding. And the kids who show up at Crown in 2027 expecting Wootton deserve to know the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 plan equitable?

It isn’t. Moving Wootton to Crown kills 2 birds with one stone for Taylor (really 3 birds). First, he fills Crown with high achieving kids, instant academic reputation that would otherwise take 20 years (if ever) to develop (and speaking of developers, they will be very happy). Second, it avoids MCPS having to spend money remediating Wootton, so it can spend that money on more sole source contracts that violate procurement regulations. Third, it means there isn’t a holding school for Magruder, so MCPS can delay that $300M+ renovation for years (if Crown was a holding school for Magruder, MCPS would have to find the money to begin renovations).

Nobody is talking about the staffing elephant in the room. What happens when Wootton's teachers leave?

And they will. I would know since I am one. Teachers with 15-20 years in a community don't just pick up and relocate because a superintendent drew a new line on a map. Many of them chose Wootton specifically for the culture, the community, the commute from where they actually live. When this "relocation" happens and half the faculty walks out the door, suddenly you don't have Wootton at Crown. You have Crown with a Wootton nameplate.

My kids had some of those teachers (my colleagues) over a decade ago. The institutional knowledge, the relationships, the culture we've all built... it's not a building. That's years of investment that evaporates the moment this vote passes and the resignation letters start.

MCPS keeps saying this is a move, not a closure. Fine. But a school is its people, not its address. When you force a relocation without meaningful faculty buy-in and lose half your experienced staff in the process, you've effectively closed the school everyone knew and opened a new one with a familiar logo. We've had very little engagement from the county other than with each other as peers. There are mixed feelings of course, but nobody took our pulse at the county level.

That's not a relocation. That's a rebranding. And the kids who show up at Crown in 2027 expecting Wootton deserve to know the difference.

You don’t matter to MCPS. It only cares about money and justifying its existence. Rebranding Crown as Wootton avoids the truth that this is a school closure and makes the Crown developers very happy.