Initial boundary options for Crown/Damascus study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

A fellow RMHS #5 / BRES study veteran. We are right on the border, older kid went to another one and younger ones to BRES. That study process proved to me one thing: they do whatever they frickin' want. Same with the naming process. They do what they frickin' want. Geography is a lot with me, not race or FARMS. Just being able to walk to a place is huge.

Honestly reworking schools makes sense, but they kind of need to go all the way to the ES level and build it up from the bottom.

*this* ALL boundary studies should be re-drawing elementary schools to have better geographic and demographic factors and then the middle and high school articulation is much more straighforward. For example, instead of splitting up Ritchie Park by its crazy boundaries, re-do boundaries to change Ritchie Park (INCLUDING looking at neighborhing cluster elementary schools like Cold Spring, Lakewood, Stonemill and Fallsmead) so that kids in Fallsgrove go to Lakewood or Stone Mill and then bring in other neighboring kids to Ritchie Park to make up for it, and send the kids to the middle and high schools that correspond. Trying to reverse engineer middle and high school articulation without looking at elementary schools leads to these weird and complex split articulations in middle and high schools. This is what they *said* would happen after the RM #5 boundary study, but it doesn't work when just looking at neighboring middle and high schools, you have to start from the bottom (elementary) up and re-do everything.

Another example - a section of Rio goes to Fallsmead because those are the boundaries for that school from 30+ years ago (when *I* was in elementary school at Fallsmead) but there's an entire new development there that didn't exist when the boundary was drawn - those kids should get moved to a different elementary school and obviously should go to Crown HS since it's walking distance. But it makes more sense to reconfigure things at the elementary level first.

While your analysis makes sense, MCPS is not going to include ES in the boundary changes. It's too late.

Let's look at the options that we have, as bad as they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

It is widely hated so not a good example of you are trying to convince people that split articulation is not terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

It is widely hated so not a good example of you are trying to convince people that split articulation is not terrible.

But that didn't answer the question.

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants to go to Crown anymore. lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 4
Gaithersburg HS’s FARM rate increases from 53.7% to 57.5%
And it put Crown HS to the highest FARM rate of 45.6%, other 3 options are lower.

How are you seeing these changes? What do Option 2 FARMs rates look like?

FARM Rate
Current 1 2 3 4
Crown HS 0.0% 35.1% 38.7% 41.6% 45.6%
Gaithersburg HS 53.7% 53.2% 54.1% 47.9% 57.5%

[Anonymous]

MCPS made a huge mistake not rezoning the elementary school boundaries. Had they build that foundation the MS/HS boundaries would make much more sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

Yes, actually. Competition things for stuff like robotics leagues that span through high school will prefer to keep the same kids together. Plus, the split articulation of Cold Spring to CJMS to Wooton is part of a larger group. SO the Cold Spring students move AS A LARGER GROUP with others in CJMS to Wootton, so it isn't like they go to Wootton knowing nobody but their original Cold Spring group. Also, I personally know of bullying that occurs at CJMS where the kids who go to Churchill bully the ones who go to Wootton as inferior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

But Option 2 splits Ritchie Park twice -- both for middle school and for high school. That's pretty crappy. Also option two has the kids living near Ritchie Park being bussed past Hoover to go to CJMS, then being bussed back to RMHS. Just bananas.

[Anonymous]

It’s insane

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

Yes, actually. Competition things for stuff like robotics leagues that span through high school will prefer to keep the same kids together. Plus, the split articulation of Cold Spring to CJMS to Wooton is part of a larger group. SO the Cold Spring students move AS A LARGER GROUP with others in CJMS to Wootton, so it isn't like they go to Wootton knowing nobody but their original Cold Spring group. Also, I personally know of bullying that occurs at CJMS where the kids who go to Churchill bully the ones who go to Wootton as inferior.

That doesn't seem to stop people from buying into the Cold Spring neighborhood, though, where home values are $1.2mil+. Apparently, even with the split articulation, homebuyers prefer that to, say, buying into the next neighborhood that goes to RM where there is currently no split articulation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bad, i read the table wrong. Yes, the numbers are all about the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 1&3: Churchill Asian increased from 33% to 37%, FARMS decreased from 10.9% to 9.9%. Wootton Asian increased from 37.4% to 43.2% and FARMS decreased from 13.4% to 11.9%.

I'm pretty sure the current options will exacerbate educational inequality, but I amsatisfied. I wonder can we reduce the FARMS to 5% or even lower for Churchill?

Are we looking at different data set? For all 4 options, Churchill Asian decrease from 37% to34.7% and farm from 9.9% to 9.8%.

So why even mess with Wootton families and force them to move out to QO and crown? There are only losers and the ones being moved out are the relatively poorer ones. Financial hit on them will be devastating. What’s even worse is that their kids will have to be separated from their friends. This kind of double whammy is too much.

Every school is going to experience change when a new school opens. They are not going to leave Wootton and Churchill as is in a boundary study. Can you imagine the backlash? And at least for Wootton there are definitely neighborhoods in the Wootton cluster close to Crown, some even walking distance like part of Fallsmead's boundary. And DuFief area is nowhere near Wootton. Ridgeview or Lakelands Park and QO makes much more sense for DuFief.

Every option has at least two Wootton elementary school impacted. What’s even worse in option 2 and 4 are small neighborhoods in both Lakewood and stone mill gets split. Who has empathy on these few kids who will have to be separated from their friends since 5 to a new high school with nobody else???

Kids are resilient. They will make new friends, especially when they are younger.

No my kids are not resilient. I hope your kids get the same change and be resilient

They have. My one kid moved ES 2x. They are now in college, at an oos internship making good money.

Moving in ES is totally different from being forced to move in HS. If you don’t wear my shoes, then don’t tell me kids are resilient

My kid also went to a different MS. But, there are kids today who go to a different HS due to split articulation from MS. They are fine.

Kids are resilient if you teach them to be. They won't be resilient if you push the "your world is going to fall apart" attitude onto your kids.

If it’s split 50/50 or close to that it’s fine. Now it’s the 5-10% gets split out. You can keep talking your kids are resilient crap but have some empathy on these kids.

Sure, I can have empathy, but it doesn't change the fact that the boundaries need to address the four factors, and split articulation is not one of them.

We currently have weird boundaries where we have islands, and everyone agrees that such boundaries make no sense. Those options that have the least split articulation continue to have islands. Those options also don't address capacity issues for some of the MS in the long run.

So, while I sympathize with the kids about their friend groups, when creating boundaries, friend groups aren't part of the factor.

Having stated that, who knows.. for some of the kids, maybe going to a different HS is a positive.

Doesn't it go without saying that anything harmful to kids should be avoided where possible regardless of whether it's explicitly mentioned as one of the four factors? To me it seems obvious that extensive split articulations and the accompanying chaos and social/community harm is something that should be avoided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After a few clicks, I see that we are zoned for RM now, and under no option is that changing. Being in walk zone that makes sense. So, my only responsibility is to pop some popcorn and season it right and watch the school board members try to out-woke each other for the next 6 months changing up the school zones. I cant wait to hear the feedback on Woodward-3. To be honest even some of the RM options are islanding and nonsensical. But I dont have a dog in this hunt.

Same here. I have a student in RM now and the school is totally overcrowded, none of the options really address that. IMHO splitting Ritchie Park makes the most sense for RM cluster (Options 2 and 4).
On a separate note, it is impossible to actually believe MCPS tables, when you look at utilization and and other percentages in HS impact tables, RM has exactly the same numbers of students and utilization percentages as Gaithersburg HS, despite being different sizes. Something is off there. As a veteran of Bayard Rustin study, in my experience MCPS numbers/tables are only correct or look at right data about only half of the time.

.Your opinion is pretty terrible. Splitting Ritchie Park is absolutely the worst, especially Option 2! The school doesn't even have 400 kids. It's like 60 per grade. When you split it, the southern portion probably has about half the students, so, 30 per grade. You take those 30 kids and put them in Cabin John MS, where they only know the 60 kids from the older grades that came in from RPES. SO they don't even know 10% of their schoolmates. Then they get to know them over a couple years only to be moved out again as a group of 30 to RM, where they join the rest of the current cluster that has a close-knit relationship with each other. In that group of 2000, they only know 120 of the kids, 6%!

The cabin john assignment of option 2 for RPES will lead to the exclusion of RPES-boundary students from many community activities and clubs that were already formed from neighborhood kids

Cold Spring ES currently have split articulation back to Wootton HS after going to Cabin John MS. Are these kids excluded from community activities and clubs when they go to Wootton?

Yes, actually. Competition things for stuff like robotics leagues that span through high school will prefer to keep the same kids together. Plus, the split articulation of Cold Spring to CJMS to Wooton is part of a larger group. SO the Cold Spring students move AS A LARGER GROUP with others in CJMS to Wootton, so it isn't like they go to Wootton knowing nobody but their original Cold Spring group. Also, I personally know of bullying that occurs at CJMS where the kids who go to Churchill bully the ones who go to Wootton as inferior.

That doesn't seem to stop people from buying into the Cold Spring neighborhood, though, where home values are $1.2mil+. Apparently, even with the split articulation, homebuyers prefer that to, say, buying into the next neighborhood that goes to RM where there is currently no split articulation.

What a terrible comment. Besides that we shouldn't use home prices as a guide here, let's just end your poor attempt at a refute right now.

Cold Spring ES has a capacity of 460. It has a total enrollment of only 350. Worse, because it is a CES location, something like 100 of those students are out of the boundary area. So only about 250 students even come from the boundary itself. That means parents with elementary-school-age children are not buying there. When they do get older and go to Cabin John, they stay with the kids from Stone Mill ES at least when they then move on to Wootton. So it seems that there is trouble selling in this neighborhood for the elementary school at least, though many factors play into that. At least they have had a little bit of a cohort that stays together through high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bad, i read the table wrong. Yes, the numbers are all about the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 1&3: Churchill Asian increased from 33% to 37%, FARMS decreased from 10.9% to 9.9%. Wootton Asian increased from 37.4% to 43.2% and FARMS decreased from 13.4% to 11.9%.

I'm pretty sure the current options will exacerbate educational inequality, but I amsatisfied. I wonder can we reduce the FARMS to 5% or even lower for Churchill?

Are we looking at different data set? For all 4 options, Churchill Asian decrease from 37% to34.7% and farm from 9.9% to 9.8%.

Yes Wootton already the most Asian school becomes more so in all scenarios. WTF makes no sense. I have a ton of Asian friends so nothing wrong with it at all, but why further perpetuate the stereotype of Wootton and increase the nicknames for it.

All these Asian families you are talking about want to stay at Wootton. And you are speaking on behalf of them saying, "why perpetuate the stereotype?". HILARIOUS. Please say it to their face.

Far from it! Currently it’s like 37% Asian at Wootton. They should all stay there as Wootton shouldn’t be touched IMO.

My comment was saying it makes little sense to make the Asian population increase at Wootton and decrease at Churchill just to move Wayside ES as the only impacted school for Churchill to Wootton. Churchill and Wootton should be left alone just like Whitman. Other than that island that goes to Wootton I can see making sense at Crown, but even that if all those people wish to stay at Wootton which isn’t crowded just let them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every family in Wootton spent huge amounts of money moving to the district, and the community was built over decades. And a White Savior looks at this and all they can think is, “why perpetuate the stereotype?”

See my comment above, I am not suggesting Asians be removed from Wootton, I’m saying adding more by moving Wayside from Churchill when most of Wayside is closer to Churchill and nobody there wants to move to Wootton due to distance and neighborhood etc is what doesn’t make sense. Doing that move increases Asian population at Wootton and reduced it at Churchill…leave both schools alone!