Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I listened to the zoom call and did not like the happy/cheery attitudes of the speakers. This is very disruptive to people’s families with all the bussing across county in option 3 and they are laughing and so proud of all their tools.

That seemed incredibly tone deaf to me.

Yup. It's all shiny and pretty and so removed from the communities. We have 160k students. It's about them and their families.

Well they did fire the PR firm that was going to handle public engagement. This is what you get when they do it themselves.

So very tone deaf. Have an ounce of empathy. It’s not all about your pretty maps and charts. These are real families with real lives, many of whom are already being impacted by the DOGE efforts. And these changes under option 3 will devastate anyone who gets bussed — whether to the East or the West — from the closest school to their home. Moving will be hard to stay close to home.

Is option 3 really that bad? I feel like most kids have like a 15-30 minute commute to high school right now, right? Are there that many neighborhoods in option 3 that would be significantly outside that range?

Omg no. 10 minutes at most for us.

So that's a good bit less than a mile walk, right? I don't think that's typical for most people. I think it's more common to be in the 1-2 mile range which would take a lot longer.

I'm 2.2 miles from our hs....5 min drive at this time of night. Of course worse with traffic on old georgetown

Okay I get that kids lucky enough to live a few minutes' drive from their high school *and* have parents available to drive them both ways will be bummed to have that sweet deal change. But that's not most kids and families.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, if I were Taylor and consultants produced option 3 for me, I would fire them. I am not sure why MCPS would think that it would be wise to present such a crazy plan to the public, unless they wanted to make the whole county angry.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do all county-based school systems around the country do this? Try to make everything equal among all schools in a county? I mean, technically, the schools are teaching the same curriculum, and in theory, the teachers are no better or worse in certain schools, regardless of demographics. While I understand the concern over having some schools with higher FARMs rates, I don't understand artificially modifying boundaries and forcing kids to travel half way across the county in the name trying to achieve equal demographic and socioeconomic distribution. Kids should go to school in or close to their community. Tilden MS is less than 1/2 mile from Farmland ES, and Woodward is probably a mile away, but you're proposing busing those students 30+ minutes to Parkland and Kennedy to attend school with kids who live no where near them?

They could address some of this by providing enough differential funding to schools with populations of more highly heterogeneous academic need. Enough to ensure that no student's options for classes, extracurriculars, etc., are different at one school than they would be at another. If they start with the assumptions that students of all backgrounds have similar distribution of capability but that there are background-associated needs for differential supports to bring that capability to fruition, the need to ensure certain demographic homogeneity becomes less exigent with that approach (not that diversity should be avoided), and the system can reap cost savings (which can support a portion of the needed funding) & other community benefits associated with geographic proximity.

That would require "rich" schools to accept considerably greater funding differentials than currently exist, however, and, likely, higher tax rates overall both to bring the same breadth & level of non-magnet classes to all schools and to ensure that the burden of teaching to heterogeneous classroom populations is met by a commensurately low student-to-teacher ratio. It better would address the achievement deficit, however, and not just achievement gaps.

"If they start with the assumptions that students of all backgrounds have similar distribution of capability but that there are background-associated needs for differential supports to bring that capability to fruition, the need to ensure certain demographic homogeneity becomes less exigent with that approach (not that diversity should be avoided), and the system can reap cost savings (which can support a portion of the needed funding) & other community benefits associated with geographic proximity."

Ok but we all know that's bullchit. And also they basically ALREADY do this in moco...not a viable option.

They don't already do it, and that was the point. Classes aren't equally available wherever you live. Staffing allocations do not reflect the management challenges of more highly heterogeneous student ability levels within a class. Entirely viable, except for the sway of populations at schools that currently have it good but don't want either to shift resource levels or to up the tax rate to maintain them while providig the greater resources where needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, if I were Taylor and consultants produced option 3 for me, I would fire them. I am not sure why MCPS would think that it would be wise to present such a crazy plan to the public, unless they wanted to make the whole county angry.

Maybe they put it out there so they could discard it and go with one of the other options without people being too upset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they actually did a decent job with the maps and data, although my eyes are bleeding after trying to look at everything. I like option 2 best. I think option 3 is by far the worst option.

+1

[Anonymous]

The data they provided is interesting. To me it makes Option 2 a very good one as it balances out Facility Utilization. If the goal of the boundary study is to solve overcrowding in some schools, a balanced school utilization is critical. The data is showing that Option 2 will not create overcrowding and middle or high school.

On the other hand Option 1 is horrible for a school like Wheaton HS, where it is left with 117% utilization where 5 other high schools are at 80% to 85%. Thye will need to do another boundary study in 5 years if they go with Option 1.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1erYX17GJAfJWhgro-0eLXujXxpiNdfU4/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_OLXKCe7_iNFN1ydbXZZgNurJabZhCwz/view

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, if I were Taylor and consultants produced option 3 for me, I would fire them. I am not sure why MCPS would think that it would be wise to present such a crazy plan to the public, unless they wanted to make the whole county angry.

It's so they can tell everyone about the ultimately chosen plan that inevitably some people dislike "at least it wasn't option 3"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The data they provided is interesting. To me it makes Option 2 a very good one as it balances out Facility Utilization. If the goal of the boundary study is to solve overcrowding in some schools, a balanced school utilization is critical. The data is showing that Option 2 will not create overcrowding and middle or high school.

On the other hand Option 1 is horrible for a school like Wheaton HS, where it is left with 117% utilization where 5 other high schools are at 80% to 85%. Thye will need to do another boundary study in 5 years if they go with Option 1.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1erYX17GJAfJWhgro-0eLXujXxpiNdfU4/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_OLXKCe7_iNFN1ydbXZZgNurJabZhCwz/view

They said something in the meeting tonight about how Wheaton and Edison are right next to each other and that option 1 wasn't as bad as it looked because there was a way to absorb the extra students -- I really couldn't follow it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like every single option except for #3 actually makes demographic disparities worse and benefits richer schools over poorer schools. And since the rich parents always seem to win in this county, I can't imagine we're actually going to get #3. This sucks.

I’m not sure what sucks. Sure diversity is great but shouldn’t come at the expense of forced bussing adding wasted time to kids and parents days which are better spent in school and extracurricular activities. Short of changes at the margins, as in shifting the edge of say Wheaton HS boundary to WJ, it’s hard to do this in a solid fashion.

Better solution would be to create more affordable housing in areas to let people live in areas they might otherwise not be able to afford. Of course that’s hard to do without massive new communities, but the current MPDU percentages are quite low. Having 30% of the new townhome communities would be a huge increase 2x and could be a start.

[Anonymous]

I think what's shocking to me is how high FARMS Woodward HS could end up relative to the other schools in the study, could be up to almost 50% FARMS and as low as 14% white. That's shocking to me considering I thought the majority of its students would come from WJ. Option 3 significantly cuts FARMS at Einstein and would make it whiter than WJ, and it also significantly diversifies Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate the split articulation across the board. I know it already happens at some school, but this is just bad for kids’ social development. They’ll make news friends in middle school only to be separated from them in high school.

I went to Cabin John and then Churchill in the late 90s. About 33% went to Churchill and ~67% to Wootton give or take. At the time I seem to remember it not being so common. It was a bummer to make friends for three years and leave them, quite sad at the end of 8th grade. But once 9th grade began, most people adjusted fine. I think it’d be worse to split for high school only, especially if just a small subset of the middle school. Like say a small ES splits for high school after all attending the same MS. At that point you could be talking about being 10% of MS going to HS together which is very small. Based on my experience I at least entered HS with about 100 others out of a class of 400 or so.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I gotta say that, so far, I like how MCPS is sharing info up front, so people can mull it over and consider what it means for them and their community.

Pre-pandemic, the idea of redrawing boundaries generated a lot of anxiety and controversy.

Based on this thread, today, I'd say there is interest and maybe some concern, but not a lot of anxiety or a sense of deep unfairness among most commenters. Maybe that's coming, as one or more options seem like the favored ones, but so far people seem to be taking the prospective changes pretty well.

To be honest, I am anxious. My house is currently zoned WJ. A rezone to Kennedy would have a negative effect on my house value. That makes me very nervous.

Respectfully property values cannot and should not be a consideration for MCPS, however.

Ok. Tell that to the taxpayers of the county who fund MCPS. 🙄

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Option 3 has got to be the throw away option.

It has united DCUM in opposition to it.

Do you think those lower income clusters are going to benefit from being shipped across town? Do you think their parents want the extra commuting time and costs, much less to be surrounded by a bunch of affluent families who most definitely don't want it? I think the universal feedback is people want to attend local schools in their neighborhoods that aren't overcrowded. If they can enhance diversity and minimize overcrowding around the edges, then great! Anything else is an exercise in social engineering and will make just about everyone unhappy.

This! Even many students in lower socio economic schools don’t want to be bussed away, they want equality in resources. This should be the focus!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like every single option except for #3 actually makes demographic disparities worse and benefits richer schools over poorer schools. And since the rich parents always seem to win in this county, I can't imagine we're actually going to get #3. This sucks.

I’m not sure what sucks. Sure diversity is great but shouldn’t come at the expense of forced bussing adding wasted time to kids and parents days which are better spent in school and extracurricular activities. Short of changes at the margins, as in shifting the edge of say Wheaton HS boundary to WJ, it’s hard to do this in a solid fashion.

Better solution would be to create more affordable housing in areas to let people live in areas they might otherwise not be able to afford. Of course that’s hard to do without massive new communities, but the current MPDU percentages are quite low. Having 30% of the new townhome communities would be a huge increase 2x and could be a start.

That housing would all need to go in the Whitman zone. Got a plan for that, and not for the rest of the area, unlike what the County Council is pushing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like every single option except for #3 actually makes demographic disparities worse and benefits richer schools over poorer schools. And since the rich parents always seem to win in this county, I can't imagine we're actually going to get #3. This sucks.

I’m not sure what sucks. Sure diversity is great but shouldn’t come at the expense of forced bussing adding wasted time to kids and parents days which are better spent in school and extracurricular activities. Short of changes at the margins, as in shifting the edge of say Wheaton HS boundary to WJ, it’s hard to do this in a solid fashion.

Better solution would be to create more affordable housing in areas to let people live in areas they might otherwise not be able to afford. Of course that’s hard to do without massive new communities, but the current MPDU percentages are quite low. Having 30% of the new townhome communities would be a huge increase 2x and could be a start.

That housing would all need to go in the Whitman zone. Got a plan for that, and not for the rest of the area, unlike what the County Council is pushing?

Yeah any new townhouse/apartment community needs to have 30-40% MPDU. Problem is mostly SFHs in Whitman district. But there are new communities like the EYA community on Westbard though I think that goes to BCC.