Third round options on Woodward Boundary study

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12/10/2025 23:13

Subject: Third round options on Woodward Boundary study

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Anonymous wrote:Option F clearly balances facility utilization, proximity and demographics quite well. And without doing anything completely insane. I love it but I wish there was an Option H to keep SSIMS open but everything else the same.

Option F flips two elementary schools (Wood Acres and Bethesda Elementary) to the others middle and high school for no apparent reason. Neither school population benefits from the switch. Both populations have a further distance for high school and Bethesda Elementary kids lose walkability to BCC in a downtown core. It increases bus, car traffic, and safety issues.

I mean I don't care if they switch them back as it doesn't affect me, but it is important to balance demographics as having a high needs population makes it harder to manage a school and they don't get extra funding for this. And neither Wood Acres nor Bethesda would be buses very far - Bethesda ES wouldn't require busing at all. And Wood Acres kids will get a bus instead of being driven by their parents/friends which will reduce traffic and increase safety. I get people will be upset but there are real benefits to this.

I have no stake here (I’m in the other study area), but have you ever been in downtown Bethesda between 7-9AM or 3-6PM? The last thing we need is more cars/buses on the road in Bethesda!

While the distance may not initially sound terrible, when you factor in the time for bus stops and travel on major roads during rush hour, the bus commute could easily be 30-40 minutes. More travel time equals less sleep for teenagers.

Or, parents make sure their kids go to bed earlier. You clearly have a stake as you are commenting.

I do have a stake as I have two kids with sleep disorders that would be negativelyimpacted. It is hard enough to get them to sleep at a decent time in elementary and middle school. I will have little ability to control when they go to bed in high school. We literally switched one of the kids from private school to public school because of the later start time and ability to get more sleep.

You need to homeschool if you want a school program that wil cater to your kids individually.

Please. It’s not unreasonable to expect your kid in public school to attend the high school closest to them in proximity. The sleep issue is such a big deal for high school students that schools across the country have been reconsidering high school start times to allow kids to start later. No one says parents should just get their kids to bed earlier. Teenagers are wired to stay awake later in the evening and need to sleep later in the morning.

It is much more asinine to make an entire school district switch to a further away high school so the county can say they had a minor increase in diversity.

You cannot have kids in HS or ones in activities. If you move school later, sports are later and not all schools have lights, then the kids have to walk home in the dark as there is no bus. And, if you move things later, kids just go to bed later. That may work for you but not the rest of us. The walk isn't safe and we don't get bus so the earlier is better to drop them off on the way to work.