BOE Memer is proposing to study school boundary in MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

That’s BS. My kid has an ES and a Middle school within a few blocks of where we live. However, we are bussed 2 miles away to attend a different school.

If they want to remove, just make it so that everyone attends the school that is closest to them in distance. That, I could understand.

Rezoning to help ‘diversity’? That’s pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Help me understand.
Wootton is under-enrolled but full of portable on backyard... Is capacity determined by capacity of portables?
So do we want to do rezoning to load portables with more kids or put more portables?
I am just curios...
May be I am wrong, but I believe that I saw more than 3 portables (see attached)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04234.pdf
I see that current capacity here is 2, 159 (with 3 portables!) - according to that paper it is already over capacity for 2018-2019.
So how they make it to show that school is under capacity on other documents?
I think school was supposed to go through renovation (until they decided to build Crown) due to overcrowding...
Something does not add up.
Especially this strange forum that screams non-stop that school is underutilized...
What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand.
Wootton is under-enrolled but full of portable on backyard... Is capacity determined by capacity of portables?
So do we want to do rezoning to load portables with more kids or put more portables?
I am just curios...
May be I am wrong, but I believe that I saw more than 3 portables (see attached)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04234.pdf
I see that current capacity here is 2, 159 (with 3 portables!) - according to that paper it is already over capacity for 2018-2019.
So how they make it to show that school is under capacity on other documents?
I think school was supposed to go through renovation (until they decided to build Crown) due to overcrowding...
Something does not add up.
Especially this strange forum that screams non-stop that school is underutilized...
What am I missing?

No.

Wootton HS is not under capacity. However, there are schools in the Wootton HS cluster that are under capacity - notably Dufief ES, which is getting an addition followed by a boundary change with Rachel Carson ES, and Travilah ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand.
Wootton is under-enrolled but full of portable on backyard... Is capacity determined by capacity of portables?
So do we want to do rezoning to load portables with more kids or put more portables?
I am just curios...
May be I am wrong, but I believe that I saw more than 3 portables (see attached)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04234.pdf
I see that current capacity here is 2, 159 (with 3 portables!) - according to that paper it is already over capacity for 2018-2019.
So how they make it to show that school is under capacity on other documents?
I think school was supposed to go through renovation (until they decided to build Crown) due to overcrowding...
Something does not add up.
Especially this strange forum that screams non-stop that school is underutilized...
What am I missing?

No.

Wootton HS is not under capacity. However, there are schools in the Wootton HS cluster that are under capacity - notably Dufief ES, which is getting an addition followed by a boundary change with Rachel Carson ES, and Travilah ES.

Even if Woohoo were at capacity that isn't especially compelling since half the schools in the county are 50% over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand.
Wootton is under-enrolled but full of portable on backyard... Is capacity determined by capacity of portables?
So do we want to do rezoning to load portables with more kids or put more portables?
I am just curios...
May be I am wrong, but I believe that I saw more than 3 portables (see attached)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04234.pdf
I see that current capacity here is 2, 159 (with 3 portables!) - according to that paper it is already over capacity for 2018-2019.
So how they make it to show that school is under capacity on other documents?
I think school was supposed to go through renovation (until they decided to build Crown) due to overcrowding...
Something does not add up.
Especially this strange forum that screams non-stop that school is underutilized...
What am I missing?

So you want your child to be rezoned to Wootton to be at portable?
Unless we are talking Crown (year away), how rezoning would help Wootton kids? Shuffling around schools and busing? However all HS around at or over capacity, so what rezoning will give except busing and wasting time?
Except Duffief ES none of the school have really significant capacity. (May be Cold Spring, but it does not even have walls inside...) So do you want to put extra kids in Duffief and then pull them out for different MS and HS?
Or should Duffief belong to different cluster?

No.

Wootton HS is not under capacity. However, there are schools in the Wootton HS cluster that are under capacity - notably Dufief ES, which is getting an addition followed by a boundary change with Rachel Carson ES, and Travilah ES.

Even if Woohoo were at capacity that isn't especially compelling since half the schools in the county are 50% over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand.
Wootton is under-enrolled but full of portable on backyard... Is capacity determined by capacity of portables?
So do we want to do rezoning to load portables with more kids or put more portables?
I am just curios...
May be I am wrong, but I believe that I saw more than 3 portables (see attached)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04234.pdf
I see that current capacity here is 2, 159 (with 3 portables!) - according to that paper it is already over capacity for 2018-2019.
So how they make it to show that school is under capacity on other documents?
I think school was supposed to go through renovation (until they decided to build Crown) due to overcrowding...
Something does not add up.
Especially this strange forum that screams non-stop that school is underutilized...
What am I missing?

No.

Wootton HS is not under capacity. However, there are schools in the Wootton HS cluster that are under capacity - notably Dufief ES, which is getting an addition followed by a boundary change with Rachel Carson ES, and Travilah ES.

Even if Woohoo were at capacity that isn't especially compelling since half the schools in the county are 50% over capacity.

So you want your child to be bused to Wootton to be at portable?
Unless we are talking Crown (years away), how rezoning would help Wootton kids? Shuffling around schools and busing? However all HS around at or over capacity, so what rezoning will give except busing and wasting time?
Except Duffief ES none of the school have really significant capacity. (May be Cold Spring, but it does not even have walls inside...) So do you want to put extra kids in Duffief and then pull them out for different MS and HS?
Or should Duffief belong to different cluster?
I think rezoning study at this point is total BS. System is overcrowded. Rezoning or busing will not do anything. Rezoning makes sense after new school is built. I think your smart RM student is just wasting MCPS money that could be used for education.
This is pure political game at taxpayer's and your kid's expense..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So you want your child to be rezoned to Wootton to be at portable?
Unless we are talking Crown (year away), how rezoning would help Wootton kids? Shuffling around schools and busing? However all HS around at or over capacity, so what rezoning will give except busing and wasting time?
Except Duffief ES none of the school have really significant capacity. (May be Cold Spring, but it does not even have walls inside...) So do you want to put extra kids in Duffief and then pull them out for different MS and HS?
Or should Duffief belong to different cluster?

Wootton HS will be part of the boundary study for the new high school at Crown, when it is built.

Feeder patterns for the students at Dufief ES will presumably be part of the boundary study when the addition at Dufief is built.

And the consultant's study of boundaries will also examine these issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So you want your child to be bused to Wootton to be at portable?
Unless we are talking Crown (years away), how rezoning would help Wootton kids? Shuffling around schools and busing? However all HS around at or over capacity, so what rezoning will give except busing and wasting time?
Except Duffief ES none of the school have really significant capacity. (May be Cold Spring, but it does not even have walls inside...) So do you want to put extra kids in Duffief and then pull them out for different MS and HS?
Or should Duffief belong to different cluster?
I think rezoning study at this point is total BS. System is overcrowded. Rezoning or busing will not do anything. Rezoning makes sense after new school is built. I think your smart RM student is just wasting MCPS money that could be used for education.
This is pure political game at taxpayer's and your kid's expense..

Really? My personal preference is to actually study the issue before concluding that nothing can be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you want your child to be bused to Wootton to be at portable?
Unless we are talking Crown (years away), how rezoning would help Wootton kids? Shuffling around schools and busing? However all HS around at or over capacity, so what rezoning will give except busing and wasting time?
Except Duffief ES none of the school have really significant capacity. (May be Cold Spring, but it does not even have walls inside...) So do you want to put extra kids in Duffief and then pull them out for different MS and HS?
Or should Duffief belong to different cluster?
I think rezoning study at this point is total BS. System is overcrowded. Rezoning or busing will not do anything. Rezoning makes sense after new school is built. I think your smart RM student is just wasting MCPS money that could be used for education.
This is pure political game at taxpayer's and your kid's expense..

Really? My personal preference is to actually study the issue before concluding that nothing can be done.

Wootton has a group of parents who are resistant to change in their cluster, and will fight tooth and nail to keep anyone from disturbing the school's current demographic composition or boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

The really funny part of all this is that student outcomes are a function of student SES mostly. So bussing kids around may change a school's average by altering it's overall SES but will have almost no effect on individual student outcomes since bussing doesn't change a student's SES. It's a solution to the wrong problem that doesn't really help or hurt anyone directly. It wastes a bunch of money on transportation that could've been used for education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

The really funny part of all this is that student outcomes are a function of student SES mostly. So bussing kids around may change a school's average by altering it's overall SES but will have almost no effect on individual student outcomes since bussing doesn't change a student's SES. It's a solution to the wrong problem that doesn't really help or hurt anyone directly. It wastes a bunch of money on transportation that could've been used for education.

Science says you're wrong.

https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

The really funny part of all this is that student outcomes are a function of student SES mostly. So bussing kids around may change a school's average by altering it's overall SES but will have almost no effect on individual student outcomes since bussing doesn't change a student's SES. It's a solution to the wrong problem that doesn't really help or hurt anyone directly. It wastes a bunch of money on transportation that could've been used for education.

Science says you're wrong.

https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

Thank you! Rich students don’t suffer when some poorer students are present in their classes. But poor students perform worse when their classes are full of only poor students. At this point everyone in the rich schools is intentionally paying a premium to isolate their children from poor students. MCPS doesn’t have to allow that to continue.

For what it’s worth having worked in several different environments, poor kids (esp. Hispanic immigrants) may not score as well on tests but are as a rule vastly more respectful than affluent white kids. Nobody spoils kids like rich Americans do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

The really funny part of all this is that student outcomes are a function of student SES mostly. So bussing kids around may change a school's average by altering it's overall SES but will have almost no effect on individual student outcomes since bussing doesn't change a student's SES. It's a solution to the wrong problem that doesn't really help or hurt anyone directly. It wastes a bunch of money on transportation that could've been used for education.

Science says you're wrong.

https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

Thank you! Rich students don’t suffer when some poorer students are present in their classes. But poor students perform worse when their classes are full of only poor students. At this point everyone in the rich schools is intentionally paying a premium to isolate their children from poor students. MCPS doesn’t have to allow that to continue.

For what it’s worth having worked in several different environments, poor kids (esp. Hispanic immigrants) may not score as well on tests but are as a rule vastly more respectful than affluent white kids. Nobody spoils kids like rich Americans do.

all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

The really funny part of all this is that student outcomes are a function of student SES mostly. So bussing kids around may change a school's average by altering it's overall SES but will have almost no effect on individual student outcomes since bussing doesn't change a student's SES. It's a solution to the wrong problem that doesn't really help or hurt anyone directly. It wastes a bunch of money on transportation that could've been used for education.

Science says you're wrong.

https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

Thank you for posting the paper. I think what is interested is that it found a clear benefit for very poor students of attending a school with 20% or less FARMS, but found no difference for the very poor students between attending a school with 35% FARMS v. higher FARMs percentage. To the extent that boundary changes would push a school from the 19-20% FARMs level over the 35% FARMs level, this study suggests that the FARMs students already attending the school would suffer negative consequences from the FARMs rate going from "under 20%" to "35% or over." The study summary doesn't talk much about the 20-35% FARMs range, which is common for many MCPS elementary schools. The main categories described in the summary were under 20% and 35%+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hilarious thing is that literally no one is suggesting busing - just balancing the boundaries a little to deal with schools that are overcrowded near schools that have space.

This means the MOST segregated communities are the safest, since their boundaries are least likely to touch an integrated school zone.

Nothing has actually been proposed yet so no one knows exactly what will be coming. Some of the rhetoric from the BOE certainly could be used to support busing so fears about busing are not completely unfounded, although maybe premature.