Second round options for Woodward boundary study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And despite assuming this extra capacity at Wheaton that doesn't yet exist, they still leave Wheaton overcrowded over that inflated number. Wow.

Yup and WJ is now at sub 80% capacity. Shows what they care about.

This makes sense there’s so much MFH development proposed in the current boundary near the mall for example. Need to leave capacity there vs filling it up.

Wouldn't it be nice if they documented how much housing is in the pipeline within each boundary? They could do that, but since I doubt they actually did that analysis my guess is this isn't the reason. Vague vibes that "there's so much MFH development" in a particular boundary is not a good enough reason to leave some schools overcrowded and others significantly under capacity.

Or just go look at the MCPS Capital Improvement Program and you’ll see the authorized number of new developments tied to each cluster. I did this in two minutes. WJ has 11,340 units approved but unbuilt and only 440 units are single family homes.

You're referring to a 400 page document. No, most people can't find this info if they don't know it's there and where it is. Certainly not in 2 minutes. Care to share?

There’s a pdf of each cluster. Try making an effort instead of being force-fed info and then complaining that you can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum of looking up what you want.

You sound really angry - are you okay?

Your previous post implied it is easy to identify the housing in the pipeline for each cluster. But it would take at least an hour or 2 to compile the info for each cluster and compare them. The consultants should have done this and presented it.

Btw I added up 35,000 housing units in land use plans in the DCC.

DCC is a lot of schools which doesn't really tell you anything but way to Math.

Okay? Are you saying I should also take "2 minutes" to go through all the master plans and figure out how many are in which boundaries and how they compare to other school clusters? Shall I make you a table? Because this information is not disaggregated by high school in the DCC in the 400 page CIP that I'm supposed to be intimately familiar with and be able to pull out statistics from in 2 minutes.

Might I once again suggest this is something the consultants paid to do the boundary study should have done? The notion that if parents can't find information that isn't in a 400 page document, that's their own fault for not caring enough about their children, would be hilarious if we didn't know it's entitled wealthy White people (who "don't see race") saying that about Black and Latino families

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we just need a better description of the programs and how that ties in. Which school is getting Medical? That might make a lot of sense for WJ, given proximity to Fernwood and all the medical offices. WJ students have interned over there for at least the last couple of years.

The Region 3 medical science program is at Kennedy.

are there any programs at WJ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we just need a better description of the programs and how that ties in. Which school is getting Medical? That might make a lot of sense for WJ, given proximity to Fernwood and all the medical offices. WJ students have interned over there for at least the last couple of years.

The Region 3 medical science program is at Kennedy.

are there any programs at WJ?

● Languages^ and
HUMANITIES
● LEADERSHIP, PUBLIC
SERVICE, and Education

[Anonymous]

Changing gears, why are they including any regional program information, when that hasn't been approved to go forward, and my understanding is everyone hates it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Changing gears, why are they including any regional program information, when that hasn't been approved to go forward, and my understanding is everyone hates it?

Which regional program information do they include?

Is it the 500 Wheaton students that are apparently going to be doing CTE at Edison?

[Anonymous]

The 6 new program regions

[Anonymous]

Option D seems best from a utilization standpoint with minimal FARMS increases to existing schools (~6.5% increase to Einstein - but that’s the school with the biggest FARMS increase under all options and the increase is higher than 6.5% in other options). Option D has a lot of split articulation but - to an extent all options have this and as noted above it sounds like elementary schools will need to be assessed next. Since we’re trying to ensure utilization of space while not having crazy transportation costs Option D seems the best to this DCC parent but am I missing anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Option D seems best from a utilization standpoint with minimal FARMS increases to existing schools (~6.5% increase to Einstein - but that’s the school with the biggest FARMS increase under all options and the increase is higher than 6.5% in other options). Option D has a lot of split articulation but - to an extent all options have this and as noted above it sounds like elementary schools will need to be assessed next. Since we’re trying to ensure utilization of space while not having crazy transportation costs Option D seems the best to this DCC parent but am I missing anything?

Out of these 4 yes, I like Option D the most for the reasons you described. For our kid they are all the same so don't feel strongly on a personal level.

However, on the utilization piece this does assume an added 500 seats at Wheaton which I'd like for them to explain more. Right now it feels like they are playing fast and loose with the capacity for Wheaton in order to make things easier on themselves now. Then later when it's all said and done they will suddenly need more money to create all those seats that weren't available for the first round of options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone provide a meaningful explanation of the differences between the 4 options? We have gone from 4 extremely different and bewildering options in round 1 to a set of 4 options that are so similar they are difficult to tell apart in round 2.

I found the consultants recitation of the same talking points over and over today completely unhelpful. I also felt it was a glaring omission to not summarize the feedback they heard in the last round and to not explain how they refined these options and why certain factors got priority over others (eg clearly proximity was what they were going for). It’s not a transparent process if they don’t share any context for how their thinking and decision making have evolved.

While I certainly think this round of options is much better, it makes you wonder why there is such a disconnect between the first set of options and this set of options, and if they planned to end up here all along. And I also wonder about the widespread split articulation in all of the new options, when a consistent piece of feedback in the Zoom feedback sessions across pretty much every school was that people wanted to avoid split articulation.

And yes, they will eventually do an elementary school boundary study. I’ve heard from parents who have heard Julie Yang say this. MCPS has significant overcrowding at some elementary schools (like Ashburton and Bethesda) and tons of open seats in others. It seems it would have been more effective for them to do the elementary, middle and high school boundary changes all together, but it seems they kicked the elementary can down the road for now.

The main differences seem to be in the boundaries between WJ/Woodward/Wheaton, and between Einstein/Northwood/Blair. If you follow those lines you can see several changes from option to option.

This is what I saw and the boundaries made no sense and long commutes for some kids which is a problem with a lot of activity buses at night.

Are you referring to the first round options? These in the second round are much more reasonable in terms of proximity.

No these are pretty bad too.

[Anonymous]

I *think* those 500 students are at Edison, and therefore don't really count for Wheaton, but they haven't really explained this, and I might be completely wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I *think* those 500 students are at Edison, and therefore don't really count for Wheaton, but they haven't really explained this, and I might be completely wrong

So in the past when they have repeatedly said Wheaton is overcrowded, they were lying?

[Anonymous]

And don't Edison students come from different parts of the county? So are the numbers of students listed for Wheaton just students who live within the boundary or do they also include students that attend Edison from other schools? Or is it assumed that the area zoned for Wheaton will produce 500 CTE students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone provide a meaningful explanation of the differences between the 4 options? We have gone from 4 extremely different and bewildering options in round 1 to a set of 4 options that are so similar they are difficult to tell apart in round 2.

I found the consultants recitation of the same talking points over and over today completely unhelpful. I also felt it was a glaring omission to not summarize the feedback they heard in the last round and to not explain how they refined these options and why certain factors got priority over others (eg clearly proximity was what they were going for). It’s not a transparent process if they don’t share any context for how their thinking and decision making have evolved.

While I certainly think this round of options is much better, it makes you wonder why there is such a disconnect between the first set of options and this set of options, and if they planned to end up here all along. And I also wonder about the widespread split articulation in all of the new options, when a consistent piece of feedback in the Zoom feedback sessions across pretty much every school was that people wanted to avoid split articulation.

And yes, they will eventually do an elementary school boundary study. I’ve heard from parents who have heard Julie Yang say this. MCPS has significant overcrowding at some elementary schools (like Ashburton and Bethesda) and tons of open seats in others. It seems it would have been more effective for them to do the elementary, middle and high school boundary changes all together, but it seems they kicked the elementary can down the road for now.

The main differences seem to be in the boundaries between WJ/Woodward/Wheaton, and between Einstein/Northwood/Blair. If you follow those lines you can see several changes from option to option.

This is what I saw and the boundaries made no sense and long commutes for some kids which is a problem with a lot of activity buses at night.

Are you referring to the first round options? These in the second round are much more reasonable in terms of proximity.

No these are pretty bad too.

I think these are pretty good, proximity-wise. Which schools are you looking at?

[Anonymous]

Students attend Edison for part of the day from multiple school including Wheaton. I believe that they’re counted at the school where they attend classes that aren’t at Edison such as their English and Math classes. No one attends Edison all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And despite assuming this extra capacity at Wheaton that doesn't yet exist, they still leave Wheaton overcrowded over that inflated number. Wow.

Yup and WJ is now at sub 80% capacity. Shows what they care about.

This makes sense there’s so much MFH development proposed in the current boundary near the mall for example. Need to leave capacity there vs filling it up.

Wouldn't it be nice if they documented how much housing is in the pipeline within each boundary? They could do that, but since I doubt they actually did that analysis my guess is this isn't the reason. Vague vibes that "there's so much MFH development" in a particular boundary is not a good enough reason to leave some schools overcrowded and others significantly under capacity.

Or just go look at the MCPS Capital Improvement Program and you’ll see the authorized number of new developments tied to each cluster. I did this in two minutes. WJ has 11,340 units approved but unbuilt and only 440 units are single family homes.

You're referring to a 400 page document. No, most people can't find this info if they don't know it's there and where it is. Certainly not in 2 minutes. Care to share?

There’s a pdf of each cluster. Try making an effort instead of being force-fed info and then complaining that you can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum of looking up what you want.

You sound really angry - are you okay?

Your previous post implied it is easy to identify the housing in the pipeline for each cluster. But it would take at least an hour or 2 to compile the info for each cluster and compare them. The consultants should have done this and presented it.

Btw I added up 35,000 housing units in land use plans in the DCC.

DCC is a lot of schools which doesn't really tell you anything but way to Math.

Okay? Are you saying I should also take "2 minutes" to go through all the master plans and figure out how many are in which boundaries and how they compare to other school clusters? Shall I make you a table? Because this information is not disaggregated by high school in the DCC in the 400 page CIP that I'm supposed to be intimately familiar with and be able to pull out statistics from in 2 minutes.

Might I once again suggest this is something the consultants paid to do the boundary study should have done? The notion that if parents can't find information that isn't in a 400 page document, that's their own fault for not caring enough about their children, would be hilarious if we didn't know it's entitled wealthy White people (who "don't see race") saying that about Black and Latino families

Blah blah blah "I want something so why didn't somebody else do the work for me".... typical. If you care look it up go for it you have the source material, even if you figure it out, so what? Since the outcome isn't riding on anything from you nor does anybody really care about your conclusions you have plenty time to figure work them out with no rush. When it's over you'll send your kids where the system tells you it will take them and that school will have the number of kids in it that show up on day one.