Can someone explain to me the BCC Middle School final decision?

[Anonymous]

I've read the articles, but I'm not understanding exactly what the result is. Which elementary schools will go to the BCC MS instead of Westland and when? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

The school board has settled on Rock Creek Hills in Kensington as the site of the second MS. As for who will go there, that won't be decided until 1-2 years before it actually opens. My guess is that they have a lot to consider - need to factor in walkability and diversity. So, while the immediate neighborhood kids will most likely go there, they'll mix up the schools east and west of CT ave to ensure diversity at both schools.

[Anonymous]

What does diversity have to do with it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does diversity have to do with it?

Really? When drawing the boundary for a new school they want to make sure they are not creating a school that is entirely one category of student, if they have the option to avoid it. It's not representative of the full local community. Don't worry - there will be plenty of uproar in the next year or two by the people living near the school over people from "outside the neighborhood" coming in to go to school. Now, people to the west of CT Ave won't be considered "outside the neighborhood," mind you, just those on the other side of the train tracks to the east of K'town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does diversity have to do with it?

Really? When drawing the boundary for a new school they want to make sure they are not creating a school that is entirely one category of student, if they have the option to avoid it. It's not representative of the full local community. Don't worry - there will be plenty of uproar in the next year or two by the people living near the school over people from "outside the neighborhood" coming in to go to school. Now, people to the west of CT Ave won't be considered "outside the neighborhood," mind you, just those on the other side of the train tracks to the east of K'town.

Just to clarify in case the poster was referring to the literal tracks, nothing east of the train tracks in Kensington or Silver Spring/Chevy Chase is in the BCC district. The area in Kensington and Silver Spring across the CSX track to the east goes to Newport Mill or Sligo and then Einstein, unless you include the Town of Kensington which goes to North Bethesda Middle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does diversity have to do with it?

Really? When drawing the boundary for a new school they want to make sure they are not creating a school that is entirely one category of student, if they have the option to avoid it. It's not representative of the full local community. Don't worry - there will be plenty of uproar in the next year or two by the people living near the school over people from "outside the neighborhood" coming in to go to school. Now, people to the west of CT Ave won't be considered "outside the neighborhood," mind you, just those on the other side of the train tracks to the east of K'town.

Just to clarify in case the poster was referring to the literal tracks, nothing east of the train tracks in Kensington or Silver Spring/Chevy Chase is in the BCC district. The area in Kensington and Silver Spring across the CSX track to the east goes to Newport Mill or Sligo and then Einstein, unless you include the Town of Kensington which goes to North Bethesda Middle.

Hmmm ... then who exactly are the people in Rock Creek Hills in a tizzy about? I thought it was me

[Anonymous]

The people in RCH were/are in a tizzy because they don't want a school in their midst. I don't claim to really understand it, but from what I've gathered in watching this process, I don't think it's so much a class/SES issue as it is an infrastructure issue. RCH is just over the boundary from CC/Bethesda but it is much more suburban in its feel - house lots tend to be larger, roads are not heavily travelled. And of course the prices are lower but they still get to go to CC/Bethesda schools. Now they're going to have to live with a little bit of what all the rest of us in this area live with: the inconveniences that go along with being in a heavily developed, close-in neighborhood. There also seems to be an older population which is pretty insular - more so in other nearby areas because all the other neighborhoods have already had to deal with development. Overall, Kensington is going through a lot of changes, and I can understand why that is unsettling and why the residents want to ensure they're not steamrolled. On the other hand, I think some of those who have fought this school really gave the neighborhood a black eye by taking such a hard line against a community asset ... to listen to some of the RCH advocates, you might have thought the County wanted to site a super maxx prison in their midst.

All that said, there are those who have opposed the new middle school because they allege it will create a double-standard of race and SES in the BCC district, which historically has had more balance than say Whitman or Churchill. Personally I'm not convinced by this for a lot of reasons, but I didn't hear this as the main objection of the RCH crowd - although they sometimes used this argument when they were trying to throw every possible objection at the wall in hopes that something would stick.

[Anonymous]

8:56 - I appreciate your thorough response and am pretty ignorant about this matter, but I do wonder if the class/race thing isn't a bigger deal than you think it is. It's a pretty clear line between the kids that would be geographically closer to Westland and the kids that would be geographically closer to the new school. From just a quick look at a map, and realizing that there will be more to it than geography, it would appear that the richer kids will go to Westland and the poorer kids would go to BCC MS and then they would meet together, presumably with disadvantages for the BCC MS kids, at the BCC HS. No?

[Anonymous]

My FIL who lives in the area and his neighbors are concerned about the kids who will be boundaries into the school and in their neighborhood. I pointed out to him that, gee, it might mean his granddaughter might go there. That shut him up.

[Anonymous]

I'm the verbose PP, and it's certainly possible that I am missing the big class warfare dimension in all this. I just don't get the sense that's what motivated the RCH crazies, as much as I disagree with their NIMBYism. And honestly anyone who is playing the class card is overplaying their hand: Westland will be whiter and richer, but given the low FARMS ratios at most of the elementaries that will likely feed into the new middle school, it's still going to be a high SES mostly white school. And btw, until this debate started up, I never heard anyone saying that Westland was such a fabulous learning environment, despite how white and rich it may be.

[Anonymous]

I'm 20:15 - I meant "boundaried" but should have said districted. Maybe it's not the crazies, maybe its the others who are only tangentially paying attention. Who knows. I was just shocked, as was DH, when FIL started talking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8:56 - I appreciate your thorough response and am pretty ignorant about this matter, but I do wonder if the class/race thing isn't a bigger deal than you think it is. It's a pretty clear line between the kids that would be geographically closer to Westland and the kids that would be geographically closer to the new school. From just a quick look at a map, and realizing that there will be more to it than geography, it would appear that the richer kids will go to Westland and the poorer kids would go to BCC MS and then they would meet together, presumably with disadvantages for the BCC MS kids, at the BCC HS. No?

Yes, that is one of the main objections. Unfortunately, there are no actual legal tools to slow down or top the the RCH site on the basis of future demographic balance, so the neighborhood is using what it can about how the legal constraints on the land.

But, you can absolutely bet that a major issue is the racial and SES composition when the two schools are split. RCH is a site that forces two undesirable options -- 1) district the new middle school so those living closest will go, virtually ensuring that the new middle school will have most of the minority and poorer kids or 2) district the schools so that Westland and the new middle school will have similar minority and FARMS rates, ensuring that some kids will still travel long distances to school (which was the problem many parents thought they were solving when they asked for a new middle school anyway). In fact, the new Super's comments when the final RCH site decision (round 2) was delivered indicates that #2 is likely to happen.

As a child who grew up in the cluster, I can say that the pairing of the schools and the creation of the current districts was a direct response to the efforts to integrate the community. Prior to the elementary pairings RHPS was majority AA and the other elems were basically all white. As a child who went through the integration, I am grateful that I grew up in a school system that was both integrated and academically strong. I moved back to this cluster so that my kids could experience the same. I didn't want them to go to mostly white and wealthy Whitman.

There were other sites that would have allowed easier boundary drawings promoting better racial and economic integration (Norwood or Lynbrook for example). These sites were dismissed without any creative thought to how MCPS could design a school that would fit the available land. The site process didn't include as important criteria the future boundaries or how the demographic mix would shift, so it wasn't considered.

As a BCC alum and just generally a person who favors integration, I will be saddened if the result in this cluster is middle schools with significantly different minority and FARMS rate. While it's true that the new middle school is unlikely to have a FARMS or minority rate of 50%, I still think it will be unhealthy if the new middle school is 20% minority and FARMS and Westland is at 1%. My kids are too old to be affected by this, but I still find it sad.

[Anonymous]

Not a resident in this cluster, but I thought that Chevy Chase sections IV and V, Martins Addition, North CC would all go to the new middle school - if so that will still be a very wealthy cluster.

[Anonymous]

Do any kids in those areas actually go to public or mostly private?

[Anonymous]

1405 has it right. And for that matter, RCH neighborhood isn't exactly low income either. The only lower SES neighborhoods that are likely to go to the new middle school are Rock Creek Forest and Rosemary Hills. Someone could go to the trouble of averaging out the numbers, but I don't think it's possible for a middle school that is based on the populations of CCES, NCC, and RCF to produce a 20 percent FARMS population.