Please sign this petition to continue countywide magnets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s frustrating here is the continued push to close the existing flagship magnets under the guise of equity. There’s no need to shut them down in order to open more programs. Someone said the county is closing the magnets to open even more and that's a good thing. The county has already tried expanding access through regional IB programs, compacted math, and ELC. The reality? Very few students enrolled, and many struggled to handle the rigor — in fact, the ELC program had to be discontinued because there simply weren’t enough students prepared for it. Secondly, look at non criteria based watered down lottery magnets or elementary and middle schools. They already are a shadow of what they were with watered down rigor and students opting not to go to them.

The flagship high school magnets work because they bring together a critical mass of the most advanced students. Now, by spreading these kids across six “regional magnets” — you’re inevitably diluting the rigor of the curriculum. That’s not “privilege”; that’s simple logic. To pretend otherwise is just wrong.

And let’s be honest: if these regional magnets move forward as planned, one of two things will happen — either many families won’t choose them, or the courses offered will no longer resemble true magnet-level academics. This will only accelerate the decline of challenging, high-level programs for the students who need them most.

What’s happening here isn’t about serving all students. It’s about optics — allowing MCPS leadership to showcase their “DEI credentials” to the people who put them in, while undermining the very programs that consistently deliver academic excellence.

Yeah thinking about it, I'm not entirely against the programs they're proposing.

But it shouldn't be broken down into six distinct regions with schools segregated from each other.

What they should be doing is seeing is maybe push out a single maybe two schools with the programs. Kind of like how the county is split between Poolesville and Blair.

Then if there is strong demand for a program, then they open it at another school and can split the areas of the county to go to which school.

Same thing with the current countywide magnet program. So there's not enough seats for everyone that wants one. They can open a third one and split the county into thirds. With the bigger areas, there should ideally be wider range in demographics and backgrounds. They can also make transportation easier for people that are interested in the programs.

Or if it's really just an equity issue, then they can rank students from more of the underrepresented schools a little bit more or guarantee a certain amount of seats for them.

For the magnet program though, the issue really starts prior to high school. I imagine a good portion of students that go to magnet programs were enrolled either at the Eastern or Takoma Park programs. Or at some gifted program in ES. By the time these students start looking at high school, they'll already be at different levels compared to others. So it seems like they should be starting on the other side at the earlier years. Making sure students have a strong foundation, give students access to advanced tracks if it suits them, etc.

I'm kind of more open to the idea of the other programs, other than magnet. But as mentioned I don't think they need six separate areas with their own offerings within their areas. Unless the demand really does show it's big enough where they need to divide the county into six regions.

If the demand was big enough, MCPS would have released that data to bolster its position on the regional programming.

They did release the data…if over 1,000 kids apply to 60 seats at PHS, doesn’t that show demand??

It goes back to what the other poster posted. 1000 applied. But how many actually qualified?

We're not at the high school level yet. So don't know how it works. But we have plenty of kids at our kids' school that qualified for the lottery but didn't get selected. That might show there is a demand for more seats.

But that's different if someone qualified but didn't meet the requirements.

I meant to say if someone applied but didn't meet the requirements.

You ask how many applied. They say my smart kids are not interested to apply.
You ask how many are qualified. They say my smart kids are smart but they are just not good at testing or happen to have a bad day in MAP testing.
You ask what criteria to use. They say you can prep MAP. You can prep CoGAT. You can prep for whatever metrics to use. So you cheat if you got in.
You ask why the majority came from a few HSs. They say, oh, my kids declined/not applied because of the long commute, or later dismissal time is conflicting with their ECs.

They can never recognize or admit that success can never be achieved without consistent self-motivation. There's a will, there's a way. Those students attended and survived these countywide programs because they are willing to challenge themselves and to make a better self, at the sacrifice of longer commute, longer school time, much more homework, away from their local friends, etc.

You're barking up the wrong tree here.

I'm a firm believer that magnet programs should have certain thresholds.

If they want to expand it to the 95 percent instead of 99 that's another thing.(which I'm not in disagreement with)

But either way they need to have a firm line on what the criteria is.

For students that are in the 94th percentile, then MCPS will need to make sure whatever is at their current school has what they need. Or give them access to it.

It's like other poster said, sure if kids are smart but don't test well, then the question is if they really have the discipline to succeed in the program.

And the people that do choose to do the commute are willing to do so for what's offered by the program. Those that aren't willing to, don't really want to. We know people that drive across the county to send their kids to the Parkland and Argyle programs and it's not easy on them.

The magnet programs are not supposed to be for everyone, like the honors for all system.

So if 1000 students met the criteria but there are only 60 seats, then there does need to be a consideration for more seats.

But anyone can send an application in or say they're interested. The question is if they're qualified.

But MCPS needs to improve the offerings at their current schools.

So basically you're supporting MCPS thinking that their needs to be more HS Program seats (magnet and interest) and that they need to ensure a base offering of high academic classes at all HS. Glad to see someone else talked them into being a supporter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s frustrating here is the continued push to close the existing flagship magnets under the guise of equity. There’s no need to shut them down in order to open more programs. Someone said the county is closing the magnets to open even more and that's a good thing. The county has already tried expanding access through regional IB programs, compacted math, and ELC. The reality? Very few students enrolled, and many struggled to handle the rigor — in fact, the ELC program had to be discontinued because there simply weren’t enough students prepared for it. Secondly, look at non criteria based watered down lottery magnets or elementary and middle schools. They already are a shadow of what they were with watered down rigor and students opting not to go to them.

The flagship high school magnets work because they bring together a critical mass of the most advanced students. Now, by spreading these kids across six “regional magnets” — you’re inevitably diluting the rigor of the curriculum. That’s not “privilege”; that’s simple logic. To pretend otherwise is just wrong.

And let’s be honest: if these regional magnets move forward as planned, one of two things will happen — either many families won’t choose them, or the courses offered will no longer resemble true magnet-level academics. This will only accelerate the decline of challenging, high-level programs for the students who need them most.

What’s happening here isn’t about serving all students. It’s about optics — allowing MCPS leadership to showcase their “DEI credentials” to the people who put them in, while undermining the very programs that consistently deliver academic excellence.

Yeah thinking about it, I'm not entirely against the programs they're proposing.

But it shouldn't be broken down into six distinct regions with schools segregated from each other.

What they should be doing is seeing is maybe push out a single maybe two schools with the programs. Kind of like how the county is split between Poolesville and Blair.

Then if there is strong demand for a program, then they open it at another school and can split the areas of the county to go to which school.

Same thing with the current countywide magnet program. So there's not enough seats for everyone that wants one. They can open a third one and split the county into thirds. With the bigger areas, there should ideally be wider range in demographics and backgrounds. They can also make transportation easier for people that are interested in the programs.

Or if it's really just an equity issue, then they can rank students from more of the underrepresented schools a little bit more or guarantee a certain amount of seats for them.

For the magnet program though, the issue really starts prior to high school. I imagine a good portion of students that go to magnet programs were enrolled either at the Eastern or Takoma Park programs. Or at some gifted program in ES. By the time these students start looking at high school, they'll already be at different levels compared to others. So it seems like they should be starting on the other side at the earlier years. Making sure students have a strong foundation, give students access to advanced tracks if it suits them, etc.

I'm kind of more open to the idea of the other programs, other than magnet. But as mentioned I don't think they need six separate areas with their own offerings within their areas. Unless the demand really does show it's big enough where they need to divide the county into six regions.

This is a very sensible plan. Can you please be superintendent?

Also yes it's confusing why they're targeting high schools when the real bottle neck for accelerated instruction is at the elementary and middle school levels. I thought the accelerated classes in English and math at each elementary school was working well, so I'm not sure why they did away with the English acceleration. They should really be focused on bringing that back, and expanding the number of middle school magnets. As you note, there needs to be a real pipeline to high school magnets, otherwise you're going to continue seeing the disparities in admissions to the magnet programs.

The reason many of us greatly distrust their ability to roll out the regional model is having watched their attempts at enrichment at the local elementary and middle school levels and for inexplicable reasons walking it back or diminishing it to nothing. We've seen this story before.

MS is part of secondary, but most people and their questions aren't asking or focusing on that and as such you are getting timely information on that. Also, did people rally to their principals/gifted Coordinators, or English staff about the ES ELC course. Some did but not nearly enough.

[Anonymous]

They get away of ELC mainly because the curriculum cost is 10x CKLA. So it proves MCPS’s priority on access vs excellence.

[Anonymous]

For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

I don’t think the geographic location is all that important. If there’s room at Gaithersburg, then fine. However, Poolesville has a brand new building that they can’t fill to capacity even with the 3 existing magnet programs there, and the building was designed specifically with these programs in mind, so it seems like a huge waste of money to move them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

The point of the choosen schools is to boost test scores and diversity at those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

I don’t think the geographic location is all that important. If there’s room at Gaithersburg, then fine. However, Poolesville has a brand new building that they can’t fill to capacity even with the 3 existing magnet programs there, and the building was designed specifically with these programs in mind, so it seems like a huge waste of money to move them.

Come redistricting they can move more kids to that school. Most people don't want to go there as its too far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

At the very beginning, Blair SMCS was set at Blair because of the intention to breakdown the segregation, homogenize western and eastern counties, and bring some positive learning environment to Blair. Back at that time, Blair had many issues and was considered one of the low performing HSs. The overall results are pretty nice. Now Taylor just want to bring back the segregation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

At the very beginning, Blair SMCS was set at Blair because of the intention to breakdown the segregation, homogenize western and eastern counties, and bring some positive learning environment to Blair. Back at that time, Blair had many issues and was considered one of the low performing HSs. The overall results are pretty nice. Now Taylor just want to bring back the segregation.

Blair takes all of Takoma park. They don't need Churchill and other west county students there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

At the very beginning, Blair SMCS was set at Blair because of the intention to breakdown the segregation, homogenize western and eastern counties, and bring some positive learning environment to Blair. Back at that time, Blair had many issues and was considered one of the low performing HSs. The overall results are pretty nice. Now Taylor just want to bring back the segregation.

Schools are already segregated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

At the very beginning, Blair SMCS was set at Blair because of the intention to breakdown the segregation, homogenize western and eastern counties, and bring some positive learning environment to Blair. Back at that time, Blair had many issues and was considered one of the low performing HSs. The overall results are pretty nice. Now Taylor just want to bring back the segregation.

Blair takes all of Takoma park. They don't need Churchill and other west county students there.

What are you talking about 2/3rd of TP is marginal at best. One ok part does not a good school make. Without the magnet Blair becomes one of the worst schools in the county. Look at eastern which is one of the worst middle schools even with the magnet, that’s Blair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

I don’t think the geographic location is all that important. If there’s room at Gaithersburg, then fine. However, Poolesville has a brand new building that they can’t fill to capacity even with the 3 existing magnet programs there, and the building was designed specifically with these programs in mind, so it seems like a huge waste of money to move them.

Come redistricting they can move more kids to that school. Most people don't want to go there as it’s too far.

That’s the reason they put magnet programs there in the first place! That got people to make that commute willingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

At the very beginning, Blair SMCS was set at Blair because of the intention to breakdown the segregation, homogenize western and eastern counties, and bring some positive learning environment to Blair. Back at that time, Blair had many issues and was considered one of the low performing HSs. The overall results are pretty nice. Now Taylor just want to bring back the segregation.

Blair takes all of Takoma park. They don't need Churchill and other west county students there.

Then are you aware the demographic composition in magnet program at Takoma park is about the same with that in Blair SMCS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those in favor of keeping the core programs would you be ok moving them to new schools better located. Example move Blair’s program to Woodward, Poolesville to gaithersburg?

At the very beginning, Blair SMCS was set at Blair because of the intention to breakdown the segregation, homogenize western and eastern counties, and bring some positive learning environment to Blair. Back at that time, Blair had many issues and was considered one of the low performing HSs. The overall results are pretty nice. Now Taylor just want to bring back the segregation.

Blair takes all of Takoma park. They don't need Churchill and other west county students there.

What are you talking about 2/3rd of TP is marginal at best. One ok part does not a good school make. Without the magnet Blair becomes one of the worst schools in the county. Look at eastern which is one of the worst middle schools even with the magnet, that’s Blair.

How? What metrics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They get away of ELC mainly because the curriculum cost is 10x CKLA. So it proves MCPS’s priority on access vs excellence.

I thought the ELC curriculum was designed by MCPS? Where did you get this info on costs?

Also I think many/most parents would be fine with cohorted advanced classes using CKLA (with added enrichment on top of it) and the curriculum costs don't explain why they can't keep requiring that.