Woodward Boundary Study discussion at next BoE meeting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

This is true in MoCo, every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

PP is pointing out the demographic change in the county. Every year the county’s youth population is more diverse, and those kids keep enrolling while less diverse classes graduate.

[Anonymous]

Fascinating how everyone seems to know exactly what MCPS/BOE will do.

NONE of you know, you are all guessing. And, in the long-run, MCPS will do whatever they want, parents be damned. We will all just have to wait and see

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm curious what it means that they're not considering elementary school boundaries. Does this mean that they could tweak MS/HS boundaries and leave elementaries with split articulations? Or does it mean that they will change the assignments for entire elementaries to different MS/HS? Or some of both?

Sounds like it means nobody will be reassigned to a different elementary as a result of this process. But where those elementaries feed into can be changed including split articulations.

Yes. I think they will try to move entire elementary school zones to different MS and HS zones when they can, but they may not always be able to, given different building capacities.

I would expect 90% of assignments to remain the same based on the different models they released from the study that was done around 2020.

But they weren't factoring in the opening of Woodward and Crown then.

I'm guessing the closer your home school is to say Woodward or Crown the greater the change so nearby schools like WJ or BCC would be more affected than ones that are further away.

Proximity is one of the four factors under consideration, yes.

But it depends on one's definition of "nearby" to Woodward.

Walter Johnson - 1 mile
Wheaton - 4.1 miles
Einstein - 4.4 miles
Whitman - 4.5 miles
B-CC - 4.6 miles
Kennedy - 5.9 miles
Blair - 8.5 miles

It doesn't matter how far away other high schools are, it matters where the neighborhoods are. You could say that anything within 5 miles of Woodward is "nearby". That would include all the neighborhoods between most of those schools, and is halfway to Blair.

Also, the choice isn't just "shift a neighborhood to Woodward or not". There could be some musical chairs. For example, pull a large amount of students from WJ to Woodward, then shift some from Whitman to WJ and backfill some from BCC to Whitman. Or shift that the other way around.

Yes, but they're not going to backfill to WJ because one of the main drivers of reopening Woodward is to relieve the massive overcrowding at WJ.

They can move more kids out of WJ than needed to relieve overcrowding and then move different kids in to backfill. This isn't just about filling Woodward and reducing overcrowding at a couple of schools. It is about rebalancing all of the schools on the list, considering the four factors. There have been piecemeal changes over the past 40 years with schools closing and opening, additions, new neighborhoods, and demographic shifts. This is an opportunity to look at all of those boundaries and make adjustments.

Let's look at some actual numbers. I'm picking WJ, BCC, and Whitman, because they are geographically on the edge of things and simpler to talk about.
According to the at-a-glance reports, WJ is over capacity by ~600 kids. BCC is under capacity by ~100, and Whitman is currently under by ~150 but projected to be at capacity by the time Woodward reopens (it this that development someone mentioned?) Pyle MS (Whitman) is at capacity but Westland MS is under by ~300. The neighborhood immediately around Westland is bussed to Pyle, instead of walking to Westland. Rather than picking some neighborhood in WJ to bus down to Westland, they can take 300 kids from the two neighborhoods immediately near Westland and shift them from Pyle-Whitman to Westland-BCC (split articulation for Bannockburn ES and Wood Acres ES). Then they could shift 300 kids from NBMS-WJ to Pyle-Whitman.

Side note - Bannockburn is overenrolled and Wood Acres underenrolled. I don't know why they aren't considering shifting that one Bannockburn Island to Wood Acres.

This is what I think they'll pull from and maybe a few from Einstein that are closer/across Conn. Ave and they'll pull the Town of Kensington kids at WJ there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

That sounds wonderfully . Go BoE!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

Yes, it will be really great job if 4-5 well balanced schools can be made in the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

Yes, it will be really great job if 4-5 well balanced schools can be made in the area.

Sure, well-balanced would be ideal, but I think we should expect smaller demographic shifts, given the reality of the geography. We will likely end up with several slightly-less-poorly-balanced schools, with Whitman and Kennedy remaining largely imbalanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

Yes, it will be really great job if 4-5 well balanced schools can be made in the area.

Sure, well-balanced would be ideal, but I think we should expect smaller demographic shifts, given the reality of the geography. We will likely end up with several slightly-less-poorly-balanced schools, with Whitman and Kennedy remaining largely imbalanced.

This seems the most likely outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

They are not going to really care about diversity. They will start with wh as that is the most overcrowded and then do some other shifting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

They are not going to really care about diversity. They will start with wh as that is the most overcrowded and then do some other shifting.

Small shifts across the entire study area to balance crowding, but the major shifts will be to account for the expanded space at Northwood and Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are going to focus on diversity you fool’s. Every school is going to be less white.

You realized that's impossible siand crazy nce for every school that became more diverse, another would become less diverse.

Not exactly. If we assume that a school like Whitman lacks diversity, but so does the school like Kennedy, then rebalancing can increase diversity at every single school. That doesn't mean we do a swap between Kennedy and Whitman, but it does mean that Whitman could include more kids of color, and Kennedy could include more white and Asian kids, making each school more diverse than it was before.

They are not going to really care about diversity. They will start with wh as that is the most overcrowded and then do some other shifting.

Small shifts across the entire study area to balance crowding, but the major shifts will be to account for the expanded space at Northwood and Woodward.

They will start with WJ, and shift around everyone else slightly but they aren't going to make it diverse as that area simply isn't except many to pull from the Rockville/Wheaton area but that would be horrible in terms of bussing for those kids. No way I want my child bussed there. It would be a huge issue with us and after school activities.

[Anonymous]

I think this is the one chance MCPS is going to have in the next 2 decades to do some dramatic shifts in Bethesda and the DCC. Not everyday they open a whole new school. They’d be foolish to waste it with doing it around the edges. They need to rectify the diversity issues now…

And I say this as someone who is in a “W” and whose property value will likely be affected too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is the one chance MCPS is going to have in the next 2 decades to do some dramatic shifts in Bethesda and the DCC. Not everyday they open a whole new school. They’d be foolish to waste it with doing it around the edges. They need to rectify the diversity issues now…

And I say this as someone who is in a “W” and whose property value will likely be affected too

They can make some improvements with WJ, Wheaton, Einstein, and maybe BCC. But what is a viable way to rectify the diversity issues at Whitman and Kennedy?