Taylor's Feb. Rec for Woodward Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do Woodlin families feel about the proposal?

I'm also curious about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former WJ, New Woodward family. I like the Taylor plan.

We get new building, more diversity, fun arts programs, extra Spanish immersion during the day. What’s not to like?

This is similar to what happened when they opened a new MS in the B-CC cluster. Silver Creek is significantly higher FARMs than Westland. Many who were re-zoned to SCMS were concerned. Now our family and the others we know at SCMS are very happy and for my kid at least, I think SCMS is a better fit than Westland.

[Anonymous]

If KP is uhhappy. They can always walk to Einstein

[Anonymous]

I think some of this will get resolved in an elementary study. GP may end up a higher FARMs school, Luxmanor lower, starting to even out by high school. How can we advocate for better magnet programs at Woodward. Not JUST arts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not push for a better magnet? There is your win-win for the entire region.

+1

This is the real elephant in the room. It’s the magnets at Woodward. Not the bean counting over FARMS.

I agree. And this is not the first time that point has been brought up on this forum. It is a high FARMS and a meaningless magnet combo that will give Woodward a horrible starting point. Having an important magnet (STEM, IB or humanities) will significantly improve school's chances to succeed.

If they really invest in it, the performing arts program could be an important magnet - like LaGuardia in NYC or Duke Ellington in DC. But they need a better balance between WJ and Woodward. Not that hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not push for a better magnet? There is your win-win for the entire region.

+1

This is the real elephant in the room. It’s the magnets at Woodward. Not the bean counting over FARMS.

I agree. And this is not the first time that point has been brought up on this forum. It is a high FARMS and a meaningless magnet combo that will give Woodward a horrible starting point. Having an important magnet (STEM, IB or humanities) will significantly improve school's chances to succeed.

If they really invest in it, the performing arts program could be an important magnet - like LaGuardia in NYC or Duke Ellington in DC. But they need a better balance between WJ and Woodward. Not that hard.

Easiest thing to do without any cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Until that big black line across Kensington separating Einstein and WJ is removed and kids who can walk to Einstein actually are zoned there, it's a ridiculous exercise rooted in keeping the wealthy MCPS parents content and the rest have to scramble and keep changing their little boundaries to tweak +-5% FARMS rates above the median.

Kensington is one of the only nice places left in Montgomery County, whose schools and median household income levels have been deteriorating compared to the rest of the region for 20+ years. Tanking the property values in one of the only desirable neighborhoods in Montgomery County outside of Bethesda and Chevy Chase would be incredibly short sited and petty. Like PPs have said, MoCo is in a budget crisis and needs all the property tax revenue it can get. New businesses are flocking here. The feds aren’t hiring new people anytime soon. Property taxes are the main thing keeping the county and the school system afloat. In this environment you don’t intentionally kneecap nice neighborhoods property values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not push for a better magnet? There is your win-win for the entire region.

+1

This is the real elephant in the room. It’s the magnets at Woodward. Not the bean counting over FARMS.

I agree. And this is not the first time that point has been brought up on this forum. It is a high FARMS and a meaningless magnet combo that will give Woodward a horrible starting point. Having an important magnet (STEM, IB or humanities) will significantly improve school's chances to succeed.

If they really invest in it, the performing arts program could be an important magnet - like LaGuardia in NYC or Duke Ellington in DC. But they need a better balance between WJ and Woodward. Not that hard.

Easiest thing to do without any cost.

Is this still possible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not push for a better magnet? There is your win-win for the entire region.

+1

This is the real elephant in the room. It’s the magnets at Woodward. Not the bean counting over FARMS.

I agree. And this is not the first time that point has been brought up on this forum. It is a high FARMS and a meaningless magnet combo that will give Woodward a horrible starting point. Having an important magnet (STEM, IB or humanities) will significantly improve school's chances to succeed.

If they really invest in it, the performing arts program could be an important magnet - like LaGuardia in NYC or Duke Ellington in DC. But they need a better balance between WJ and Woodward. Not that hard.

Easiest thing to do without any cost.

Is this still possible?

Yes, the board can put forward an alternate to Taylor's recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly the loss of diversity is a big loss for WJ. That is part of what makes it such a special place. I’m sorry for them.

It’s massively over crowded and over rated.

Feel sorry because less diversity? It’s about the same. Just less kids total.

Black goes UP from 15.9 to 16.2
Asian goes down from 14.5 to 12.5
Hispanic goes down from 18.5 to 15
2 or more races goes UP from 6.6 to 7.3

It is essentially the same.

But it’s a weird thing to feel sorry about even if it weren’t it essentially the same diversity.

Woodward people are just annoyed more poor kids go to their school than WJ.

WJ FARMS stays essentially the same as it is now. Maybe it will stay “special”.

And you are just happy to shed 5% (one third of current numbers) of undesirable high FARMS from your WJ. So spare me "it is essentially the same".

While they fill in that empty 25% capacity with families living in brand new multimillion dollar homes.

Is there distrust of the capacity numbers? MCPS has historically been way off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not push for a better magnet? There is your win-win for the entire region.

+1

This is the real elephant in the room. It’s the magnets at Woodward. Not the bean counting over FARMS.

I agree. And this is not the first time that point has been brought up on this forum. It is a high FARMS and a meaningless magnet combo that will give Woodward a horrible starting point. Having an important magnet (STEM, IB or humanities) will significantly improve school's chances to succeed.

If they really invest in it, the performing arts program could be an important magnet - like LaGuardia in NYC or Duke Ellington in DC. But they need a better balance between WJ and Woodward. Not that hard.

Easiest thing to do without any cost.

Is this still possible?

It’s just not that hard and then everyone is happier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crashing out about 36% FARMS is a new low.

+1

Also my kid taught me the crashing out phrase recently lol

We are all crashing out from Taylor at this point. Here is the entirely predictable timeline for him: In August 2027, he will declare victory over solving all of the problems of MCPS - THANK YOU SAVIOR - and then he will exit to teach college at the University of Virginia, as Montgomery County grapples with Taylor-made school transportation failures, poorly developed high school programs, revolt over MS programming, and the list goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crashing out about 36% FARMS is a new low.

+1

Also my kid taught me the crashing out phrase recently lol

We are all crashing out from Taylor at this point. Here is the entirely predictable timeline for him: In August 2027, he will declare victory over solving all of the problems of MCPS - THANK YOU SAVIOR - and then he will exit to teach college at the University of Virginia, as Montgomery County grapples with Taylor-made school transportation failures, poorly developed high school programs, revolt over MS programming, and the list goes on.

Nah, I don't think he's going anywhere.

[Anonymous]

For a supposedly liberal county, you all sure have a lot of antipathy towards poorer people at your kids’ schools. Have you thought of joining ICE and cleaning up MoCo so it will have the demographics you covet again? At least that would be intellectually honest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love to see,

BCC
WJ
Woodward

3 solid schools around 20% FARMS. It will help all students. It's puzzling to see Super not go for this when there are no drawbacks of doing it.

Arbitrary 20% line is not what makes a good school or not

It does. once school having much higher percentage of FARMS it's not good for FARMS and non-FARMS both. Unfortunately we can't create around 20% FARMS for all schools in our county but whenever we can do it withoiut any negative, not doing it simply criminal.

Off course just having 20% does not mean you don't need to other things to have good schools. but it helps a lot.

DP I don't think there is any real tipping point that can be definitively known. The research is all observational, not to mention one group of kids that receive FARMS can be very different from another group of kids that receives FARMS. Same for non FARMS kids.

But what is obvious is that in general kids that receive FARMS have on average more needs than kids that don't receive FARMS. At the high school level schools receive no significant extra funding to address the needs associated with poverty. Spreading out those needs evenly across schools makes it easier to meet those needs absent additional resources. It is truly criminal to intentionally concentrate the needs in one of two schools that are so close together.