Crown boundary study Option H

[Anonymous]

Taylor apparently talked about Option H at the Magruder community meeting last night:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2025/12/11/wootton-crown-option-h/

[Anonymous]

The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

Kids from Gaithersburg have already been attending Wootton for many years. Option H just adds on the area across the street which connects the Fallsmead island with the Rosemont island, to form a contiguous Wootton boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

Kids from Gaithersburg have already been attending Wootton for many years. Option H just adds on the area across the street which connects the Fallsmead island with the Rosemont island, to form a contiguous Wootton boundary.

At the Rockshire HOA meeting they talked specifically about adding 1000 students to Wootton at Crown. Making it into a mega school. These 1000 students will come from Gaithersburg HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

Kids from Gaithersburg have already been attending Wootton for many years. Option H just adds on the area across the street which connects the Fallsmead island with the Rosemont island, to form a contiguous Wootton boundary.

At the Rockshire HOA meeting they talked specifically about adding 1000 students to Wootton at Crown. Making it into a mega school. These 1000 students will come from Gaithersburg HS.

That's not in Option H, nor in any other option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

Kids from Gaithersburg have already been attending Wootton for many years. Option H just adds on the area across the street which connects the Fallsmead island with the Rosemont island, to form a contiguous Wootton boundary.

At the Rockshire HOA meeting they talked specifically about adding 1000 students to Wootton at Crown. Making it into a mega school. These 1000 students will come from Gaithersburg HS.

That's not in Option H, nor in any other option.

This has been talked about many times already on this thread and others-a board member spoke at an HOA meeting last night and said this is what’s going to happen going forward. So not published in the plans yet-but it is the plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

Kids from Gaithersburg have already been attending Wootton for many years. Option H just adds on the area across the street which connects the Fallsmead island with the Rosemont island, to form a contiguous Wootton boundary.

At the Rockshire HOA meeting they talked specifically about adding 1000 students to Wootton at Crown. Making it into a mega school. These 1000 students will come from Gaithersburg HS.

That's not in Option H, nor in any other option.

Sup final pick doesn't need to be one of the eight options. It can be a brand new one or a modified one and BOE will stamp it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What no one has mentioned so far is logistics. Specifically transport.

If option H were to be the only change, I would be less concerned about bussing, but as it is, MCPS doesn't have enough buses/drivers for today's needs. So if option H becomes the way forward, then coupled with the proposed changes - namely grandfathered magnet students (so keeping current bussing levels) while implementing the new boundaries/regional programs which will overall increase demand for busses/drivers, how does MCPS then think they will also have enough to then bus all the Wootton students to Crown, many of whom are in the walk zone today?

We already know that Taylor's plan in his former school district caused bussing problems, making headline news - forcing students to opt-in to riding the school bus because there weren't enough seats. And that was for a much smaller school district. I see this being the likely scenario again - with or without Option H - but Option H will exacerbate this situation even more. Then I imagine that's even more clogged local roads as a result for all the students who can't get a bus even if they want one.

The folks who are highly in favor of Option H don't care about this. They also don't care about the increased amount of traffic because half of Wootton's students can't walk to Crown anymore.

Instead, they're convinced that the only reasons Wootton parents oppose Option H is because of racism and/or classism. When these are always what you're looking for, they're the only things you'll find (and you'll ignore pesky little facts that are inconsistent with your worldview).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids at Crown can keep up with the Wootton kids. But that comment about Gaithersburg HS is beyond gross.

I am a Wootton parent. Wootton is a pressure cooker and the culture is uber competitive. It is not a healthy option for an average student. My son ended up with depression and anxiety half way through high school because of all the pressure. His sister and older brother had a much better experience at Churchill. What will end up happening if you combine Wootton and some of the average or underperforming kids from Gaithersburg is a totally skewed grading curve. These average kids will have no chance at normalcy.

Kids from Gaithersburg have already been attending Wootton for many years. Option H just adds on the area across the street which connects the Fallsmead island with the Rosemont island, to form a contiguous Wootton boundary.

At the Rockshire HOA meeting they talked specifically about adding 1000 students to Wootton at Crown. Making it into a mega school. These 1000 students will come from Gaithersburg HS.

That's not in Option H, nor in any other option.

This has been talked about many times already on this thread and others-a board member spoke at an HOA meeting last night and said this is what’s going to happen going forward. So not published in the plans yet-but it is the plan.

Van Grack is not a board member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Makes zero sense to build a new HS and fix up a crumbling one when enrollment is decreasing, budgets are being cut, and tax revenue is down.

The kids will be fine taking a bus instead of walking. Thousands of kids do it in MCPS. They will be fine.

More like 50% of the kids who can walk to Wootton will be forced to take a bus. That means their parents will have to drive to pick up for after school activities, further clogging the roads around Crown.

Wootton can be repaired in the interim, and renovated in the long term. It's just that MCPS doesn't want to do that.

They will survive. Gosh, how do the rest of us schlubs manage put our kids on the bus and drive to pick them up after school for activities.

Moco tax revenues are down. Enrollment is declining. Makes zero sense to rebuild Wootton for a few neighborhoods to have to take a bus.

I don't work for MCPS, and I think it's a stupid idea to fix Wootton AND open Crown.

It’s stupid idea to build crown. MCPS’s mismanagement is undeniable. They poured resources into opening an unnecessary school while neglecting Wootton’s needs, now forcing Wootton to become the victim of their poor planning and lose its current building where they belong for 50+ years. It’s no different from Silver Spring international middle school which is forced to close.

Sure, MCPS sucks, but when they started to build Crown, all of the surrounding HS were projected to be over capacity, and they didn't have this regional model concept.

Now, they are projecting enrollment declines, and we have a huge budget issue.

Yes, they should've fixed Wootton a while ago, but there were a lot of schools that needed to be fixed in the CIP.

So, here we are, declining enrollments, budget issues, a brand new HS, and another HS next to that new build that is falling apart.

Common sense is to move the Wootton kids to Crown.

This. Move Wootton to Crown, move many feeders to QO and Crown and improve QO and Crown. Wootton will not suffer much because of this (other than the parents crying about mixing with the brown and black people).

Wootton is not that special that they get to segregate all the Asians there. Spread them around to improve the other schools. Tiger parents will make the other schools also better.

They may help make the test scores and ratings better but it won't help the struggling students.

Here are the total enrollment numbers, enrollments for Blacks/African American and Hispanic/Latinos and their 2025 MCAP proficiency rates for the Wootton feeder schools:

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MCPS
Total enrollment: 159181
Overall FARMS Rate 42.9
Total Black/African American count: 34293
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 56716

MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 57
FARMS 35
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 34.3
Black/African American 48.3


Math All 35.7
FARMS 15.4
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 15.7
Black/African American 22.9


Looking at the feeder elementary schools for Wootton:


Cold Spring
Total enrollment: 362
Overall FARMS Rate 8.2
Total Black/African American count: 25
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 31

MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 84.2
FARMS 83.3
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 75
Black/African American 75


Math All 85.5
FARMS 79.2
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 90
Black/African American 47.1

Dufief
Total enrollment: 276
Overall FARMS Rate 19.1
Total Black/African American count: 46
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 40


MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 57.8
FARMS 8.7
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 21.4
Black/African American 41.7


Math All 58.8
FARMS 5
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 26.7
Black/African American 33.3



Fallsmead
Total enrollment: 512
Overall FARMS Rate 21.2
Total Black/African American count: 55
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 76


MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 73.9
FARMS 56.4
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 63.9
Black/African American 52.6


Math All 72.2
FARMS 53.4
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 50
Black/African American 57.9




Lakewood
Total enrollment: 406
Overall FARMS Rate 21.9
Total Black/African American count: 70
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 48


MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 73.6
FARMS 42.1
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 62.5
Black/African American 50


Math All 68
FARMS 32.5
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 47.1
Black/African American 33.3




Stone Mill
Total enrollment: 516
Overall FARMS Rate 15.5
Total Black/African American count: 55
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 65


MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 73.6
FARMS 58.3
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 60
Black/African American 57.1


Math All 74.1
FARMS 44.4
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 50
Black/African American 54.3



Travilah
Total enrollment: 372
Overall FARMS Rate 15.5
Total Black/African American count: 35
Total Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity count: 55

MCAP Proficiency rates:
ELA All 82.2
FARMS 62.5
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 73.3
Black/African American 69.6


Math All 74.7
FARMS 60.6
Hispanic/Latino of any ethnicity 68.8
Black/African American 41.7


---------------------------------

It's good that almost all of the groups at the schools are above the county averages. But look at Dufief. Dufief is middle of the pack when it comes to the FARMS rate out of those schools but barely above the county average for the ELA proficiency rates for all students. Then the FARMS, Hispanic/Latino and Black/African American subgroups have proficiency averages below the county average for the ELA test. Their FARMS student has a proficiency percentage of 5 percent compared to the county average of 15.4 percent.

Same thing with Stone Mill. Stone Mill is tied for the second lowest FARMS rate in the cluster with Travilah. However for overall ELA proficiency they're tied with Lakewood (which has a higher FARMS rate at 21.9 percent and highest in the cluster), only beating out Dufief. Their subgroups for ELA isn't bad. And their math numbers aren't bad, other then their FARMS Math proficiency rates are at the bottom three.

Cold Spring has great numbers but their populate of the FARMS, Hispanic/Latino Black/African American are small. So just one or two students can change the percentages a lot. And they also have the gifted program and more high performing students there.

This is just to point out, that even if demographics are spread out and evenly distributed, it doesn't necessarily help struggling students. To truly help struggling students would require a more quality of education and more resources need to be devoted to make sure they are truly understanding the material. Mixing up the demographics just kind of hides them.

It's not just Dufief. If you look at Lakewood's numbers by grade level, for whatever reason their Black/African American Grade 5 Math proficiency levels are way below county and state average:
State: 16.6
County: 30.4
Lakewood: 5.6

Same thing with their Grade 5 ELA proficiency rates for Black/African Americans:

State: 33.2
County: 43.1
Lakewood: 27.8

The numbers were below the county average for 2023-2024

Grade 5 Math Black/African American
State: 14.2
County: 26.5
Lakewood: 20


Grade 5 ELA Black/African American
State: 33.2
County: 43.1
Lakewood: 27.8

[Anonymous]

Is there any way to petition to the Maryland regulatory bodies to force MCPS to do a full redraw of the boundaries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there any way to petition to the Maryland regulatory bodies to force MCPS to do a full redraw of the boundaries?

What would be the basis or reasoning to ask them to intervene?

The only way an outside party MIGHT be able to force MCPS to do anything is if the boundaries are in anyway illegal or discriminatory.

Which while there may be people unhappy with the proposals, I don't think any of the proposed boundaries are either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:This adding 1000 students to Crown is literally impossible at this point in time. Crown as it's being built can hold about 2200. There is some sort of unfinished space that supposedly can fit another 500 students should the need arise in the FUTURE. Finishing that section now is not included in the build plan or the CIP. My guess is that something was said last night about Crown having the ability to one day hold about 2700 students and people are running with that and freaking out assuming it means 2700 RIGHT NOW.

Option H right now says all of Wootton plus half of Rosemont. That's it. I doubt that's the full 2200 spaces. Based on scheduled testimony at today I am willing to bet the board has plans to also add at least part of Field's Road. Maybe that gets it to 2200.

Maybe we can wait until we have more information before panicking? This veil of secrecy around Option H is making it so much worse. Completely unacceptable it was just released without any context.

I doubt they’ll split articulate fields road to feed only a part to crown/wootton. Fields road has never been split in any options so far

Yes it will be all or nothing for both rosemont and fields if I had to guess. I don’t think they will have support to split them. But also-these kids are the kids who historically ended up in Gaithersburg HS. Have you been to Gaithersburg High school? Remember that Horrible SA case from a few years ago? All the teen pregnancies happening there? I imagine the quality of Crown will turn into the same level as GHS in a few years if this goes through. It’s an entirely different demographic with entirely different values (education not being one of them).

Have you heard of the weekly near overdoses at Wootton? You are disgusting to insinuate that your poor baby will somehow get pregnant by being in the same building as someone else who might be. This is one additional elementary school we are talking about.....It is not like Gaithersburg is moving to Crown and one Wootton elementary school is being asked to go there. Could you imagine the fall out from that?!

Finally the true thoughts on why Wootton parents are so hysterical is coming out. All your 3 miles is hard for the commute and property values will go down was just a facade. You don't want your kids to mix with the Black and Brown kids. You're afraid your precious kid might have a black or brown boyfriend or girlfriend and lose focus on studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Did Adam Van Grack say there will be 1,000 more students go to Crown plus Wootton students? Is he serious?

For Option H, I don’t think the number of students who live in Crown and would be added to the new Wootton is 1,000 students. It’s a much smaller number.

If you look at the number of students in Option G that includes students living in Crown and even includes all of nearby students from Fields Roads elementary, it is 237 students in 2027-2028 and highest is 537 students in 2031-2032. And of those 537 students, the majority are from Fields Roads elementary.

It looks like Fields Road ES has an enrollment of 453 and Rosemont 564 and a total of 1017.

Maybe MCPS is looking into moving the entire/or large part of Rosemont ES to Crown, since they'll already have a portion of the school go there anyways?

Moving all of Rosemont Elementary to Crown isn’t in any of the options including Option H. Crown students currently go to Rosemont elementary and if you look at the maps for the option G and H, it would only be the part of Rosemont elementary that lives in Crown that would be reassigned to Crown High School in its neighborhood. The maps for Option G and H show that the large part of Rosemont elementary on the other side of 270 near the school would not be reassigned to Crown.

Also, an ES houses 6 grades of students and a HS only houses 4 grades of students so it would be more like 650 HS students for Crown if all of Rosemont and fields road were moved to crown, which they won’t be.

This. It's not as if 1000 students will be moved to Crown in a given year.

All this hysteria is not about property values or moving 3 miles. It's about having poor people in that school and the Wootton parents think it will bring unruly kids in who will be mixing with their smart kids and corrupt them.

I know how it works because I am Asian too, just not a Wootton parent.

What poor people live in Crown? Have you been there?

Get with the program. Not everyone lives in the Crown area. It will be a school pulling in people from around the 355 area also. And those are poor neighborhoods. It's about Gaithersburg high school kids joining the Wootton kids. Many poor kids with high FARMS. And that is what these Wootton parents don't want.