Boundary study (2025 )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Robin O’Hara, senior facilities planner in the MCPS Office of Facilities Management, said the priorities are treated equally."

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2025/04/03/mcps-debuts-first-community-survey-boundary-study/

Yeah but they listed demographics first in the presentation so clearly this is all a thinly veiled plan to bus our kids 50 miles away from home for racial diversity purposes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

I also went to the meeting. They said the four factors would be given equal weight, so it's not accurate to say that MCPS is prioritizing diversity over other goals in this study, as stated above. They are prioritizing diversity equally with the other three goals.

Right, but they decided the 4 priority areas at the exclusion of many other considerations .

You realize that “they” didn’t just make these factors up for purposes of this boundary analysis, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Robin O’Hara, senior facilities planner in the MCPS Office of Facilities Management, said the priorities are treated equally."

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2025/04/03/mcps-debuts-first-community-survey-boundary-study/

Yeah but they listed demographics first in the presentation so clearly this is all a thinly veiled plan to bus our kids 50 miles away from home for racial diversity purposes

Please tell me this is sarcasm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

What about also ensuring we have community schools, ensuring kids can go to school K-12 with their neighborhood friends and not be split up in middle or high school, and keeping commutes to school short so we aren’t bussing kids an hour across the county each day, twice a day (and contributing to traffic, pollution, obesity, social isolation, parental stress, etc) because the boundary lines got gerrymandered in the name of greater equity?

My neighbors kids go to Magnet schools and have long bus rides and no neighborhood friends anymore because they chose a magnet over the local HS. They told me all their friends at the Magnet live far away so they can’t socialize like normal teens on nights and weekends. Kids and teens in schools through and after Covid now already have been through so much, their mental health is in the tank, and smart phones and social media have been severely detrimental to their well being. The erosion of community is a huge problem for them and society more broadly.

Having neighborhood schools that people feel invested in and engaged in is important for so many reasons, transportation, community engagement, connection, etc.

In addition - Regardless of how you feel about the present administration, they are going after DEI programs and schools that have them. I for one don’t want our schools to lose federal funding that is desperately needed, we already have major budget issues here in the county.

You want to put more stress and mental health issues on our kids? Send them to a high school or middle school that none of their friends from K-8 or K-5 are going to because our district didn’t make keeping cohorts together a priority.

There’s a lot of factors that matter here, not just one, or even four.

All of this!! MCPS should be thinking about what is best for the kids, which is not something I trust them to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

Yes, it was the first in the list of four but they said they were all weighted the same.

How long have your kids been MCPS? You can’t trust them. I promise you they will not all be weighted the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

Yes, it was the first in the list of four but they said they were all weighted the same.

How long have your kids been MCPS? You can’t trust them. I promise you they will not all be weighted the same.

This is my 18th year as an MCPS parent, and I have seen my share of boundary studies. It's true that there is not one factor that takes priority. They have four factors which are they are trying to meet. There is almost never an option that optimizes all four of the factors, so they go for options that can work towards as many of them as possible. And the demographics factor has clearly not been the overriding priority in earlier studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

Yes, it was the first in the list of four but they said they were all weighted the same.

How long have your kids been MCPS? You can’t trust them. I promise you they will not all be weighted the same.

I've had kids in MCPS for 12 years and I'm an MCPS grad myself. To quote a PP, who gave a real example of MCPS prioritizing two of the other factors over diversity in a boundary study:

Yes. Check out the most recent boundary study done by MCPS, which was opening a new ES in Clarksburg. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departmen...urges9boundarystudy/

You can see that there were six options. Of those, Option 4 did the most to increase diversity but the Superintendent recommended a slightly amended Option 1 that minimized disruption and maximized walkers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

Yes, it was the first in the list of four but they said they were all weighted the same.

How long have your kids been MCPS? You can’t trust them. I promise you they will not all be weighted the same.

This is my 18th year as an MCPS parent, and I have seen my share of boundary studies. It's true that there is not one factor that takes priority. They have four factors which are they are trying to meet. There is almost never an option that optimizes all four of the factors, so they go for options that can work towards as many of them as possible. And the demographics factor has clearly not been the overriding priority in earlier studies.

Yea the last boundary change they made was not the top choice for diversity. We went through a boundary change several years ago, and they also did not choose the most or even second most diversity option. They chose the one that made the most sense proximity (walking) and stability.

[Anonymous]

The four factors are in policy FAA. They are listed in an order which is how they are described in the boundary study info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there any trusted data (not anecdotes) that demonstrate this correlation (and controls for other factors) in past re-boundary-ings?

Yes. Check out the most recent boundary study done by MCPS, which was opening a new ES in Clarksburg. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/clarksburges9boundarystudy/

You can see that there were six options. Of those, Option 4 did the most to increase diversity but the Superintendent recommended a slightly amended Option 1 that minimized disruption and maximized walkers.

With the new anti-DEI order that is coming from Trump, I wonder if diversity will be removed as one of the boundary study factors.

Diversity isn't a factor, demographics is.

We all know that race is a factor in demographics. I think MCPS needs to be very careful with this if they don't want to risk federal funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

Yes, it was the first in the list of four but they said they were all weighted the same.

How long have your kids been MCPS? You can’t trust them. I promise you they will not all be weighted the same.

I've had kids in MCPS for 12 years and I'm an MCPS grad myself. To quote a PP, who gave a real example of MCPS prioritizing two of the other factors over diversity in a boundary study:

Yes. Check out the most recent boundary study done by MCPS, which was opening a new ES in Clarksburg. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departmen...urges9boundarystudy/

You can see that there were six options. Of those, Option 4 did the most to increase diversity but the Superintendent recommended a slightly amended Option 1 that minimized disruption and maximized walkers.

Another example is the Westbrook/Somerset/Bethesda ES study, which is an interesting one because there was some actual demographic diversity in the study zone. Again, there were multiple options under consideration and again they did not pick the one that optimized diversity (Option 4), instead going with the option that maximized walkers and continuity (Option 1). Any changes to that zone would shift FARMS rates but the option they chose did not result in as drastic a swing as some of the options on the table. In the end, Westbrook went from 1% FARMS to 6% FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly curious, given the demographics of MC, why anyone is anti-diversity in the context of this thread. This isn't a red state, this isn't the south. What is going on here? I appreciate and embrace the diversity in my kids' ES.

MoCo is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Our schools are already incredibly diverse. Most people living here prioritize diversity already. So for MCPS to prioritize diversity over other goals in this study (when we already live in one of our nation’s most diverse counties) seems a little nuts.

Yeah, well, they aren't doing that.

I went to the meeting, and I don’t agree with you. There are 4 stated priorities. The first one is demographics, which they define as percent FARMS, percent EML, and percent race/ethnicity. See slide 51.

Yes, it was the first in the list of four but they said they were all weighted the same.

How long have your kids been MCPS? You can’t trust them. I promise you they will not all be weighted the same.

I've had kids in MCPS for 12 years and I'm an MCPS grad myself. To quote a PP, who gave a real example of MCPS prioritizing two of the other factors over diversity in a boundary study:

Yes. Check out the most recent boundary study done by MCPS, which was opening a new ES in Clarksburg. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departmen...urges9boundarystudy/

You can see that there were six options. Of those, Option 4 did the most to increase diversity but the Superintendent recommended a slightly amended Option 1 that minimized disruption and maximized walkers.

Another example is the Westbrook/Somerset/Bethesda ES study, which is an interesting one because there was some actual demographic diversity in the study zone. Again, there were multiple options under consideration and again they did not pick the one that optimized diversity (Option 4), instead going with the option that maximized walkers and continuity (Option 1). Any changes to that zone would shift FARMS rates but the option they chose did not result in as drastic a swing as some of the options on the table. In the end, Westbrook went from 1% FARMS to 6% FARMS.

We can’t let facts get in the way of the maga fever dream that the BOE just wants to bus kids around because of dei

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there any trusted data (not anecdotes) that demonstrate this correlation (and controls for other factors) in past re-boundary-ings?

What correlation are you talking about? The made up one about the BOE redrawing boundaries to focus only on demographics that the MAGA folks toss around on here and their Facebook groups?

Sorry for not quoting myself. I was asking about data that demonstrates a correlation of property values decreasing when a re-boundary-ing is performed. I don't really care about what contributes to the re-boundary-ing (demographics or whatever), I'm just looking for any data that shows property values change somehow in a causal manner based on adjusting lines in MC.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have enough busses to bus kids. You all are looking for drama all because you don’t want your kids with mine. You know what, some of us choose to live in these areas and our kids are doing well. We are ok with you self segregating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there any trusted data (not anecdotes) that demonstrate this correlation (and controls for other factors) in past re-boundary-ings?

What correlation are you talking about? The made up one about the BOE redrawing boundaries to focus only on demographics that the MAGA folks toss around on here and their Facebook groups?

Sorry for not quoting myself. I was asking about data that demonstrates a correlation of property values decreasing when a re-boundary-ing is performed. I don't really care about what contributes to the re-boundary-ing (demographics or whatever), I'm just looking for any data that shows property values change somehow in a causal manner based on adjusting lines in MC.

MCPS doesn't care about your property values. Property values have no part in a boundary study, which is about the 4 factors in the FAA