Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up
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Anonymous
You cannot expect perfection. There will always be some kids who can walk to one school but instead get bussed somewhere else. |
Anonymous
But the whole point of option 4 is to prioritize proximity. |
Anonymous
I guess they could have left Wheaton HS even more overcrowded than they did in Option 4. Is that what you want? |
Anonymous
No one cares about wheaton or dcc. Woodward was created for WJ. |
Anonymous
| The big issue with bussing lower income kids is they lack transportation outside school hours for sports and extra curricular, where they cannot catch the activity bus that has limited stops. If they miss the bus, parents may not have transportation to get them there. |
Anonymous
Taxpayers do not want a tax increase to fund another high school so entitled WJ families are going to have to get over it. |
Anonymous
It is impossible to have every low income student placed in a walk zone. Many currently have to take the bus and have this struggle. |
Anonymous
Techinically, yes kids are in walk zone, but most of them have a longish walk which crosses busy Viers Mill Rd and connecticut Rd. All kids from Viers Mill have to cross zone going to Sergent Shriver ES first then reach to Wheaton HS. A good portion of the zone your are referring is south of VMES, even from VMES if you take google walk it shows 38-40 minutes walk one way. So for many kids it's 38-40 kids walk to Wheaton vs bus to WJ. We do bus kids from Viers Mill to WJ in modified option 4 when they are are in walk zone, but they are not like short 5-10 minutes walk. Most of them will have 30-40 minutes walk. If we try to bus kids going to a closer ES( Sergent Shriver) with 5-10 minutes walk then I do see bigger negative in bussing those kids. I live in the area and I will hugely prefer my kid taking a bus to WJ. |
Anonymous
Picking boundary is not an exercise in maximizing one factor. It's trying to get balance of all 4 factors as much as possible. BOE should make decision to balance everything as much as possible. That's the goal. Goal is not pick most proximity or most efficient utilization or uniform diversity etc if it means lots of big negatives. Goal is - try to balance as much as possible without any huge negative. If providing a bus to kids having 40 minutes walk one way makes all schools at or below 100% and avoids making WJ another Whitman then I see it as a good compromise. If we try to bus kids who live 5-10 minutes away to balance other things then I see it as not so good a compromise. Having said that some time we have go for even second compromise but we are not dealing with that kind of compromise here. You correctly pointed out a negative, but positive outweighs the negaive by a large margin in this modification of option 4. Just my opinion. - RM parent |
Anonymous
| I love RM parent. |
Anonymous
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I am a huge fan of Charlie Munger( who was a partner of Warren Buffett and recently passed away). He has changed my life. One of the mental model he taught me is that instead of trying to pick the best outcome, we are better off by making sure to avoid bad outcomes first. I manage an investment partnership and I use that model to avoid poor investments first before thinking about how much returns I will make.
Both may sound the same but they are very different. We shouldn't pick modified option 4 or any modification trying to maximine one things. We should first see if we are creating big negative in any option and try to avoid those big negatives. Once we can avoid big negatives then we should pick the best from left over options. Modified option 4 avoids any big negative. We should try to find more alternatives which avoids big negative. Once we have few of them then pick the best among that. Now next question some one may ask, what are big negatives in trying to make a boundary. -------------------------------- Big negatives  Just my opinion)
Leaving schools over capacity like 110% or something similar while some empty seats are there in other place. It should be a big NO. Bussing kids long distance when they have a short walk like 5-10 minutes. It should be a big NO. Bussing anyone for more than 20 minutes bus rides. It should be a big NO. Creating a much lower and higher FARMS rate schools when schools are very close to each other. it should be a big NO. Creating split articulation twice for the same set of kids. It should be a big NO. ------------------------------------- I listed whatever came in my mind. Collectively we can try to list more big negatives and try to avoid them as mush as possible. Some time it may not be possible to avoid all of them but we should attempt to do that. After that we may be left with some potential options for boundaries and no matter which one gets picked, collectively our county will be better off, MCPS will be better off and our next generation will be better off. I feel we missed a trick big time here and our hands are tied due to not looking ES boundaries at the same time. By looking at ES, we could have avoided the split articulation problem. Anyway, I feel modified option 4 is one candidate. By putting entire VM to WJ, I was also trying to avoid split articulation. We should try to find more modified options which avoids big negatives. Once we have few of them then no matter which one we pick as a final option, colllectively we will be better off. We are not going to find a perfect solution, but we can attempt to pick something with the least amount of big flaws. Happy fathers day to all Dads! - RM parent |
Anonymous
WJ parent here, and no it isn't. Woodward was renovated and reopened to relieve overcrowding at WJ and DCC, primarily Einstein. The boundary assessment, along with the one for Crown, should, for all schools included: -Relieve overcrowding (including accounting for all the building in the pipeline, so none of these schools is overcrowded in 5-7-10 years) -Balance the 4 FAA priorities, not focusing on any one of them -Get rid of split articulation where it currently exists and not create more of it -Balance school assignments so none have significant FARMs rates -Create school assignments where kids who could walk to one school would not need to get bussed elsewhere Perhaps this is too much for the contractors being paid millions of dollars to do it |
Anonymous
+1 Woodward was a solution for WJ and DCC over crowding. It was not just for WJ. Anyway, any resource is for entire MCPS and it does not belong to one or two schools. Hopefully, we pick a good boundary. - RM parent |
Anonymous
Me too. can he present this for us to BOE? I'm a VM parent in favor of modified Option 4 sending my kid to WJ. |
Anonymous
Just give Woodward to WJ. The DCC has always been neglected and ignored. Nothing new, it will be ok without it. |