Superintendent's Recommendation for Richard Montgomery ES #5 Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Huh? CI just wants to go to new school, not Twinbrook or Beall. And frankly, they have the right to as they are in the worst situation in all of this. CGES parent

+1

I am from Beall and I have always heard that CI wants to go to the new school. I didn't get an impression that they want to not go to Rm#5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

RP does not have weird boundaries to distribute FARMS better. Beall was overcrowded and when RP was moved from Wootton to RM, they took a portion of Beall to RP who was underenrolled. They weren't going to take the area near Beall, the closer communities were too large, and the town center and around JW were not built yet.

Fallsgrove came in because there was no other school below 95% capacity but RP. They should have built their own school for Fallsgrove and King Farm but the county was WAY too cheap and now they have spent years and millions figuring out these stupid boundaries for RM and Gaithersburg clusters.

Other clusters do not have this mess. Living in walking distance to your elementary school is the cleanest and cheapest option. It is a no brainer. RM#5 was built in the middle of the neighborhood. If they took Potomac Woods out of RP, West End out of Beall, or College Gardens at out of CG, everyone would lose their mind. Why in the world would we not allow the neighborhood kids in RM#5 to go there?

Other clusters do have this mess (as you call it).

Also, a boundary study -- even one that runs to 155 pages -- is several orders of magnitude cheaper than a new school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
RP does not have weird boundaries to distribute FARMS better. Beall was overcrowded and when RP was moved from Wootton to RM, they took a portion of Beall to RP who was underenrolled. They weren't going to take the area near Beall, the closer communities were too large, and the town center and around JW were not built yet.

Fallsgrove came in because there was no other school below 95% capacity but RP. They should have built their own school for Fallsgrove and King Farm but the county was WAY too cheap and now they have spent years and millions figuring out these stupid boundaries for RM and Gaithersburg clusters.

I was not talking about Fallsgrove here when I mentioned about weird boundary. Beall was pretty much split in two zones and middle thin portion going to RP. That was weird and there was only one reason to have that kind of thin region splitting Beall boundary. It was to make sure that RP gets more farm kids and all of them don't end up in Beall. Otherwise Beall should have been getting them rather than taking kids from further away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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I agree with the PP. It would be better to distribute the FARMS kids more evenly.

Even if this required bus rides/longer bus rides for low-income kids who would otherwise walk/have shorter bus rides?

Yes. Absolutely.

We are at a high FARMS rate FOCUs school and it’s very difficult to build community even with a FARMS rate lower than 50%.

Often lower income parents aren’t in a position to walk the kid to school so they like having the option of a bus - grandparent can pick up and it gives them a little extra time at the end of the school day.

Why not bus the non-low-income kids?

Because the communities all surrounding the new school are low middle to low income. You would have to bus them out of walking a few houses down to their elementary school, and putting home on a bus to a new school. Then bussing kids from various schools 20min away and bus them into this new school. It is time consuming and not cost effective in any way. Twinbrook has an extensive PTA and involvement. Better than Ritchie Park and close the Beall. This area has very involved families. Having many bilingual families in a hispanic community is a plus. Splitting them up and bussing them away to neighborhoods not near where they live in "white" middle class neighborhoods, will not help hispanic families. They are more involved and active when they are in their comfort zone. I can guarantee the people on here wanting FARMS across the board aren't even from Twinbrook and RP#5 new zoning. Twinbrook wants their FARMS numbers and funding. They don't want upper class families coming in and increasing their numbers an trying to take over their PTA.

This, totally. I'm not in the RM area but our school has a high FARMS rate (45%) and large population of Hispanic students. What we've found is that Hispanic families are more likely to be involved if they see that the PTA board is also run by Hispanic members. We don't have this at our school and it's a struggle. It's almost better if we had a larger number of Hispanic families so that they feel compelled or more comfortable to be more active rather than sitting back and ignoring the White and Asian people running the board.

[Anonymous]

I believe the Twinbrook community was concerned about the possibility of losing its Title I status more than the need to reduce the FARMS rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe the Twinbrook community was concerned about the possibility of losing its Title I status more than the need to reduce the FARMS rate.

Losing title 1 for 4-5% is bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This, totally. I'm not in the RM area but our school has a high FARMS rate (45%) and large population of Hispanic students. What we've found is that Hispanic families are more likely to be involved if they see that the PTA board is also run by Hispanic members. We don't have this at our school and it's a struggle. It's almost better if we had a larger number of Hispanic families so that they feel compelled or more comfortable to be more active rather than sitting back and ignoring the White and Asian people running the board.

It's frustrating to hear to be honest. People do self segregate, but this is going too far where you avoid others despite being in the same school.

[Anonymous]

Just read in Wapo that RM is no longer getting an addition but some students will end up at the new Crown HS?? Which ones? Falls grove? Will we have to rezone again at that point with more c students moved to Ritchie Park ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just read in Wapo that RM is no longer getting an addition but some students will end up at the new Crown HS?? Which ones? Falls grove? Will we have to rezone again at that point with more c students moved to Ritchie Park ?

It is not possible to answer this question until there is a boundary study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just read in Wapo that RM is no longer getting an addition but some students will end up at the new Crown HS?? Which ones? Falls grove? Will we have to rezone again at that point with more c students moved to Ritchie Park ?

This was addressed today prior to the MCCPTA meeting. These decisions are not even started. There has been no boundary study even.

[Anonymous]

And, since boundary studies don't start 18 months before the school opens, and the new schools completion date is TBD (to be determined), it will be a long time before we know any of that!

Don't worry, whenever it does come out, I'm sure you'll find something to complain about...

[Anonymous]

Lack of dedicated PTA is hurting the new school. No one had dedicated voice for new school.

Superintended is making a point about reducing farm rate in Beall and RP. All those are getting added in new school.

Why will you point reducing farm rate from 25 to 17 or 17 to 10 if you are taking all those reduction to add into a new school to come up with class farm rate of 53%?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And, since boundary studies don't start 18 months before the school opens, and the new schools completion date is TBD (to be determined), it will be a long time before we know any of that!

Don't worry, whenever it does come out, I'm sure you'll find something to complain about...

This is the high school I'm interested in learning more about! Would it get all the students in the Shady Grove Sector? I could see this potentially being a nice high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, since boundary studies don't start 18 months before the school opens, and the new schools completion date is TBD (to be determined), it will be a long time before we know any of that!

Don't worry, whenever it does come out, I'm sure you'll find something to complain about...

This is the high school I'm interested in learning more about! Would it get all the students in the Shady Grove Sector? I could see this potentially being a nice high school

As the PP said, it will be a long time before we know any of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Why not bus the non-low-income kids?

Or bus the high-income kids. Either way, have some mix. Recommended option is the worst outcome for entire RM cluster in long term. Achievement gap is going to increase even more with having two extremes. One set having 10-17% farm and another having 53-61%.


Currently, those same kids go to RP and Beall. Taking them out and putting them in new school and then also taking farm kids from Twinbrook and putting them in new school will surely make other school's farm rate lower but we are creating a huge farm rate in RM#5.

There is no need to reduce the farm rate of Beall from 25% to 17% and RP from 17% to 10% if final result is having a RM#5 start with farm rate of 53%.

My guess is you are in the Chinese immersion program because they are the only ones that seem to be fighting this change.

Huh? CI just wants to go to new school, not Twinbrook or Beall. And frankly, they have the right to as they are in the worst situation in all of this. CGES parent

How in the world is CI in the worst situation? They are an immersion program who agreed to move their kids out of their home school and either long bus or drive them to a different school. They are the LEAST affected by all this. They all move together to the new school and still take a long bus or drive in. The biggest plus is they get a brand new school to be in and if they wanted to move into the walking district, it is dirt cheap to do so.