Residents appeal MCPS boundary changes, challenge legality of diversity focus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good for them. It seems like a long shot, but I'm glad to hear they're being proactive about it.

It seems like a long shot because it is, because it's absurd. There is no right to attend a school in your zip code.

It’s absurd to advocate for your kids? You may not agree with their point of view, but I appreciate that they’re not going to just let it happen to them.

No. The appeal is absurd.

Who will the boundary decision affect the most? Isn't it the kids? Aren't they the ones being tossed around by the BOE for the sake of boosting numbers? At the end of the day, the appeal is for their kids, and I'm sure most parents would do whatever it takes to get the best education for their children.

No, they aren't, because that's not what the BoE is doing.

And again, this isn't about the motivation for the appeal. This is about what the appeal says. Have you read what the appeal says?

Do you believe that the boundary decision was illegal and arbitrary? That it denies students equitable access to the educational rigor, resources and supports designed to maximize their academic success? That adding one word to one factor in the boundary study policy is a substantial change? That the boundary decision doesn't accomplish any policy goal? That the boundary decision is bad because it reassigns students to schools in other zip codes? That the boundary decision is bad because teachers at Neelsville MS feel unsafe and the Neelsville MS building is in bad shape?

Keeping in mind that "The state board considers the regulations of the local board as “prima facie correct,” and the state board “may not substitute its judgment … unless the decision is arbitrary, unreasonable or illegal,”."

[Anonymous]

I think it is vital that folks coming to this discussion late understand that the redistricting of SV, Clarksburg, and Northwest was not primarily about diversity. It was primarily about capacity, and the fact that Seneca Valley was expanded to accommodate about double the amount of students it could originally handle.

So, you have adjoining clusters with wild disparities in utilization, and a school being rebuilt and expanded. By any measure, this situation demanded a boundary revision, which also meant a revision to middle school zones because you needed to fill those 1000 new seats in the high school somehow.

So, you had a middle school (Neelsville) that had been run down for years, but the folks sitting pretty right next door didn't care, because it wasn't their kids who were supposed to attend.

The Board of Education considered some large number of options, more than 10 if I remember correctly, and chose one after a series of public meetings.

Now the parents who had a run-down middle school next door are furious, because suddenly this is their problem. Except....if we are a community, it was always their problem. They just didn't care back then.

At any rate, I don't see this "appeal" going anywhere. The BoE did all the things they were supposed to do in terms of public comment and considering different options. They just have solicit comment, not put the zoning up to a direct vote.

[Anonymous]

I know this is the unpopular opinion but it isn’t on middle class kids to throw a life line to the disenfranchised. If the premise is that school A is artificially better due to a concentration of good kids and school B is not good because concentrated not good kids. I’ll sue too if you want to send me form A to B. It is so bad it needs to be broken up!!! so send billy there to make it better even though no matter what it will still be mostly group B? No thank you

If we had hard working fire department with great equipment and lazy fire department and poor management and they wanted to redraw their boundaries to pick up nicer houses so that those owners could lite a fire (no pun) under the Underperforming station. That would be wrong too. Thing is most poor people like their schools in silver spring and Germantown. What people don’t like is the whole world sees them as 2nd class to the nice side of town. This seem more like an attempt of the have nots grasping at the current climate to strike a blow to the ”other side” knowing full well that it won’t actually do much good for the kids.

It simply isn’t the schools job to redistribute society.

Also I get it people think that they got a bad hand so why not take the cards back and reshuffle and see if it gets better. Let me tell you poor people still lose and the rich will be ok. The middle class will get pinched and in a few years there will be good schools with the least amount of those kids and bad schools with too many of those kids. The names on those schools might shift a bit but as it always was it will always be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main problem with this argument is that it is saying "Our kids should be safe. Somebody else's shouldn't." There was going to be rezoning and someone was going to be unhappy. Why should one group of parents think they are especially privileged that it shouldn't be them? (Rhetorical question.... )

On the other hand it seems whacky that instead of actually fixing the school now, the board seems to be ok with swapping the kids currently there with kids who are presumed to be more privelage for the sake of equity. Let's punish those racist privelaged kids.. yup that sounds fair. What's even more screwy is that they ignored the complaints and the conditions of that school for years. Why?

Lol! The kids in those schools aren't safe because of... stay with me here... the KIDS IN THOSE SCHOOLS. The "problem" with the "schools" IS the demographics of the children in them. Please stop trying to ship your problems (your children) to other people's neighborhoods.

This. Such a stupid system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main problem with this argument is that it is saying "Our kids should be safe. Somebody else's shouldn't." There was going to be rezoning and someone was going to be unhappy. Why should one group of parents think they are especially privileged that it shouldn't be them? (Rhetorical question.... )

On the other hand it seems whacky that instead of actually fixing the school now, the board seems to be ok with swapping the kids currently there with kids who are presumed to be more privelage for the sake of equity. Let's punish those racist privelaged kids.. yup that sounds fair. What's even more screwy is that they ignored the complaints and the conditions of that school for years. Why?

Lol! The kids in those schools aren't safe because of... stay with me here... the KIDS IN THOSE SCHOOLS. The "problem" with the "schools" IS the demographics of the children in them. Please stop trying to ship your problems (your children) to other people's neighborhoods.

This. Such a stupid system.

Your main issue seems to be that the public school system in Montgomery County is Montgomery County Public Schools, not Clarksburg Public Schools, Germantown Public Schools, etc. But the fact is that it is Montgomery County Public Schools.

And then there's your worldview, in which there are "other people's kids" - those kids, over there, who are the problem - and "my neighborhood" (where "other people's kids" have no business being). But everyone's entitled to their own worldview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this is the unpopular opinion but it isn’t on middle class kids to throw a life line to the disenfranchised. If the premise is that school A is artificially better due to a concentration of good kids and school B is not good because concentrated not good kids. I’ll sue too if you want to send me form A to B. It is so bad it needs to be broken up!!! so send billy there to make it better even though no matter what it will still be mostly group B? No thank you

If we had hard working fire department with great equipment and lazy fire department and poor management and they wanted to redraw their boundaries to pick up nicer houses so that those owners could lite a fire (no pun) under the Underperforming station. That would be wrong too. Thing is most poor people like their schools in silver spring and Germantown. What people don’t like is the whole world sees them as 2nd class to the nice side of town. This seem more like an attempt of the have nots grasping at the current climate to strike a blow to the ”other side” knowing full well that it won’t actually do much good for the kids.

It simply isn’t the schools job to redistribute society.

Also I get it people think that they got a bad hand so why not take the cards back and reshuffle and see if it gets better. Let me tell you poor people still lose and the rich will be ok. The middle class will get pinched and in a few years there will be good schools with the least amount of those kids and bad schools with too many of those kids. The names on those schools might shift a bit but as it always was it will always be.

If it isn't the schools' job to redistributed society, then it also isn't the schools' job to maintain current societal distributions.

The reality is that SOMEBODY was going to get reassigned. That was the whole point of building an expanded Seneca Valley High School building. It just that the people who are appealing the decision wanted it to be other people.

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

[Anonymous]

The law was different then.

[Anonymous]

In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

...is a statement that's totally irrelevant to the specific topic of this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

...is a statement that's totally irrelevant to the specific topic of this thread.

It’s not ittelevant PP. you may not like it, but it is true and on-topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

...is a statement that's totally irrelevant to the specific topic of this thread.

It’s not ittelevant PP. you may not like it, but it is true and on-topic.

Nope. Because this isn't a court case, and the boundary decision wasn't based on racial balancing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The law was different then.

Yes, it was. It was less likely to be on the side of diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this is the unpopular opinion but it isn’t on middle class kids to throw a life line to the disenfranchised. If the premise is that school A is artificially better due to a concentration of good kids and school B is not good because concentrated not good kids. I’ll sue too if you want to send me form A to B. It is so bad it needs to be broken up!!! so send billy there to make it better even though no matter what it will still be mostly group B? No thank you

If we had hard working fire department with great equipment and lazy fire department and poor management and they wanted to redraw their boundaries to pick up nicer houses so that those owners could lite a fire (no pun) under the Underperforming station. That would be wrong too. Thing is most poor people like their schools in silver spring and Germantown. What people don’t like is the whole world sees them as 2nd class to the nice side of town. This seem more like an attempt of the have nots grasping at the current climate to strike a blow to the ”other side” knowing full well that it won’t actually do much good for the kids.

It simply isn’t the schools job to redistribute society.

Also I get it people think that they got a bad hand so why not take the cards back and reshuffle and see if it gets better. Let me tell you poor people still lose and the rich will be ok. The middle class will get pinched and in a few years there will be good schools with the least amount of those kids and bad schools with too many of those kids. The names on those schools might shift a bit but as it always was it will always be.

As an example, you use another PUBLIC service like a fire department? That just shows the big picture of your misunderstanding. Montgomery county would not allow one fire department to be decrepit and old and another to thrive. These are public resources. They are funded by the county as a whole, not by the taxes just paid by your neighborhood. It’s the same with the schools. No matter how much you pay for your house, you aren’t entitled to better fire service, police service, mail delivery, schools, trash pickup... How are people not getting the different between public and private?