Woodward boundary study public hearing

[Anonymous]

Is document says the 2025-26 farms rate for Kennedy was 67%. That is based on a formula since they don't collect farms applications at all. Bizarre it is so much lower in the Superintendent's tables for the boundary study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is document says the 2025-26 farms rate for Kennedy was 67%. That is based on a formula since they don't collect farms applications at all. Bizarre it is so much lower in the Superintendent's tables for the boundary study

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/food-and-nutrition/meal-payments/mcpsofficialfarms2025-2026.pdf

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious about the Northwood FARMS. In the table on the second page of the Superintedent's Recommendation Data Tables (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cdtTBaAd7ZcPh5mczdbJc4MS_HkOVfuJ/view) it says the Northwood FARMS rate for "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries" is 44%. Under his recommendation the FARMS rate goes down to about 40%.

The current Northwood FARMS rate is 60% per the MCPS school profiles. Why is the current Northwood FARMS rate so different from the "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries"? Is it because a lot of wealthier families either lottery out through the DCC process or go private?

The last few years kids have lotteries out due to the commute to Woodward. It also backs up to a heavy orthodox community and most of those wealthier families send the kids to Jewish privates.

I guess my question is do the resident demographics listed in the Superintendent's table include households that currently and will continue to send their kids to private schools? How much does that impact the current Northwood FARMS rate versus the DCC choice process? My guess is the FARMS rate after the boundary change and dissolution of the DCC will be closer to the current actual FARMS rate than what the Superintendent's boundary tables suggest.

The only thing that matters is the demographics at the public schools, i.e. Northwood, not the community as the community has nothing to do with Farms rates. They don't care about Northwood, sadly as its a good school with lots of great students. It may change the farms so for the kids who cannot go to the regional schools but the orthodox population currently going to private schools would not send their kids to public.

You're stating the obvious here except I suspect Taylor is using data about community demographics to calculate the FARMS rate for Northwood after the boundary change.

I doubt it as how would they know as they don’t track private school students.

You are correct that the FARMS rate for in-boundary students doesn’t include private school students. It includes all MCPS students that live in the boundaries as opposed to the kids who actually end up at the school through the DCC choice process. Private school students who live in the community are not counted.

Ah okay thank you for the clarification. So the difference between the current FARMS rate of 60% and the "resident student" FARMS rate of 44% is all due to transfers from other schools through the DCC/other reason?

Yes, with the DCC, students have two options, they can apply for specialized programs at the consortium schools and they got a checklist to rank the order of the schools they'd prefer so the non-resident students are from other DCC schools volunterarily going there for the special programs. All the DCC schools are going to see huge farm increases because of this. Most families cannot make the transportation work to the W schools who are lower income so the non-farm kids will more likely be the ones leaving and no one will be replacing them.

Huh. But I am also seeing that on the second page of the Superintendent's tables, it shows FARMS rates for "Current Attending Student 2025-26 Demographics with Transfers". For Northwood they say the FARMS rate is 52% and for Kennedy they say the FARMS rate is 53%. Yet according to the MCPS School Profiles website the Northtwood FARMS rate is 60% and the Kennedy FARMS rate is 70%. Something isn't adding up here.

You'd need to know more about the data points. Were those numbers taken on the same dates? If one was done in August and one done in November, you can get very different numbers with early school year changes. Or, is one with transfers and one without?

The first one is with transfers. The second one is too since it is current enrollment. They are from different years - the school profiles is as of September 2024 and the Superintendent's recommendation is for 2025-26. I can see Northwood FARMS going down by 8 points. They do fluctuate. But Kennedy going down by 17 points? That seems unlikely. Could it be families aren't applying for FARMS for fear of ICE?

Isn't Kennedy one of the low-income schools where all kids get free lunch so no one there needs to apply for FARMS anymore? I think that started a couple of years ago so probably every time a grade graduates and a new one enters, the FARMS rate will drop a lot.

My understanding is families have to apply for FARMS every year. They don't just count the ones from the previous year

Right, but once a school gets assigned to the "free lunch for everyone" category (I think there's like 50 of them?), why would anyone fill out the FARMS paperwork anymore?

Funding

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious about the Northwood FARMS. In the table on the second page of the Superintedent's Recommendation Data Tables (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cdtTBaAd7ZcPh5mczdbJc4MS_HkOVfuJ/view) it says the Northwood FARMS rate for "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries" is 44%. Under his recommendation the FARMS rate goes down to about 40%.

The current Northwood FARMS rate is 60% per the MCPS school profiles. Why is the current Northwood FARMS rate so different from the "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries"? Is it because a lot of wealthier families either lottery out through the DCC process or go private?

The last few years kids have lotteries out due to the commute to Woodward. It also backs up to a heavy orthodox community and most of those wealthier families send the kids to Jewish privates.

I guess my question is do the resident demographics listed in the Superintendent's table include households that currently and will continue to send their kids to private schools? How much does that impact the current Northwood FARMS rate versus the DCC choice process? My guess is the FARMS rate after the boundary change and dissolution of the DCC will be closer to the current actual FARMS rate than what the Superintendent's boundary tables suggest.

The only thing that matters is the demographics at the public schools, i.e. Northwood, not the community as the community has nothing to do with Farms rates. They don't care about Northwood, sadly as its a good school with lots of great students. It may change the farms so for the kids who cannot go to the regional schools but the orthodox population currently going to private schools would not send their kids to public.

You're stating the obvious here except I suspect Taylor is using data about community demographics to calculate the FARMS rate for Northwood after the boundary change.

I doubt it as how would they know as they don’t track private school students.

You are correct that the FARMS rate for in-boundary students doesn’t include private school students. It includes all MCPS students that live in the boundaries as opposed to the kids who actually end up at the school through the DCC choice process. Private school students who live in the community are not counted.

Ah okay thank you for the clarification. So the difference between the current FARMS rate of 60% and the "resident student" FARMS rate of 44% is all due to transfers from other schools through the DCC/other reason?

Yes, with the DCC, students have two options, they can apply for specialized programs at the consortium schools and they got a checklist to rank the order of the schools they'd prefer so the non-resident students are from other DCC schools volunterarily going there for the special programs. All the DCC schools are going to see huge farm increases because of this. Most families cannot make the transportation work to the W schools who are lower income so the non-farm kids will more likely be the ones leaving and no one will be replacing them.

Huh. But I am also seeing that on the second page of the Superintendent's tables, it shows FARMS rates for "Current Attending Student 2025-26 Demographics with Transfers". For Northwood they say the FARMS rate is 52% and for Kennedy they say the FARMS rate is 53%. Yet according to the MCPS School Profiles website the Northtwood FARMS rate is 60% and the Kennedy FARMS rate is 70%. Something isn't adding up here.

You'd need to know more about the data points. Were those numbers taken on the same dates? If one was done in August and one done in November, you can get very different numbers with early school year changes. Or, is one with transfers and one without?

The first one is with transfers. The second one is too since it is current enrollment. They are from different years - the school profiles is as of September 2024 and the Superintendent's recommendation is for 2025-26. I can see Northwood FARMS going down by 8 points. They do fluctuate. But Kennedy going down by 17 points? That seems unlikely. Could it be families aren't applying for FARMS for fear of ICE?

Isn't Kennedy one of the low-income schools where all kids get free lunch so no one there needs to apply for FARMS anymore? I think that started a couple of years ago so probably every time a grade graduates and a new one enters, the FARMS rate will drop a lot.

My understanding is families have to apply for FARMS every year. They don't just count the ones from the previous year

Right, but once a school gets assigned to the "free lunch for everyone" category (I think there's like 50 of them?), why would anyone fill out the FARMS paperwork anymore?

Funding

Community Eligibility Provision (CEP): A federal provision, allowing schools and local educational agencies
(LEAs) located in low-income areas to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. CEP eliminates the burden of collecting household Free And Reduced-price Meal (FARMS) applications to determine eligibility for school meal programs. MCPS adopted CEP in 60 schools for the 2025-26 school year. MCPS no longer collects FARMS applications from households in CEP schools.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/food-and-nutrition/meal-payments/mcpsofficialfarms2025-2026.pdf

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious about the Northwood FARMS. In the table on the second page of the Superintedent's Recommendation Data Tables (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cdtTBaAd7ZcPh5mczdbJc4MS_HkOVfuJ/view) it says the Northwood FARMS rate for "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries" is 44%. Under his recommendation the FARMS rate goes down to about 40%.

The current Northwood FARMS rate is 60% per the MCPS school profiles. Why is the current Northwood FARMS rate so different from the "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries"? Is it because a lot of wealthier families either lottery out through the DCC process or go private?

The last few years kids have lotteries out due to the commute to Woodward. It also backs up to a heavy orthodox community and most of those wealthier families send the kids to Jewish privates.

I guess my question is do the resident demographics listed in the Superintendent's table include households that currently and will continue to send their kids to private schools? How much does that impact the current Northwood FARMS rate versus the DCC choice process? My guess is the FARMS rate after the boundary change and dissolution of the DCC will be closer to the current actual FARMS rate than what the Superintendent's boundary tables suggest.

The only thing that matters is the demographics at the public schools, i.e. Northwood, not the community as the community has nothing to do with Farms rates. They don't care about Northwood, sadly as its a good school with lots of great students. It may change the farms so for the kids who cannot go to the regional schools but the orthodox population currently going to private schools would not send their kids to public.

You're stating the obvious here except I suspect Taylor is using data about community demographics to calculate the FARMS rate for Northwood after the boundary change.

I doubt it as how would they know as they don’t track private school students.

You are correct that the FARMS rate for in-boundary students doesn’t include private school students. It includes all MCPS students that live in the boundaries as opposed to the kids who actually end up at the school through the DCC choice process. Private school students who live in the community are not counted.

Ah okay thank you for the clarification. So the difference between the current FARMS rate of 60% and the "resident student" FARMS rate of 44% is all due to transfers from other schools through the DCC/other reason?

Yes, with the DCC, students have two options, they can apply for specialized programs at the consortium schools and they got a checklist to rank the order of the schools they'd prefer so the non-resident students are from other DCC schools volunterarily going there for the special programs. All the DCC schools are going to see huge farm increases because of this. Most families cannot make the transportation work to the W schools who are lower income so the non-farm kids will more likely be the ones leaving and no one will be replacing them.

Huh. But I am also seeing that on the second page of the Superintendent's tables, it shows FARMS rates for "Current Attending Student 2025-26 Demographics with Transfers". For Northwood they say the FARMS rate is 52% and for Kennedy they say the FARMS rate is 53%. Yet according to the MCPS School Profiles website the Northtwood FARMS rate is 60% and the Kennedy FARMS rate is 70%. Something isn't adding up here.

You'd need to know more about the data points. Were those numbers taken on the same dates? If one was done in August and one done in November, you can get very different numbers with early school year changes. Or, is one with transfers and one without?

The first one is with transfers. The second one is too since it is current enrollment. They are from different years - the school profiles is as of September 2024 and the Superintendent's recommendation is for 2025-26. I can see Northwood FARMS going down by 8 points. They do fluctuate. But Kennedy going down by 17 points? That seems unlikely. Could it be families aren't applying for FARMS for fear of ICE?

Isn't Kennedy one of the low-income schools where all kids get free lunch so no one there needs to apply for FARMS anymore? I think that started a couple of years ago so probably every time a grade graduates and a new one enters, the FARMS rate will drop a lot.

My understanding is families have to apply for FARMS every year. They don't just count the ones from the previous year

Right, but once a school gets assigned to the "free lunch for everyone" category (I think there's like 50 of them?), why would anyone fill out the FARMS paperwork anymore?

Funding

You think thousands of busy, distracted parents are going to fill out paperwork that is totally unnecessary just so their school gets more funding? (Plus I don't think they even have filling out the forms as an option once schools become free-lunch-for-all schools.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Curious about the Northwood FARMS. In the table on the second page of the Superintedent's Recommendation Data Tables (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cdtTBaAd7ZcPh5mczdbJc4MS_HkOVfuJ/view) it says the Northwood FARMS rate for "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries" is 44%. Under his recommendation the FARMS rate goes down to about 40%.

The current Northwood FARMS rate is 60% per the MCPS school profiles. Why is the current Northwood FARMS rate so different from the "Resident Student Demographics within Current Boundaries"? Is it because a lot of wealthier families either lottery out through the DCC process or go private?

The last few years kids have lotteries out due to the commute to Woodward. It also backs up to a heavy orthodox community and most of those wealthier families send the kids to Jewish privates.

I guess my question is do the resident demographics listed in the Superintendent's table include households that currently and will continue to send their kids to private schools? How much does that impact the current Northwood FARMS rate versus the DCC choice process? My guess is the FARMS rate after the boundary change and dissolution of the DCC will be closer to the current actual FARMS rate than what the Superintendent's boundary tables suggest.

The only thing that matters is the demographics at the public schools, i.e. Northwood, not the community as the community has nothing to do with Farms rates. They don't care about Northwood, sadly as its a good school with lots of great students. It may change the farms so for the kids who cannot go to the regional schools but the orthodox population currently going to private schools would not send their kids to public.

You're stating the obvious here except I suspect Taylor is using data about community demographics to calculate the FARMS rate for Northwood after the boundary change.

I doubt it as how would they know as they don’t track private school students.

You are correct that the FARMS rate for in-boundary students doesn’t include private school students. It includes all MCPS students that live in the boundaries as opposed to the kids who actually end up at the school through the DCC choice process. Private school students who live in the community are not counted.

Ah okay thank you for the clarification. So the difference between the current FARMS rate of 60% and the "resident student" FARMS rate of 44% is all due to transfers from other schools through the DCC/other reason?

Yes, with the DCC, students have two options, they can apply for specialized programs at the consortium schools and they got a checklist to rank the order of the schools they'd prefer so the non-resident students are from other DCC schools volunterarily going there for the special programs. All the DCC schools are going to see huge farm increases because of this. Most families cannot make the transportation work to the W schools who are lower income so the non-farm kids will more likely be the ones leaving and no one will be replacing them.

Huh. But I am also seeing that on the second page of the Superintendent's tables, it shows FARMS rates for "Current Attending Student 2025-26 Demographics with Transfers". For Northwood they say the FARMS rate is 52% and for Kennedy they say the FARMS rate is 53%. Yet according to the MCPS School Profiles website the Northtwood FARMS rate is 60% and the Kennedy FARMS rate is 70%. Something isn't adding up here.

You'd need to know more about the data points. Were those numbers taken on the same dates? If one was done in August and one done in November, you can get very different numbers with early school year changes. Or, is one with transfers and one without?

The first one is with transfers. The second one is too since it is current enrollment. They are from different years - the school profiles is as of September 2024 and the Superintendent's recommendation is for 2025-26. I can see Northwood FARMS going down by 8 points. They do fluctuate. But Kennedy going down by 17 points? That seems unlikely. Could it be families aren't applying for FARMS for fear of ICE?

Isn't Kennedy one of the low-income schools where all kids get free lunch so no one there needs to apply for FARMS anymore? I think that started a couple of years ago so probably every time a grade graduates and a new one enters, the FARMS rate will drop a lot.

My understanding is families have to apply for FARMS every year. They don't just count the ones from the previous year

Right, but once a school gets assigned to the "free lunch for everyone" category (I think there's like 50 of them?), why would anyone fill out the FARMS paperwork anymore?

Funding

You think thousands of busy, distracted parents are going to fill out paperwork that is totally unnecessary just so their school gets more funding? (Plus I don't think they even have filling out the forms as an option once schools become free-lunch-for-all schools.)

: Effective FARMS Totals are calculated for schools participating in CEP because DFNS
no longer collects student level data via FARMS applications. The Effective FARMS Total is the estimated number of students enrolled in a school that qualify for free and reduced-price meals. This number is calculated by multiplying the number of students who qualify for free meals via Direct Certification based on other means tested programs (SNAP, TANF, Medicaid Free, Foster, Migrant, Runaway, Homeless) by the USDA approved 1.6 multiplier. 1.6 is used as an approved estimate of how many additional students would qualify for FARMS if income based applications were utilized.