Proposed New Regions

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I wonder if they could pair two regions together for certain programs where it would make more sense to have 3 programs countywide than 6? How well would that work with this set of regions, or would you need to change the regions to make that work? Which regions would you pair together? 5&6 is already pretty close to the existing sending schools for upcounty programs, right?


What about 1 with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6? Could do three high-level SMCS magnets-- keep Poolesville (for 5 & 6) and Blair (for 1 & 2) and then add one new one for the schools in regions 3 & 4.


Are there any schools that are reasonably central for all the schools in regions 3 and 4, to be able to have 3 versions of some programs rather than 6?

(Schools would be Churchill, WJ, Woodward, Wheaton, Kennedy, Magruder, RM, Rockville, and Wootton.)
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:The thing I wonder about is how you can figure out the impacts of new programs on capacity anyway if you don't know which schools the kids applying will be from? It works fine if you assume an equal number applying from each school, but if you assume that and then some schools send many fewer kids than others, they will end up more crowded and the schools that send more kids will have lower enrollment.


This is a problemm. I could see them doing a per-school reserve (with seats opening to others if there are not enough applications), but that would be ability-related-need inequitable. Better might be to have admissions heuristics that adjust for relative inequity of prior experience/exposure, but their previously adopted paradigms (e.g., locally normed MAP) have, thus far, been more hammers than scalpels, and, again, even distribution is not a guarantee.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I wonder if they could pair two regions together for certain programs where it would make more sense to have 3 programs countywide than 6? How well would that work with this set of regions, or would you need to change the regions to make that work? Which regions would you pair together? 5&6 is already pretty close to the existing sending schools for upcounty programs, right?


What about 1 with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6? Could do three high-level SMCS magnets-- keep Poolesville (for 5 & 6) and Blair (for 1 & 2) and then add one new one for the schools in regions 3 & 4.


Are there any schools that are reasonably central for all the schools in regions 3 and 4, to be able to have 3 versions of some programs rather than 6?

(Schools would be Churchill, WJ, Woodward, Wheaton, Kennedy, Magruder, RM, Rockville, and Wootton.)


RM and Woodward is probably central.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I would love to see Sherwood learn to accept others not like them. They think they are too special and hope that racist bubble gets burst.


I don't really follow things related to Sherwood. Are they bad in that regard and have protested in the past?

Their demographics looks a bit more diverse then some schools like Whitman.

The At a Glance page linked to their school profile page (as of 9/30/2022) shows Sherwood's demographic percentages as:
American Indian <=5
Asian 11.4
Black/African American 15.9
Hispanic/Latino 19.3
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander <=5
Two or More Races 5.1
White 48.2

For Whitman:
American Indian <=5
Asian 15.2
Black/African American <=5
Hispanic/Latino 12
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander <=5
Two or More Races 8
White 60.4

And at the very least they have those townhome communities across the street from Sherwood with a lot of minorities waiting for the school bus.

I think sometimes people beat up on the Sherwood and Olney areas because it used to be not diverse. But while it's still not that diverse, it isn't as bad as people make it out to be and there's less diverse schools in the county.

It's very possible that the Sherwood did in fact resist any changes that would increase diversity for their schools.

But I'm wondering if people on here are saying families in the Sherwood area would not be happy just based on their perceived demographics of the area, which is racist too, or if Sherwood actually resisted these types of changes in the past.


Sherwood is diverse and my minority kids are happy and thriving. Who ever is screaming about racism doesn’t have a clue and is ignorant.



That applies to most schools here. But these DEI people are still not happy


And they're still isolating and ignoring the problematic schools too. ie grouping them all together in the regions, making it a weaker region overall. Or not doing anything to improve their populations.

I'm not convinced that in the future that people won't look back and see these plans and actions as disguised racism by limiting the opportunities for students at these schools. ie lower standards so they can't achieve anything higher then what certain people expect for them, don't give them access to the better schools that other regions have access to, etc.


Also in terms of improving the populations, I'm referring to the initial boundary proposals.

In the initial boundary proposals (for the Crown study at least), the rich areas just stay rich or get richer. And none of the lower performing schools sees any significant changes in their population, some of them have increased FARMS rates from their already high rates.

Then some of the proposed regions are somewhat balanced. But two of them group all of the weaker schools together.

So don't see either the boundary studies or the proposed regions as helping with the problem areas that MCPS has.


are you serious? What do you think MCPS can do to reduce FARMS rates in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton, even WJ, BCC and QO? These schools especially the first 3 are quite far away from lower priced housing to be able to increase FARMS rates without bussing kids in and out SIGNIFICANT distances. You’d be talking about adding 30-60 minutes each day of travel time to bring kids from day Silver Spring to Whitman or Gaithersburg HS to Churchill. How is that good for the students or the community at large (added traffic/costs)?

A better solution is to promote affordable housing options in certain areas, but even that is a challenge when in many of these school clusters there’s barely any new development.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I would love to see Sherwood learn to accept others not like them. They think they are too special and hope that racist bubble gets burst.


I don't really follow things related to Sherwood. Are they bad in that regard and have protested in the past?

Their demographics looks a bit more diverse then some schools like Whitman.

The At a Glance page linked to their school profile page (as of 9/30/2022) shows Sherwood's demographic percentages as:
American Indian <=5
Asian 11.4
Black/African American 15.9
Hispanic/Latino 19.3
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander <=5
Two or More Races 5.1
White 48.2

For Whitman:
American Indian <=5
Asian 15.2
Black/African American <=5
Hispanic/Latino 12
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander <=5
Two or More Races 8
White 60.4

And at the very least they have those townhome communities across the street from Sherwood with a lot of minorities waiting for the school bus.

I think sometimes people beat up on the Sherwood and Olney areas because it used to be not diverse. But while it's still not that diverse, it isn't as bad as people make it out to be and there's less diverse schools in the county.

It's very possible that the Sherwood did in fact resist any changes that would increase diversity for their schools.

But I'm wondering if people on here are saying families in the Sherwood area would not be happy just based on their perceived demographics of the area, which is racist too, or if Sherwood actually resisted these types of changes in the past.


Sherwood is diverse and my minority kids are happy and thriving. Who ever is screaming about racism doesn’t have a clue and is ignorant.



That applies to most schools here. But these DEI people are still not happy


And they're still isolating and ignoring the problematic schools too. ie grouping them all together in the regions, making it a weaker region overall. Or not doing anything to improve their populations.

I'm not convinced that in the future that people won't look back and see these plans and actions as disguised racism by limiting the opportunities for students at these schools. ie lower standards so they can't achieve anything higher then what certain people expect for them, don't give them access to the better schools that other regions have access to, etc.


Also in terms of improving the populations, I'm referring to the initial boundary proposals.

In the initial boundary proposals (for the Crown study at least), the rich areas just stay rich or get richer. And none of the lower performing schools sees any significant changes in their population, some of them have increased FARMS rates from their already high rates.

Then some of the proposed regions are somewhat balanced. But two of them group all of the weaker schools together.

So don't see either the boundary studies or the proposed regions as helping with the problem areas that MCPS has.


are you serious? What do you think MCPS can do to reduce FARMS rates in Whitman, Churchill, Wootton, even WJ, BCC and QO? These schools especially the first 3 are quite far away from lower priced housing to be able to increase FARMS rates without bussing kids in and out SIGNIFICANT distances. You’d be talking about adding 30-60 minutes each day of travel time to bring kids from day Silver Spring to Whitman or Gaithersburg HS to Churchill. How is that good for the students or the community at large (added traffic/costs)?

A better solution is to promote affordable housing options in certain areas, but even that is a challenge when in many of these school clusters there’s barely any new development.


I kind of beat up QO in some of these threads because they're making out as bandits in both the proposed regions and the opening of Crown.

The Crown area is primarily coming from QO and taking away ten percent of QO's FARMS rate. And QO has traditionally always been grouped with Northwest. In some of these proposals, they're taking some of the apartment/townhome communities from QO and sending to Northwest or Crown, specifically the Brown Station ES area.

They could very easily have QO take the northern areas from it, take parts of Diamond ES, all of Brown Station, even possibly parts of Watkins Mill and Great Seneca Creek. And their FARMS rates will be roughly the same as it is now.

Then Crown can run along the same parallel, going a bit north to take som eof the Gaithersburg HS area but also going south taking more of the North Potomac areas.

Most of the regions are fairly balanced and not bad. The two unbalanced ones are regions 2 and 6.

Again QO is in region 6 but due to proximity, can easily be swapped with Northwest or Crown. Then the boundaries can be played around with to have it make sense to swap Seneca Valley, Damasicus or Clarksburg.

Region 2 is kind of harder because of how far away it is from all the other schools. But proximity/time apparently isn't a factor. For example for Whitman to Northwood's actual site on University Blvd is 8.7 mile/28 minutes direct route, avoiding highways, according to Google Maps.

Mapping Paint Branch High School to Walter Johnson avoiding highways shows it to be 13.1 miles with a 33 minute ride. So a five mile/five minute difference from some already current proposed options? The other schools can probably find similar combinations where distance/direct drive time is about equivalent to what is currently proposed as well.
Anonymous
Springbrook to Whitman, avoiding highways shows 13.1 miles 34 minutes
Springbrook to WJ, avoiding highways, 10.7 miles, 30 minutes

Blake to WJ, avoiding highways, 12.9 miles, 32 minutes


Watkins Mill High School to Wootton, 10.5 miles, 30 minutes
Watkins Mill High School to QO, 6.7 miles, 20 minutes

Are those far off from what they have now:
Kennedy to Wootton, 9.4 miles, 25 minutes
Damascus to Quince Orchard, 14.8 miles, 30 minutes
Anonymous
[twitter]
Anonymous wrote:Springbrook to Whitman, avoiding highways shows 13.1 miles 34 minutes
Springbrook to WJ, avoiding highways, 10.7 miles, 30 minutes

Blake to WJ, avoiding highways, 12.9 miles, 32 minutes


Watkins Mill High School to Wootton, 10.5 miles, 30 minutes
Watkins Mill High School to QO, 6.7 miles, 20 minutes

Are those far off from what they have now:
Kennedy to Wootton, 9.4 miles, 25 minutes
Damascus to Quince Orchard, 14.8 miles, 30 minutes


More like 50 mins during rush hours
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:[twitter]
Anonymous wrote:Springbrook to Whitman, avoiding highways shows 13.1 miles 34 minutes
Springbrook to WJ, avoiding highways, 10.7 miles, 30 minutes

Blake to WJ, avoiding highways, 12.9 miles, 32 minutes


Watkins Mill High School to Wootton, 10.5 miles, 30 minutes
Watkins Mill High School to QO, 6.7 miles, 20 minutes

Are those far off from what they have now:
Kennedy to Wootton, 9.4 miles, 25 minutes
Damascus to Quince Orchard, 14.8 miles, 30 minutes


More like 50 mins during rush hours


I agree but it's still what they have in their proposals. So no reason why they can't add the other school combination into their proposals too.

If they're not looking into improving the schools that need the most help or access to resources. If they can't do that, then they shouldn't even bother with major disruptions or expensive options that don't make sense.

Besides trying to balance FARMS rates, to have schools not go over a certain FARMS rate (upper 20s) other school systems pour a lot of money into programs and initiatives focusing on the high risk initiatives. Like ACTUALLY trying to help them improve. Not just trying to mix up their numbers so they get diluted and not look as bad. Maybe MCPS does that too and I'm just not aware of it. But I don't see any of the things going on addressing the lower performing/bottom ranked schools in MCPS.
Anonymous
The potential Crown area was relatively basic and Crown had the potential to be a decent school. About the same level as QO and Northwest. With all of their changes, they made QO a lot lower FARMS rate and Crown a relatively higher FARMS rate school. About the same as Seneca Valley, Northwest in some proposals, etc.

And families are willing to have their kids travel to good schools. This includes current established programs like Blair, Poolesville and RM.

But also the next tier down of more open programs like at Pinecrest, Argyle and Parkland, where we do know families that commute an hour to go to some of those schools because they see it as better than their home schools and/or they're attracted to the CES or magnet tag attached to those schools.

The problem MCPS has with these programs is having strong enough programs to have a good number of students at a highly ranked home school go to a lower school.
Anonymous
Swapping QO for Seneca Valley would have a significant impact on FARMS rates in regions 5 and 6 with minimal geographic impact.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I wonder if they could pair two regions together for certain programs where it would make more sense to have 3 programs countywide than 6? How well would that work with this set of regions, or would you need to change the regions to make that work? Which regions would you pair together? 5&6 is already pretty close to the existing sending schools for upcounty programs, right?


What about 1 with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6? Could do three high-level SMCS magnets-- keep Poolesville (for 5 & 6) and Blair (for 1 & 2) and then add one new one for the schools in regions 3 & 4.


Are there any schools that are reasonably central for all the schools in regions 3 and 4, to be able to have 3 versions of some programs rather than 6?

(Schools would be Churchill, WJ, Woodward, Wheaton, Kennedy, Magruder, RM, Rockville, and Wootton.)


RM and Woodward is probably central.

RM is not central for its regions. That would be Rockville.

But RM is central to the county.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The thing I wonder about is how you can figure out the impacts of new programs on capacity anyway if you don't know which schools the kids applying will be from? It works fine if you assume an equal number applying from each school, but if you assume that and then some schools send many fewer kids than others, they will end up more crowded and the schools that send more kids will have lower enrollment.


Programs may have just 30 kids( like Wheatons programs where it started). So it may not change capacity utilization much if 20 attend instead of 30.


Many of these 30 students are coming from four other schools within the same region. The number would vary each year based on interest and admission criteria. It makes no sense to add at least 4 more buses, and possibly more, depending on the size of the region, just to accommodate them. Many high school regions are geographically large, so one bus per high school isn’t realistic.

On top of that, if there’s going to be a program at each high school, then the region would need to run multiple buses between schools—essentially setting up a network of routes. That means every pair of schools potentially needs its own transportation plan.

This doesn’t look like a cost-saving solution at all. In fact, it sounds like a logistical and budgetary burden. I’m not convinced the design team for this regional program has actually run the numbers. From a transportation standpoint alone, the plan seems inefficient and expensive.


How many buses are there for Blair and RMIB magnet? If it's more than 4 per program, I can see how 6 shorter bus rides would be more economical than 5 longer bus rides. But, if they put two programs in per region, I don't see the cost savings vs what they are doing now.


They’re saying each region will have multiple programs and each school will have a program in the presentation.


II wonder about the number of involuntary teacher transfers that may occur with new programs and relocated programs.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I wonder if they could pair two regions together for certain programs where it would make more sense to have 3 programs countywide than 6? How well would that work with this set of regions, or would you need to change the regions to make that work? Which regions would you pair together? 5&6 is already pretty close to the existing sending schools for upcounty programs, right?


What about 1 with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6? Could do three high-level SMCS magnets-- keep Poolesville (for 5 & 6) and Blair (for 1 & 2) and then add one new one for the schools in regions 3 & 4.


Are there any schools that are reasonably central for all the schools in regions 3 and 4, to be able to have 3 versions of some programs rather than 6?

(Schools would be Churchill, WJ, Woodward, Wheaton, Kennedy, Magruder, RM, Rockville, and Wootton.)


RM and Woodward is probably central.

RM is not central for its regions. That would be Rockville.

But RM is central to the county.


The question was whether it would be feasible to have programs serving two regions so that there are only 3 copies of some programs rather than 6. One proposal was to pair 1 with 2, 3 with 4, and 5 with 6. PP was saying that RM or Woodward could work for programs serving both regions 3 and 4.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:[twitter]
Anonymous wrote:Springbrook to Whitman, avoiding highways shows 13.1 miles 34 minutes
Springbrook to WJ, avoiding highways, 10.7 miles, 30 minutes

Blake to WJ, avoiding highways, 12.9 miles, 32 minutes


Watkins Mill High School to Wootton, 10.5 miles, 30 minutes
Watkins Mill High School to QO, 6.7 miles, 20 minutes

Are those far off from what they have now:
Kennedy to Wootton, 9.4 miles, 25 minutes
Damascus to Quince Orchard, 14.8 miles, 30 minutes


More like 50 mins during rush hours


I agree but it's still what they have in their proposals. So no reason why they can't add the other school combination into their proposals too.

If they're not looking into improving the schools that need the most help or access to resources. If they can't do that, then they shouldn't even bother with major disruptions or expensive options that don't make sense.

Besides trying to balance FARMS rates, to have schools not go over a certain FARMS rate (upper 20s) other school systems pour a lot of money into programs and initiatives focusing on the high risk initiatives. Like ACTUALLY trying to help them improve. Not just trying to mix up their numbers so they get diluted and not look as bad. Maybe MCPS does that too and I'm just not aware of it. But I don't see any of the things going on addressing the lower performing/bottom ranked schools in MCPS.


Average FARMS in the county is something in the 40s, no? So they'd be looking to keep a maximum closer to, say, 55% (and a minimum somewhere in the 30s) if they were to go the balancing route.

Helping low-performing schools improve would be great. Balancing things that way might take huge chunks of funding away from the higher-performing schools and/or massively increased taxes.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:[twitter]
Anonymous wrote:Springbrook to Whitman, avoiding highways shows 13.1 miles 34 minutes
Springbrook to WJ, avoiding highways, 10.7 miles, 30 minutes

Blake to WJ, avoiding highways, 12.9 miles, 32 minutes


Watkins Mill High School to Wootton, 10.5 miles, 30 minutes
Watkins Mill High School to QO, 6.7 miles, 20 minutes

Are those far off from what they have now:
Kennedy to Wootton, 9.4 miles, 25 minutes
Damascus to Quince Orchard, 14.8 miles, 30 minutes


More like 50 mins during rush hours


I agree but it's still what they have in their proposals. So no reason why they can't add the other school combination into their proposals too.

If they're not looking into improving the schools that need the most help or access to resources. If they can't do that, then they shouldn't even bother with major disruptions or expensive options that don't make sense.

Besides trying to balance FARMS rates, to have schools not go over a certain FARMS rate (upper 20s) other school systems pour a lot of money into programs and initiatives focusing on the high risk initiatives. Like ACTUALLY trying to help them improve. Not just trying to mix up their numbers so they get diluted and not look as bad. Maybe MCPS does that too and I'm just not aware of it. But I don't see any of the things going on addressing the lower performing/bottom ranked schools in MCPS.


Average FARMS in the county is something in the 40s, no? So they'd be looking to keep a maximum closer to, say, 55% (and a minimum somewhere in the 30s) if they were to go the balancing route.

Helping low-performing schools improve would be great. Balancing things that way might take huge chunks of funding away from the higher-performing schools and/or massively increased taxes.


No, it's only 40 because of the extremes. Very few schools with high FARMS rates, then balanced out by schools with really low FARMS rates, which brings it down to 40. And part of the issue is that the extremes are grouped together in the regions. ie NEC cluster and the schools in the Gaithersburg area.

Taking those extremes out, the average FARMS rate would be about upper 30s and consist the majority of schools except the really high and really low ones.
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