BOE/MCPS is a mess

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A plan is a series of events. So thank you for finally seeing the light. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Thankfully, my kids will graduate before MCPS is able to move them. But the rest of you aren't going to like having your kids shuffled around. Or at least 90% of you aren't.

"We" who? I'm not going to do anything about your personal hallucinations.

Again, which of these do you believe to be untrue?

BUSING PLAN

1. Alter the boundary policy so that any future boundary study will result in kids being moved to schools based primarily on their skin color and family income instead of proximity.

1.b. Do this without sending the policy out for public comment so no one knows until it's too late

2. Hire a diversity consultant with experience writing busing plans in major metro areas to conduct a boundary analysis.

3. Test new boundary policy in a middle class area (Clarksburg) to see how much fallout there is. They have far fewer resources than Bethesda and Potmac.

4. If the boundary analysis and test go well, order a systemwide boundary study to move all boundaries with diversity and the main driver. If the analysis and test don't go well, simply wait for natural boundary studies and the diversity-first policy will result in busing, just at a much slower pace.

1, 1b, 2, 3, and 4. As you know, because people have already explained this to you about 3 billion times, and yet you keep coming back to repeat the same lies.

Except everyone knows these things to be true. There's video evidence of most of them and paper evidence of the rest.

1. Policy FAA says that schools must be made more diverse with the primary demographic factors being skin color and income.

1b. The text that elevated diversity was inserted into the policy and passed 10 days later without the BOE sending the policy out for public comment. If you have proof that it was publicized, by all means, post it here.

2. WXY is a diversity consulting company as evidenced by what they did in NYC's D15

3. The upcountry boundary study speaks for itself. Many students attend schools a lot farther from home than they would had the policy not been altered to prioritize diversity. Superintendent Smith even said this.

4. Again, if we go back to the BOE videos, it's clear that rearranging all boundaries to increase diversity was the goal. The boundary analysis resolution even says this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A plan is a series of events. So thank you for finally seeing the light. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Thankfully, my kids will graduate before MCPS is able to move them. But the rest of you aren't going to like having your kids shuffled around. Or at least 90% of you aren't.

"We" who? I'm not going to do anything about your personal hallucinations.

Again, which of these do you believe to be untrue?

BUSING PLAN

1. Alter the boundary policy so that any future boundary study will result in kids being moved to schools based primarily on their skin color and family income instead of proximity.

1.b. Do this without sending the policy out for public comment so no one knows until it's too late

2. Hire a diversity consultant with experience writing busing plans in major metro areas to conduct a boundary analysis.

3. Test new boundary policy in a middle class area (Clarksburg) to see how much fallout there is. They have far fewer resources than Bethesda and Potmac.

4. If the boundary analysis and test go well, order a systemwide boundary study to move all boundaries with diversity and the main driver. If the analysis and test don't go well, simply wait for natural boundary studies and the diversity-first policy will result in busing, just at a much slower pace.

1, 1b, 2, 3, and 4. As you know, because people have already explained this to you about 3 billion times, and yet you keep coming back to repeat the same lies.

Except everyone knows these things to be true. There's video evidence of most of them and paper evidence of the rest.

1. Policy FAA says that schools must be made more diverse with the primary demographic factors being skin color and income.

1b. The text that elevated diversity was inserted into the policy and passed 10 days later without the BOE sending the policy out for public comment. If you have proof that it was publicized, by all means, post it here.

2. WXY is a diversity consulting company as evidenced by what they did in NYC's D15

3. The upcountry boundary study speaks for itself. Many students attend schools a lot farther from home than they would had the policy not been altered to prioritize diversity. Superintendent Smith even said this.

4. Again, if we go back to the BOE videos, it's clear that rearranging all boundaries to increase diversity was the goal. The boundary analysis resolution even says this.

Everyone knows these things to be figments of a deranged imagination....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A plan is a series of events. So thank you for finally seeing the light. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Thankfully, my kids will graduate before MCPS is able to move them. But the rest of you aren't going to like having your kids shuffled around. Or at least 90% of you aren't.

"We" who? I'm not going to do anything about your personal hallucinations.

Again, which of these do you believe to be untrue?

BUSING PLAN

1. Alter the boundary policy so that any future boundary study will result in kids being moved to schools based primarily on their skin color and family income instead of proximity.

1.b. Do this without sending the policy out for public comment so no one knows until it's too late

2. Hire a diversity consultant with experience writing busing plans in major metro areas to conduct a boundary analysis.

3. Test new boundary policy in a middle class area (Clarksburg) to see how much fallout there is. They have far fewer resources than Bethesda and Potmac.

4. If the boundary analysis and test go well, order a systemwide boundary study to move all boundaries with diversity and the main driver. If the analysis and test don't go well, simply wait for natural boundary studies and the diversity-first policy will result in busing, just at a much slower pace.

1, 1b, 2, 3, and 4. As you know, because people have already explained this to you about 3 billion times, and yet you keep coming back to repeat the same lies.

Except everyone knows these things to be true. There's video evidence of most of them and paper evidence of the rest.

1. Policy FAA says that schools must be made more diverse with the primary demographic factors being skin color and income.

1b. The text that elevated diversity was inserted into the policy and passed 10 days later without the BOE sending the policy out for public comment. If you have proof that it was publicized, by all means, post it here.

2. WXY is a diversity consulting company as evidenced by what they did in NYC's D15

3. The upcountry boundary study speaks for itself. Many students attend schools a lot farther from home than they would had the policy not been altered to prioritize diversity. Superintendent Smith even said this.

4. Again, if we go back to the BOE videos, it's clear that rearranging all boundaries to increase diversity was the goal. The boundary analysis resolution even says this.

No, it clearly does not say that. It mandates absolutely nothing. It asks them to try for diverse student bodies, while also trying to improve proximity, and utilization, and stability, while looking at adjacent schools. They have been using the revised policy in the last four or five boundary studies, and in every case they have simply looked for opportunities to reduce existing disparities between neighboring schools. Which is a good thing for a public school system to do. Sometimes they've succeeded, sometimes they've barely moved the numbers. In several instances they have rejected options that would have improved the diversity numbers because they would not have advanced the other factors. The policy supports this.

[Anonymous]

Stephen Austin, don't you live in Urbana now? Can you start trolling on the Frederick board?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A plan is a series of events. So thank you for finally seeing the light. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Thankfully, my kids will graduate before MCPS is able to move them. But the rest of you aren't going to like having your kids shuffled around. Or at least 90% of you aren't.

"We" who? I'm not going to do anything about your personal hallucinations.

Again, which of these do you believe to be untrue?

BUSING PLAN

1. Alter the boundary policy so that any future boundary study will result in kids being moved to schools based primarily on their skin color and family income instead of proximity.

1.b. Do this without sending the policy out for public comment so no one knows until it's too late

2. Hire a diversity consultant with experience writing busing plans in major metro areas to conduct a boundary analysis.

3. Test new boundary policy in a middle class area (Clarksburg) to see how much fallout there is. They have far fewer resources than Bethesda and Potmac.

4. If the boundary analysis and test go well, order a systemwide boundary study to move all boundaries with diversity and the main driver. If the analysis and test don't go well, simply wait for natural boundary studies and the diversity-first policy will result in busing, just at a much slower pace.

1, 1b, 2, 3, and 4. As you know, because people have already explained this to you about 3 billion times, and yet you keep coming back to repeat the same lies.

Except everyone knows these things to be true. There's video evidence of most of them and paper evidence of the rest.

1. Policy FAA says that schools must be made more diverse with the primary demographic factors being skin color and income.

1b. The text that elevated diversity was inserted into the policy and passed 10 days later without the BOE sending the policy out for public comment. If you have proof that it was publicized, by all means, post it here.

2. WXY is a diversity consulting company as evidenced by what they did in NYC's D15

3. The upcountry boundary study speaks for itself. Many students attend schools a lot farther from home than they would had the policy not been altered to prioritize diversity. Superintendent Smith even said this.

4. Again, if we go back to the BOE videos, it's clear that rearranging all boundaries to increase diversity was the goal. The boundary analysis resolution even says this.

No, it clearly does not say that. It mandates absolutely nothing. It asks them to try for diverse student bodies, while also trying to improve proximity, and utilization, and stability, while looking at adjacent schools. They have been using the revised policy in the last four or five boundary studies, and in every case they have simply looked for opportunities to reduce existing disparities between neighboring schools. Which is a good thing for a public school system to do. Sometimes they've succeeded, sometimes they've barely moved the numbers. In several instances they have rejected options that would have improved the diversity numbers because they would not have advanced the other factors. The policy supports this.

False. It says that they BOE must especially dlatribe to create more diverse schools. Given where people of different demographics often live, increasing diversity can only make proximity worse. And as the boundary analysis shows, 90% of the county doesn't really case about the skin color of their kids classmates. Only a handful of white east county progressives care about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A plan is a series of events. So thank you for finally seeing the light. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Thankfully, my kids will graduate before MCPS is able to move them. But the rest of you aren't going to like having your kids shuffled around. Or at least 90% of you aren't.

"We" who? I'm not going to do anything about your personal hallucinations.

Again, which of these do you believe to be untrue?

BUSING PLAN

1. Alter the boundary policy so that any future boundary study will result in kids being moved to schools based primarily on their skin color and family income instead of proximity.

1.b. Do this without sending the policy out for public comment so no one knows until it's too late

2. Hire a diversity consultant with experience writing busing plans in major metro areas to conduct a boundary analysis.

3. Test new boundary policy in a middle class area (Clarksburg) to see how much fallout there is. They have far fewer resources than Bethesda and Potmac.

4. If the boundary analysis and test go well, order a systemwide boundary study to move all boundaries with diversity and the main driver. If the analysis and test don't go well, simply wait for natural boundary studies and the diversity-first policy will result in busing, just at a much slower pace.

1, 1b, 2, 3, and 4. As you know, because people have already explained this to you about 3 billion times, and yet you keep coming back to repeat the same lies.

Except everyone knows these things to be true. There's video evidence of most of them and paper evidence of the rest.

1. Policy FAA says that schools must be made more diverse with the primary demographic factors being skin color and income.

1b. The text that elevated diversity was inserted into the policy and passed 10 days later without the BOE sending the policy out for public comment. If you have proof that it was publicized, by all means, post it here.

2. WXY is a diversity consulting company as evidenced by what they did in NYC's D15

3. The upcountry boundary study speaks for itself. Many students attend schools a lot farther from home than they would had the policy not been altered to prioritize diversity. Superintendent Smith even said this.

4. Again, if we go back to the BOE videos, it's clear that rearranging all boundaries to increase diversity was the goal. The boundary analysis resolution even says this.

No, it clearly does not say that. It mandates absolutely nothing. It asks them to try for diverse student bodies, while also trying to improve proximity, and utilization, and stability, while looking at adjacent schools. They have been using the revised policy in the last four or five boundary studies, and in every case they have simply looked for opportunities to reduce existing disparities between neighboring schools. Which is a good thing for a public school system to do. Sometimes they've succeeded, sometimes they've barely moved the numbers. In several instances they have rejected options that would have improved the diversity numbers because they would not have advanced the other factors. The policy supports this.

False. It says that they BOE must especially dlatribe to create more diverse schools. Given where people of different demographics often live, increasing diversity can only make proximity worse. And as the boundary analysis shows, 90% of the county doesn't really case about the skin color of their kids classmates. Only a handful of white east county progressives care about this.

Edit: especially strive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stephen Austin, don't you live in Urbana now? Can you start trolling on the Frederick board?

Why do you think this is Austin and not one of the 90% of the county who prefers neighborhood schools to busing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stephen Austin, don't you live in Urbana now? Can you start trolling on the Frederick board?

Why do you think this is Austin and not one of the 90% of the county who prefers neighborhood schools to busing?

Can't you find a different hobby? Maybe needlepoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stephen Austin, don't you live in Urbana now? Can you start trolling on the Frederick board?

Why do you think this is Austin and not one of the 90% of the county who prefers neighborhood schools to busing?

Can't you find a different hobby? Maybe needlepoint.

Aggie earning her $130.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, it clearly does not say that. It mandates absolutely nothing. It asks them to try for diverse student bodies, while also trying to improve proximity, and utilization, and stability, while looking at adjacent schools. They have been using the revised policy in the last four or five boundary studies, and in every case they have simply looked for opportunities to reduce existing disparities between neighboring schools. Which is a good thing for a public school system to do. Sometimes they've succeeded, sometimes they've barely moved the numbers. In several instances they have rejected options that would have improved the diversity numbers because they would not have advanced the other factors. The policy supports this.

False. It says that they BOE must especially dlatribe to create more diverse schools. Given where people of different demographics often live, increasing diversity can only make proximity worse. And as the boundary analysis shows, 90% of the county doesn't really case about the skin color of their kids classmates. Only a handful of white east county progressives care about this.

Edit: especially strive

You're incorrect. Here is the sentence, which we should all know by heart now: "Options should especially strive to create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education."

There's a difference between must and should. The policy says should, which means they should try, not they have to. (It is also about the options, which are several choices that are presented, and it does not mandate that any one option is the one selected.) That's why even since the revision, they sometimes have and sometimes have not created especially diverse student bodies. You can look at the Bethesda/Somerset/Westbrook study and see how just last month there were differing results for each school, some more diverse, some less diverse.

Bethesda's FARMS rate barely changed, from 12% to 13%.
Somerset's FARMS rate dropped, from 12% to 9.7%.
Westbrook's FARMS rate increased, from 1.2 to 6.6%.

And of course all of these rates are far below the countywide average of 38.7%, and yet there was not a single option even considered that bussed kids in "from far away" in order to mitigate this. So the policy just isn't doing what you keep claiming it is doing.

[Anonymous]

Does MCPS and the BOE have a plan for the spike in COVID after Winter Break? Cases are already spiking across the entire school system after Thanksgiving. Combine that with out of state travel plans during Winter Break, it’s going to be a sh$t show of COVID spread in January.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS and the BOE have a plan for the spike in COVID after Winter Break? Cases are already spiking across the entire school system after Thanksgiving. Combine that with out of state travel plans during Winter Break, it’s going to be a sh$t show of COVID spread in January.

If if the case rate is already spiking, then hooray, the next thing to happen is that the case rate will come down again. Or did you mean that the case rate is increasing?

I'm old enough to remember all the way back to August 2021, when every second post on DCUM solemnly averred that MCPS was going to be a huge mess within 2 weeks of school starting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stephen Austin, don't you live in Urbana now? Can you start trolling on the Frederick board?

Why do you think this is Austin and not one of the 90% of the county who prefers neighborhood schools to busing?

Here we go again: 90% of a few self-selected respondents to a survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS and the BOE have a plan for the spike in COVID after Winter Break? Cases are already spiking across the entire school system after Thanksgiving. Combine that with out of state travel plans during Winter Break, it’s going to be a sh$t show of COVID spread in January.

If if the case rate is already spiking, then hooray, the next thing to happen is that the case rate will come down again. Or did you mean that the case rate is increasing?

I'm old enough to remember all the way back to August 2021, when every second post on DCUM solemnly averred that MCPS was going to be a huge mess within 2 weeks of school starting.

Ask medical professionals at Holy Cross, Suburban, and Shady Grove if they are concerned about spread during holiday celebrations. The answer yes.

Keeping schools open requires planning including the ability to get infected staff and students isolated before they spread COVID to others. More tests for schools are needed. Even better yet would be a plan that requires people who are traveling to isolate for 10 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, it clearly does not say that. It mandates absolutely nothing. It asks them to try for diverse student bodies, while also trying to improve proximity, and utilization, and stability, while looking at adjacent schools. They have been using the revised policy in the last four or five boundary studies, and in every case they have simply looked for opportunities to reduce existing disparities between neighboring schools. Which is a good thing for a public school system to do. Sometimes they've succeeded, sometimes they've barely moved the numbers. In several instances they have rejected options that would have improved the diversity numbers because they would not have advanced the other factors. The policy supports this.

False. It says that they BOE must especially dlatribe to create more diverse schools. Given where people of different demographics often live, increasing diversity can only make proximity worse. And as the boundary analysis shows, 90% of the county doesn't really case about the skin color of their kids classmates. Only a handful of white east county progressives care about this.

Edit: especially strive

You're incorrect. Here is the sentence, which we should all know by heart now: "Options should especially strive to create a diverse student body in each of the affected schools in alignment with Board Policy ACD, Quality Integrated Education."

There's a difference between must and should. The policy says should, which means they should try, not they have to. (It is also about the options, which are several choices that are presented, and it does not mandate that any one option is the one selected.) That's why even since the revision, they sometimes have and sometimes have not created especially diverse student bodies. You can look at the Bethesda/Somerset/Westbrook study and see how just last month there were differing results for each school, some more diverse, some less diverse.

Bethesda's FARMS rate barely changed, from 12% to 13%.
Somerset's FARMS rate dropped, from 12% to 9.7%.
Westbrook's FARMS rate increased, from 1.2 to 6.6%.

And of course all of these rates are far below the countywide average of 38.7%, and yet there was not a single option even considered that bussed kids in "from far away" in order to mitigate this. So the policy just isn't doing what you keep claiming it is doing.

Oh ok. So it says the BOE should especially strive for busing, not has to do busing. Got it. In either case, 90% of the county doesn't even want them to consider it, let alone strive for it.

And the example you picked is one of the wealthiest areas of the county where they still bused a good number of kids they really didn't need to. The BOE's priorities are way off as is the underhandedly altered boundary policy.