My gut feeling on 3/26 BOE vote
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Anonymous
No, the school is being moved to a new building as you are saying it’s unsafe. A building doesn't make a school and community. People do. |
Anonymous
Thank you for including this - a boundary appeal decision on MCPS FAA factors. It’s almost 56 pages. The facts in this appeal page 38-40 on the FAA factors include how the boundary option chosen 1) reduced overutilization at 2 schools; increased underutilization at the 3rd school; 2) reduced disparity in FARMS between the 3 schools in the study; 3) and decreased costs by increasing walkers. There was 12 community wide meetings for just the 3 schools; and 14 boundary options on the issue presented over the study (page 38-39). Seems like quite different facts on the various middle schools here. While the opinion is full of “shoulds” for various FAA factors as you say, the question, based on what I skimmed, is “was MCPS following sound education policy and acting reasonable” (page 23) by ending with these utilization options? |
Anonymous
If it was just people being sad and disappointed I think there would be broad sympathy. Instead people are threatening to sue the school district and suck up MCPS money that could be spent on our kids, making all sort of wild and sometimes offensive statements, and belittling the difficult experiences of schools that will have to deal with really having their schools closed and lost forever, as if Wootton having to move a few miles away and swap out a few kids is anything remotely like that. If someone falls down and scrapes their knee, you feel bad for them. But if someone falls down and scrapes their knee and keeps shouting over and over that they broke their leg and they're going to sue the person who knocked them down, you get pissed and tell them to shut up. (Also, the vast, vast majority of individual neighborhoods in the county do not have a high school in their neighborhood, and life goes on. It's a nice perk and I get being disappointed to lose it but it is obviously the exception, not the norm.) |
Anonymous
| What time is the vote? |
Anonymous
Starts around 5:25 pm |
Anonymous
It’s not a real vote. It’s a rubber stamp. |
Anonymous
The other reply said it partially backwards. The lower utilization school moved from 46% to 99% in this appeal; the over utilized ones moved from 146 to 118 and 118 to 113. Every school moved closer to FAA factor desired range of 80-100. Each school moved towards less disparity relative to each other in demographics. States on pages 39-40 that FARMS disparity between schools reduced from 16 to 12%. In contrast, a quick look at “effects table” in Mod. H and Mod B (Woodward) shows schools Ridgeview MS and SSIMS being not only moved away from the 80-100% ranges; but also being moved towards greater disparity in demographics. This does not appear to be a “trade off” of factors at all. |
Anonymous
I think what people are forgetting is that a lawsuit doesn't allow a judge to review the boundary options and make a new decision as if they were in MCPS's shoes. It's not like a judge is going to say that they should have picked a different choice. MCPS's decision is presumptively lawful. Parkway people have the high burden of showing that it was arbitrary and unlawful. Not being "the best" doesn't meet that standard, not meeting each of the four factors equally doesn't meet that standard. And no, of course MCPS didn't need to "score" the factors. This isn't some consulting firm. |
Anonymous
DP. I agree, the burden of proof is on the Parkway people and it is a a tall order. While not ideal, Mcps’s move looks legitimate to me—they needed a new school, Crown is new and nearby, large decrease in enrollment, and other factors. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
MCPS hired FLO Analytics for this boundary study. The cost was $1.5 million. All of us need to make sure the next one has all the data for the 4 factors, especially relative to neighboring schools (stated as “disparity” in that appeal decision), and whatever other criteria may be devised, especially as it will be more emotional if MCPS proposes to consolidate multiple MS/ES schools. |
Anonymous
Courts defer to decisions, but not to flawed processes. And the bar isn’t “was this the best plan,” it’s: Were policies followed? Was there meaningful opportunity for input? Was the decision supported by a rational, documented process? So the question isn’t whether MCPS needed to “score” factors like a consultant—it’s whether the evaluation of options was clear, consistent, and actually documented, especially for something as significant as relocating a high school. That’s where the challenge lives—not in second-guessing the outcome, but in whether the process holds up. |
Anonymous
Thanks ChatGPT. You know the burden is on the complainants here to prove MCPS didn't do all these things, right? And if you look at all of the documents that have been provided (checkout Boarddocs) they have been very sure to dot the I and cross the T to demonstrate they are following procedures. |
Anonymous
The bar for that is high for overturning it at the state level or in the courts. "This appeal involves a redistricting decision of a local board of education. Decisions of a local board involving a local policy or controversy or dispute regarding the rules and regulations of the local board shall be considered prima facie correct. The State Board may not substitute its judgement for that of the local board unless the decision is arbitrary, unreasonable, or illegal" (COMAR 13.A.01.05.05A) https://marylandpublicschools.org/Documents/ARCHIVE/opinions/2003-2009/Opinion0638.pdf Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that the process was great, it had many flaws, but the key question for a lawsuit is whether MCPS and the MoCo Board of Education followed their own policies and procedures sufficiently and that legal determination seems to be mostly whether the MoCo BoE decides that it did so unless there's a clear, objective breach in the policy. |
Anonymous
The MCPS BOE doesn’t get the final word on whether its own process was adequate—that’s exactly what the State BOE and courts are there to review. And while courts defer to school boards on boundaries, relocating or effectively closing a long-standing school is a much bigger action with broader impact, so the expectation for a clear, well-documented process is higher. Dropping Option H late in the process and then pointing to a fixed comment window doesn’t necessarily equal meaningful public input—especially if people didn’t have time to analyze data or propose alternatives. It’s even worse if MCPS didn’t offer Option H in the appropriate languages for the parents of the 40% Asian students at Wootton. Even if everything was done in good faith, timing alone can still make the process inadequate—and that’s something a court is much more willing to look at. |