Taylor Meeting at Wootton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The video had a lot more pro-H people in the audience than I expected based on the description. I haven’t watched the whole thing but I saw 3: a current student, parent, and counselor who talked about the impact of the condition of the school on their work.

Probably Dufief losers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The video had a lot more pro-H people in the audience than I expected based on the description. I haven’t watched the whole thing but I saw 3: a current student, parent, and counselor who talked about the impact of the condition of the school on their work.

Probably Dufief losers.

Way to show respect for your neighbors and people educating your kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s make Magruder the holding school. Move Magruder to Crown and Wootton to Magruder.

ChatGPT teacher votes no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The video had a lot more pro-H people in the audience than I expected based on the description. I haven’t watched the whole thing but I saw 3: a current student, parent, and counselor who talked about the impact of the condition of the school on their work.

Probably Dufief losers.

Classy… there was a student who spoke you know? I was nervous for him. And I was nervous for the staff too. The angry mob was very angry. Maybe they should have to go sit in that counselor’s office and work for a week. People seem to be losing perspective here.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:At 1hr 2min on the video the sidewalks rant lady with kids who graduated 13 years ago is a trip.

There's two posts talking about this lady and I think her message got lost a bit or people just take things out of context and see what they want to see.

I think her points were:

-MCPS and Montgomery County had thought or tried to implement pedestrian safety but failed to do so with the inadequate sidewalks from the Willows to Frost. So what guarantee do families have now that they can trust the plan for pedestrian safety to Crown

-then I guess her point about Lakewood was that the renovations were done in a year and a half with the utilization of a holding school

I'm probably a bit biased too but watching the video I didn't think it was as bad as posts on here seem to indicate. Maybe things went a bit off the rails towards the end. But I've seen worse in other school systems that didn't even involve school closures/moving.

Isn’t part of the reason for Wootton to be moved and replaced by Crown because of the unforeseen large decline and continuing in student enrollment? So it would make sense to consolidate.

You all seem kind of trusting of how MCPS twists things to fit their narrative.

When did the reports of declining enrollment first come out? Around October?

https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-schools-enrollment-declines-birth-rates-down-maryland-school-system-trend-continues-budget-manager-donald-connelly-executive-marc-elrich-births-data-numbers-enrolling

https://www.thebanner.com/education/k-12-schools/mryland-school-enrollment-decline-numbers-SXOEMFHUAVHA7MZJVF4ZMQWAHU/

https://marylandpublicschools.org/stateboard/documents/2025/1209/enrollment-and-attendance-update-a.pdf

And somehow MCPS was able to whip option H in between the time these numbers became evident and when option H was first introduced in the beginning of December? Do you really think MCPS is really that fast and mobile that they can come up with what they did in about a month and based on accurate data and justifications?

Admittedly I am a conspiracy theorist. So in my mind MCPS pushed out these reports to help justify the rationale of Option H when it was presented.

It's the same reason why you can trust any news organizations from either end. They just report what's fed to them and are used to build public sentiment for either direction.

It's either that or Option H was always in the plans.

And it's as other people have been saying, if you really dig into the data based on the decisions there are a lot of flaws or inaccuracies in them. And people point them out in Board meetings and posts. But the issue is that everyone is so biased against the opposers of Option H, that they just choose to see someone as whining or complaining.

But the point about declining enrollment still remains, and makes sense practically and financially.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Maybe this would have ended up in a sh-- storm no matter what, but it would help if Taylor knew how to engage communities to bring them along with his vision. He sows division, because he doesn't give communities the time to process his plan, and then he wonders why people hate his plan and him.

This was always going to be a shirtshow because Crown abuts the Wootton boundary and any boundary change was probably going to remove a community from Wootton's boundaries and the Wootton community is very vocal and engaged. They had the numbers of survey responses for options 1-4 and there was a disproportionately large response from the Wootton cluster.

The boundary ended up not changing much; outside of Cold Spring, everybody is staying at Wootton, but it's still a shirtshow.

P.S. Agreed that Taylor isn't good at this, but even the most charismatic leader is not going to get a good result with this much change.

And we get to do this all over again in a year when the ES/MS boundary study starts.

You are right. This was always going to be a shit show but I think Taylor made a woefully wrong calculus and made it into a bigger shit show.

His strategy seemed to have been avoid engagement as much as possible, and do things as fast as possible. (He came to Wootton nine days before the vote!!!)

What he should have done is come to the community before option H came out and start campaigning for the cause. It didn’t have to be this way.

You people are ridiculous. Taylor is not an elected official. He’s a hired executive. The written materials explaining the rationale for Option H were detailed and persuasive. The Wootton community is getting a sweet deal, all things considered. You have built up such a head of steam in your meetings that you have lost all sense of perspective, and have no idea how entitled you’re coming off to everyone else in the county (and region, as word gets out about your antics).

The operative word is “persuasive” - but to whom? Certainly not to the people opposed to Option H. Perhaps it is you who has lost all sense of perspective in immediately believing MCPS is infallible, as well as lacking the ability to see any other perspective other than that of MCPS. As for entitlement, that is a loaded word meant to imply those opposing Option H are acting inappropriately en masse. MCPS did not engage the community appropriately and this is why they are upset, not acting entitled. The fact that you cannot see this, and dismiss their complaints out of hand, says more about you than it does them.

Take this canned ChatGPT response elsewhere. I’m not dismissing anyone’s complaints immediately or out of hand, but only after considering the costs and benefits of alternatives. Agreeing with MCPS here does not mean only or always agreeing with MCPS. It only means that in this instance they are doing what’s in the greater good - something you Wootton narcissists refuse to acknowledge. People at Magruder and elsewhere would love to be offered a new building like Crown in exchange for a slightly longer commute (and, of course, Crown will be closer for others).

Grow up, and for once model some good behavior for your children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The video had a lot more pro-H people in the audience than I expected based on the description. I haven’t watched the whole thing but I saw 3: a current student, parent, and counselor who talked about the impact of the condition of the school on their work.

Probably Dufief losers.

Classy… there was a student who spoke you know? I was nervous for him. And I was nervous for the staff too. The angry mob was very angry. Maybe they should have to go sit in that counselor’s office and work for a week. People seem to be losing perspective here.

PP apparently knows that student and that he attended DuFief ES; therefore his views on mold are invalid. /s

[Anonymous]

Enrollment has been declining for years and I recall reading about it in the media before 2025. Taylor (whose decisions on the regional program model and his approach to the boundary study I strongly dislike) is just the first Superintendent to suggest doing anything about it.

[Anonymous]

Btw there is no alternate universe in which Option H was presented in the "correct" way with "enough" time and community engagement such that nobody got upset. The level of anger we are seeing was going to happen no matter what. Because this is about property values, not education.

[Anonymous]

I generally supported Wootton parents pushing back on Option H as I thought procedurally MCPS did not things in a way that was correct or respectful of the community.

That being said, the way many anti-Option H parents conducted themselves during the Taylor Q&A was off putting and unhinged. I appreciate the fighting spirit, but the underlying racism and classism in some of the Q&A was hard to ignore.

[Anonymous]

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Full recording of the Q&A is up thanks to Save Wootton.

At what minute did Taylor tell the audience that he was adding a bus depot to their neighborhoid?

Well when did Taylor tell them about the bus depot?????

I had to ask someone else but I don't think it was from this meeting and someone picked it up from the documents from the boarddocs for a previous meeting.

You mean Taylor forgot to mention his plan to add a bus depot to the Wootton Cluster?

In all fairness, I think the meeting was more in regards to the opening and move to Crown.

And from what I understand, the property they're talking about is near the borderline of the Wootton/Churchill boundaries.

So if it is true, I haven't seen the proposal myself, I see it as MCPS sticking it to the Wayside parents for refusing to go to Wootton in the initial proposals.

Similar to how I can't help but wonder if Wootton constantly getting pushed off the CIP was retaliatory due to them refusing to take in Fallsgrove.

Like I said, I'm probably a conspiracy theorist so maybe read too much into things.

In all fairness, Taylor hasn't told the Wootton community he is adding a Diesel Bus Depot to their neighborhood. That's 250 buses on their roads each school day. That's the traffic those neighborhoods would have to commute through to get to Crown. It's totally relevant to the conversation about transportation away from Wootton HS.

Taylor added a bus depot to Wootton and to the Northwest HS neighborhood way before any of the boundary discussions. He just didn't bother telling them or even mentioning it in his Capital Budget presentation.

[Anonymous]

yep a good example of classism and racism at its finest

[Anonymous]

Honest question-- why do people care about the bus depot? What's the issue with that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 1hr 2min on the video the sidewalks rant lady with kids who graduated 13 years ago is a trip.

There's two posts talking about this lady and I think her message got lost a bit or people just take things out of context and see what they want to see.

I think her points were:

-MCPS and Montgomery County had thought or tried to implement pedestrian safety but failed to do so with the inadequate sidewalks from the Willows to Frost. So what guarantee do families have now that they can trust the plan for pedestrian safety to Crown

-then I guess her point about Lakewood was that the renovations were done in a year and a half with the utilization of a holding school

I'm probably a bit biased too but watching the video I didn't think it was as bad as posts on here seem to indicate. Maybe things went a bit off the rails towards the end. But I've seen worse in other school systems that didn't even involve school closures/moving.

ps have fun and we'll see how you all react when your local elementary or local schools close due to the upcoming boundary studies or to align with the regional programs. Kind of different when it actually affects you right?

Not sure what you mean. The woman ranting about sidewalks last had kids in school during the Obama presidency. Meanwhile you have a school counselor talking about kids passing out in her 80-degree office.

Or you can look at it as she's been there and done that. And she's questioning MCPS's thought process and rationale in their decisions because they've proven to have issues before.

And all signs are pointing to either Ridgeview MS or Lakelands Park MS closing, due to Fields Road ES being moved to Frost to align with the regional boundaries.

Even when the initial proposals were first presented and only affected a small portion of the Wootton community, initially the PTA stance at the schools were that the issues were not in their control or scope. But now look, the entire Wootton community is drawn in, just like those initial community members warned.

This can very well just be the first that we see MCPS making decisions on unclear processes, data and decisions.

And we can very well see more like this. What they're closing one of the QO middle schools because they had to send an elementary school to another middle school to put them in a different regional program (where there are questions about the costs and logistics for the regional program)

With the elementary school boundary changes, other school communities will need to face the prospect of either their current school will close or they will be reassigned to another boundary.

With the Rosemont/Crown contingent. It really is about getting the Wootton students for them. Because look at how vehement some of the opposition when it's suggested that the Crown site be used as a holding school. Because the suggestion is to keep things the same for them and Fields Road until Crown is open as it's own school. So Fields Road would still go to QO in the meantime. Does Crown go to Gaithersburg HS? But then you see posters saying how it's not fair to the Crown families. How is it not fair? It's just no changes for them right now. But that means they are the ones that want to segregate as well because they don't want to go to the Gaithersburg schools and even better if they can get the Wootton students to go to their school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Btw there is no alternate universe in which Option H was presented in the "correct" way with "enough" time and community engagement such that nobody got upset. The level of anger we are seeing was going to happen no matter what. Because this is about property values, not education.

I think that's definitely the case for the vocal empty-nesters who won't be impacted in any real way by this, but seem to be concerned about the demographics their house is zoned for changing slightly.