Cliff Notes summary of MCPS boundary study fight?

[Anonymous]

One thing that I think people are missing is that if your child is shifted to a new school, so too will all of the kids who your child went to ES with. These may no longer be your child’s best friends, but it won’t be an entirely foreign environment. And the whole neighborhood will change the culture of the new school, too. It won’t be the same school once 200 or more new kids arrive.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Cliff notes version of the boundary study fight is this map:

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/WalterJohnsonHS.pdf

plus a search of values of homes in in southern Kensington that currently feed into Walter Johnson but are unlikely to continue as such since they are much closer to Einstein.

Sounds like the solution is to fix Einstein so it's a more desirable school.

Define "fix" and "desirable."

The county believes the redistricting will "fix" issues with reputation.

yawn Einstein has a cohort of top performing kids. can someone explain what the issue is.... oh wait property values

These cohorts are in bubbles. I've taught cohorts. They travel in groups throughout the day. Furthermore, these cohorts are a small part of the school population. So what's your point?

That's basically what a cohort is. Otherwise it's not a cohort.

no sh*t, Sherlock

schools w/in schools - not exactly a way to reinforce the strategy behind redistricting . . .

All the studies indicate it will improve things.

what? cohorts? (You certainly know the reason we have magnets in MCPS, yes?)

or redistricting?

If it's the latter, only time will tell. Until then, let's study Ho Co very closely.

Yes, the BOE believes redistricting will improve their ability to educate based on mountains of data. I know some people are afraid that their property values might be affected and are using all kinds of excuses to deny the need, but its mostly just misguided fear-mongering.

wow traction from my post haha

to be entirely clear. If your kids are high performing they will be fine in Einstein since there is a high performing cohort. At the same time, I don't believe switching kids will change much. The lower performing kids will still be lower performing and high performing kids will be higher performing wherever they go. It's the parents/home environment not a specific high school that impacts performance. So all of this is about nothing and won't accomplish jack. It will impact property values and I would be upset if I was going to be impacted negatively.

+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

[Anonymous]

Not sure why the entire county wide boundary study is about Kensington. That’s a tiny little piece of our very large county. A lot of kids from that area are at the Catholic schools anyways and not sure those families would really be hurt too much by decreasing property values (those families own second homes out at the beach etc).

The conversation also repeatedly devolves into Einstein-bashing, which is not true or fair to the kids there.

And no, I don’t live in Kensington, but I’m tired of hearing about this one particular issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

And they won't. Why do people keep insisting that this is in the cards. It's not.

[Anonymous]

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I don't necessarily agree that such a redistricting makes sense, unless one school is significantly more crowded than the other, or if redistricting provides a significant increase in the number kids able to walk to school. The existing boundaries were known to the families when they moved to the neighborhood, Changing school district boundaries means that kids won't go to the same school as their older siblings, and that parents and students must adjust to a new school with new teachers and administration.

I see no reason for county-wide redistricting, but rather individual district boundaries should be adjusted as needed to address overcrowding and new school construction.

Lots of kids go to different schools than their siblings did, particularly in a place as transient and with as many different options as Montgomery County. I'm confident some zones will remain intact as a result of this study and the eventual boundary revisions. Maybe even most. But the thing about a comprehensive study is that it opens up options that a more limited analysis does not.

If they need to move some kids out of an existing zone to fill another zone (Woodward), then it makes sense to look comprehensively at whether the first school needs a revision to relieve crowding one school over.

So you are saying that we need a county wide boundary study every time a new school is built?

Well, right now a lot of the boundaries go back to the early 1980s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why the entire county wide boundary study is about Kensington. That’s a tiny little piece of our very large county. A lot of kids from that area are at the Catholic schools anyways and not sure those families would really be hurt too much by decreasing property values (those families own second homes out at the beach etc).

The conversation also repeatedly devolves into Einstein-bashing, which is not true or fair to the kids there.

And no, I don’t live in Kensington, but I’m tired of hearing about this one particular issue.

Because one of the excuses that people against diversity love to use is about keeping communities together, but part of Kensington provides a real example where kids are currently bused to a school that isn't geographically the closest but nobody is complaining about that. I think it's used to expose the lack of sincerity or sheer hypocrisy of this argument.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s time for a new example.

[Anonymous]

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+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

And they won't. Why do people keep insisting that this is in the cards. It's not.

Sure, but what about places like Churchill and Whitman, where in order to make an impact on diversity, the student would need to be bused quite far?

[Anonymous]

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+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

And they won't. Why do people keep insisting that this is in the cards. It's not.

Sure, but what about places like Churchill and Whitman, where in order to make an impact on diversity, the student would need to be bused quite far?

MCPS IS NOT GOING TO REASSIGN KIDS TO SCHOOLS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTY.

[Anonymous]

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+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

And they won't. Why do people keep insisting that this is in the cards. It's not.

Sure, but what about places like Churchill and Whitman, where in order to make an impact on diversity, the student would need to be bused quite far?

Students are already bussed in both of those cluster (some over 4 miles). The study should looks at ways to fix this and other factors.

[Anonymous]

My property tax assessment increased substantially yet again as this boundary decision looms. Anyone else concerned or am I being unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My property tax assessment increased substantially yet again as this boundary decision looms. Anyone else concerned or am I being unreasonable?

There is no boundary decision looming. So yes, you are being unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My property tax assessment increased substantially yet again as this boundary decision looms. Anyone else concerned or am I being unreasonable?

There is no boundary decision looming. So yes, you are being unreasonable.

Thank you? And there is also a phantom MCPS boundary study fight, right?

[Anonymous]

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+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

And they won't. Why do people keep insisting that this is in the cards. It's not.

Sure, but what about places like Churchill and Whitman, where in order to make an impact on diversity, the student would need to be bused quite far?

MCPS IS NOT GOING TO REASSIGN KIDS TO SCHOOLS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTY.

DP. But there will be no way to meaningfully diversity Whitman and Churchill without significant bus rides.

So, either MCPS will have to accept fairly segregated schools, notwithstanding their desire to diversify, or they will need to accept longer bus rides, notwithstanding their contention that that won’t happen.

No one knows which route they will choose yet. But they are both plausible possibilities.

[Anonymous]

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+100, and we are zoned for Einstein. I know my kid will do the same no matter which school he’s in. I’d hate
For my kid to be bussed across the county for the sake of diversity when he can already get that at his home schools, which he can walk to.

And they won't. Why do people keep insisting that this is in the cards. It's not.

Sure, but what about places like Churchill and Whitman, where in order to make an impact on diversity, the student would need to be bused quite far?

MCPS IS NOT GOING TO REASSIGN KIDS TO SCHOOLS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTY.

DP. But there will be no way to meaningfully diversity Whitman and Churchill without significant bus rides.

So, either MCPS will have to accept fairly segregated schools, notwithstanding their desire to diversify, or they will need to accept longer bus rides, notwithstanding their contention that that won’t happen.

No one knows which route they will choose yet. But they are both plausible possibilities.

Perhaps, but seems like you're jumping to a lot of conclusions prematurely.