Woodward HS boundary study - BCC, Blair, Einstein, WJ, Kennedy, Northwood, Wheaton, Whitman impacts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of this is because of poor planning. Some of that is on MCPS, but most of that is on the county (M-NCPPC/Planning Board/County Council). It only takes one period of time where development-favorable policies are enacted -- increased density allowances, reprieve of impact taxes, exceptions to land set-asides for municipal needs (schools among them) -- and developers jump, with there really being no way to unwind it later. Throw in some short-sighted school closures that came with long-term, giveaway leases to favored special interests by the county executive/council. Then cook that up with 25 years of chronic council underfunding of capital projects ("Hey, let's just ask them to push these out a few years..."), and you get too many students and not enough school spaces.

This has happened in many areas of the county, but down-county, most especially Wheaton & below, was particularly affected because of the relative scarcity of undeveloped land combined with relatively high density. And when Blair got moved to its current outside-the-beltway location, it was during that facility closure period, so they weren't attending to back-filling to cover the deeper inside-the-beltway area. West of the tracks still had Whitman & BCC, and they got insulated (what a shock!).

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

If that ends up being the case, and if more holistic boundary shifts are avoided, it will be because of the fine efforts of the W-area contingent, those here and elsewhere. Like it or not, the Federal government delegates school administration to the states (or, perhaps more Constitutionally precise, it is reserved to the states, despite any Federal funding/regulation), and MD delegates it to county-level districts, not town. MCPS, then, has the responsibility to provide reasonably equivalent educational services to all of its students (equal protection). Neighborhood schools, sensible boundaries and easily-accessible magnets are great ideas, but only if you're making sure to get your county decision-makers in line to pony up to provide that to everybody, not just ensure/preserve that for yourself.

There's no land in SS for a high school, and MoCo doesn't have the stomach to spend the tens of million to acquire (and still more to deal with all the lawsuits when they use adverse possession to assemble a property) when the Woodward property was already in the portfolio.

As to WJ - this year it's 650 students over capacity. That's more than half the entire DCC overage across all 5 high schools.

I don't begrudge them doing something to relieve WJ's overcrowding. That is clearly necessary. But they should have built the addition at Einstein regardless, which makes much more sense than having Woodward as a solution for the DCC. The new seats at Northwood and Kennedy aren't enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of this is because of poor planning. Some of that is on MCPS, but most of that is on the county (M-NCPPC/Planning Board/County Council). It only takes one period of time where development-favorable policies are enacted -- increased density allowances, reprieve of impact taxes, exceptions to land set-asides for municipal needs (schools among them) -- and developers jump, with there really being no way to unwind it later. Throw in some short-sighted school closures that came with long-term, giveaway leases to favored special interests by the county executive/council. Then cook that up with 25 years of chronic council underfunding of capital projects ("Hey, let's just ask them to push these out a few years..."), and you get too many students and not enough school spaces.

This has happened in many areas of the county, but down-county, most especially Wheaton & below, was particularly affected because of the relative scarcity of undeveloped land combined with relatively high density. And when Blair got moved to its current outside-the-beltway location, it was during that facility closure period, so they weren't attending to back-filling to cover the deeper inside-the-beltway area. West of the tracks still had Whitman & BCC, and they got insulated (what a shock!).

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

If that ends up being the case, and if more holistic boundary shifts are avoided, it will be because of the fine efforts of the W-area contingent, those here and elsewhere. Like it or not, the Federal government delegates school administration to the states (or, perhaps more Constitutionally precise, it is reserved to the states, despite any Federal funding/regulation), and MD delegates it to county-level districts, not town. MCPS, then, has the responsibility to provide reasonably equivalent educational services to all of its students (equal protection). Neighborhood schools, sensible boundaries and easily-accessible magnets are great ideas, but only if you're making sure to get your county decision-makers in line to pony up to provide that to everybody, not just ensure/preserve that for yourself.

There's no land in SS for a high school, and MoCo doesn't have the stomach to spend the tens of million to acquire (and still more to deal with all the lawsuits when they use adverse possession to assemble a property) when the Woodward property was already in the portfolio.

As to WJ - this year it's 650 students over capacity. That's more than half the entire DCC overage across all 5 high schools.

I don't begrudge them doing something to relieve WJ's overcrowding. That is clearly necessary. But they should have built the addition at Einstein regardless, which makes much more sense than having Woodward as a solution for the DCC. The new seats at Northwood and Kennedy aren't enough.

They may yet add to Einstein. It's a small property, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of this is because of poor planning. Some of that is on MCPS, but most of that is on the county (M-NCPPC/Planning Board/County Council). It only takes one period of time where development-favorable policies are enacted -- increased density allowances, reprieve of impact taxes, exceptions to land set-asides for municipal needs (schools among them) -- and developers jump, with there really being no way to unwind it later. Throw in some short-sighted school closures that came with long-term, giveaway leases to favored special interests by the county executive/council. Then cook that up with 25 years of chronic council underfunding of capital projects ("Hey, let's just ask them to push these out a few years..."), and you get too many students and not enough school spaces.

This has happened in many areas of the county, but down-county, most especially Wheaton & below, was particularly affected because of the relative scarcity of undeveloped land combined with relatively high density. And when Blair got moved to its current outside-the-beltway location, it was during that facility closure period, so they weren't attending to back-filling to cover the deeper inside-the-beltway area. West of the tracks still had Whitman & BCC, and they got insulated (what a shock!).

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

If that ends up being the case, and if more holistic boundary shifts are avoided, it will be because of the fine efforts of the W-area contingent, those here and elsewhere. Like it or not, the Federal government delegates school administration to the states (or, perhaps more Constitutionally precise, it is reserved to the states, despite any Federal funding/regulation), and MD delegates it to county-level districts, not town. MCPS, then, has the responsibility to provide reasonably equivalent educational services to all of its students (equal protection). Neighborhood schools, sensible boundaries and easily-accessible magnets are great ideas, but only if you're making sure to get your county decision-makers in line to pony up to provide that to everybody, not just ensure/preserve that for yourself.

There's no land in SS for a high school, and MoCo doesn't have the stomach to spend the tens of million to acquire (and still more to deal with all the lawsuits when they use adverse possession to assemble a property) when the Woodward property was already in the portfolio.

As to WJ - this year it's 650 students over capacity. That's more than half the entire DCC overage across all 5 high schools.

That's part of the point. As noted above, inner SS/down-county has suffered more from poor planning decisions. Making up for that might be difficult cost more, but it doesn't mean it's the wrong thing, given equal protection requiring reasonably equivalent education service levels, of which facilities/overcrowding is a part. That would mean either holding off on projects elsewhere or having the County Council add a lot more funding (and tax $). Or you could try to get the conservative-majority court to overturn Brown, as they did with Roe...

As with others, no problem relieving WJ. There's nearby capacity, though, especially in a relative sense, and the objective should be not to have overcapacity anywhere. Or, at minimum, doing our best to keep overcapacity from affecting one group/area more than others. That means relieving DCC, and a Woodward magnet just won't do a good enough job. Neither will moving 200 magnet students from Blair. It's got to be more holistic. Or unjust. You get to choose which you support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of this is because of poor planning. Some of that is on MCPS, but most of that is on the county (M-NCPPC/Planning Board/County Council). It only takes one period of time where development-favorable policies are enacted -- increased density allowances, reprieve of impact taxes, exceptions to land set-asides for municipal needs (schools among them) -- and developers jump, with there really being no way to unwind it later. Throw in some short-sighted school closures that came with long-term, giveaway leases to favored special interests by the county executive/council. Then cook that up with 25 years of chronic council underfunding of capital projects ("Hey, let's just ask them to push these out a few years..."), and you get too many students and not enough school spaces.

This has happened in many areas of the county, but down-county, most especially Wheaton & below, was particularly affected because of the relative scarcity of undeveloped land combined with relatively high density. And when Blair got moved to its current outside-the-beltway location, it was during that facility closure period, so they weren't attending to back-filling to cover the deeper inside-the-beltway area. West of the tracks still had Whitman & BCC, and they got insulated (what a shock!).

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

If that ends up being the case, and if more holistic boundary shifts are avoided, it will be because of the fine efforts of the W-area contingent, those here and elsewhere. Like it or not, the Federal government delegates school administration to the states (or, perhaps more Constitutionally precise, it is reserved to the states, despite any Federal funding/regulation), and MD delegates it to county-level districts, not town. MCPS, then, has the responsibility to provide reasonably equivalent educational services to all of its students (equal protection). Neighborhood schools, sensible boundaries and easily-accessible magnets are great ideas, but only if you're making sure to get your county decision-makers in line to pony up to provide that to everybody, not just ensure/preserve that for yourself.

There's no land in SS for a high school, and MoCo doesn't have the stomach to spend the tens of million to acquire (and still more to deal with all the lawsuits when they use adverse possession to assemble a property) when the Woodward property was already in the portfolio.

As to WJ - this year it's 650 students over capacity. That's more than half the entire DCC overage across all 5 high schools.

I don't begrudge them doing something to relieve WJ's overcrowding. That is clearly necessary. But they should have built the addition at Einstein regardless, which makes much more sense than having Woodward as a solution for the DCC. The new seats at Northwood and Kennedy aren't enough.

They may yet add to Einstein. It's a small property, though.

It's not so small. We'll have 15 portables next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of this is because of poor planning. Some of that is on MCPS, but most of that is on the county (M-NCPPC/Planning Board/County Council). It only takes one period of time where development-favorable policies are enacted -- increased density allowances, reprieve of impact taxes, exceptions to land set-asides for municipal needs (schools among them) -- and developers jump, with there really being no way to unwind it later. Throw in some short-sighted school closures that came with long-term, giveaway leases to favored special interests by the county executive/council. Then cook that up with 25 years of chronic council underfunding of capital projects ("Hey, let's just ask them to push these out a few years..."), and you get too many students and not enough school spaces.

This has happened in many areas of the county, but down-county, most especially Wheaton & below, was particularly affected because of the relative scarcity of undeveloped land combined with relatively high density. And when Blair got moved to its current outside-the-beltway location, it was during that facility closure period, so they weren't attending to back-filling to cover the deeper inside-the-beltway area. West of the tracks still had Whitman & BCC, and they got insulated (what a shock!).

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

If that ends up being the case, and if more holistic boundary shifts are avoided, it will be because of the fine efforts of the W-area contingent, those here and elsewhere. Like it or not, the Federal government delegates school administration to the states (or, perhaps more Constitutionally precise, it is reserved to the states, despite any Federal funding/regulation), and MD delegates it to county-level districts, not town. MCPS, then, has the responsibility to provide reasonably equivalent educational services to all of its students (equal protection). Neighborhood schools, sensible boundaries and easily-accessible magnets are great ideas, but only if you're making sure to get your county decision-makers in line to pony up to provide that to everybody, not just ensure/preserve that for yourself.

There's no land in SS for a high school, and MoCo doesn't have the stomach to spend the tens of million to acquire (and still more to deal with all the lawsuits when they use adverse possession to assemble a property) when the Woodward property was already in the portfolio.

As to WJ - this year it's 650 students over capacity. That's more than half the entire DCC overage across all 5 high schools.

That's part of the point. As noted above, inner SS/down-county has suffered more from poor planning decisions. Making up for that might be difficult cost more, but it doesn't mean it's the wrong thing, given equal protection requiring reasonably equivalent education service levels, of which facilities/overcrowding is a part. That would mean either holding off on projects elsewhere or having the County Council add a lot more funding (and tax $). Or you could try to get the conservative-majority court to overturn Brown, as they did with Roe...

As with others, no problem relieving WJ. There's nearby capacity, though, especially in a relative sense, and the objective should be not to have overcapacity anywhere. Or, at minimum, doing our best to keep overcapacity from affecting one group/area more than others. That means relieving DCC, and a Woodward magnet just won't do a good enough job. Neither will moving 200 magnet students from Blair. It's got to be more holistic. Or unjust. You get to choose which you support.

I choose not to support people who want the Supreme Court to overturn Brown vs. Board of Education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

It's surprising how many people think you can just generally turn park land owned by M-NCPPC into something else you might happen to like better. You can't, except under certain exceptional circumstances like Rock Creek Hills Local Park (now Silver Creek MS), or maybe Parkside. And you especially can't for Jesup Blair Park. I don't know why MCPS puts M-NCPPC park land on the site selection lists in the first place.

To say nothing of somehow building a high school around the Jesup Blair House.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of this is because of poor planning. Some of that is on MCPS, but most of that is on the county (M-NCPPC/Planning Board/County Council). It only takes one period of time where development-favorable policies are enacted -- increased density allowances, reprieve of impact taxes, exceptions to land set-asides for municipal needs (schools among them) -- and developers jump, with there really being no way to unwind it later. Throw in some short-sighted school closures that came with long-term, giveaway leases to favored special interests by the county executive/council. Then cook that up with 25 years of chronic council underfunding of capital projects ("Hey, let's just ask them to push these out a few years..."), and you get too many students and not enough school spaces.

This has happened in many areas of the county, but down-county, most especially Wheaton & below, was particularly affected because of the relative scarcity of undeveloped land combined with relatively high density. And when Blair got moved to its current outside-the-beltway location, it was during that facility closure period, so they weren't attending to back-filling to cover the deeper inside-the-beltway area. West of the tracks still had Whitman & BCC, and they got insulated (what a shock!).

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

If that ends up being the case, and if more holistic boundary shifts are avoided, it will be because of the fine efforts of the W-area contingent, those here and elsewhere. Like it or not, the Federal government delegates school administration to the states (or, perhaps more Constitutionally precise, it is reserved to the states, despite any Federal funding/regulation), and MD delegates it to county-level districts, not town. MCPS, then, has the responsibility to provide reasonably equivalent educational services to all of its students (equal protection). Neighborhood schools, sensible boundaries and easily-accessible magnets are great ideas, but only if you're making sure to get your county decision-makers in line to pony up to provide that to everybody, not just ensure/preserve that for yourself.

There's no land in SS for a high school, and MoCo doesn't have the stomach to spend the tens of million to acquire (and still more to deal with all the lawsuits when they use adverse possession to assemble a property) when the Woodward property was already in the portfolio.

As to WJ - this year it's 650 students over capacity. That's more than half the entire DCC overage across all 5 high schools.

That's part of the point. As noted above, inner SS/down-county has suffered more from poor planning decisions. Making up for that might be difficult cost more, but it doesn't mean it's the wrong thing, given equal protection requiring reasonably equivalent education service levels, of which facilities/overcrowding is a part. That would mean either holding off on projects elsewhere or having the County Council add a lot more funding (and tax $). Or you could try to get the conservative-majority court to overturn Brown, as they did with Roe...

As with others, no problem relieving WJ. There's nearby capacity, though, especially in a relative sense, and the objective should be not to have overcapacity anywhere. Or, at minimum, doing our best to keep overcapacity from affecting one group/area more than others. That means relieving DCC, and a Woodward magnet just won't do a good enough job. Neither will moving 200 magnet students from Blair. It's got to be more holistic. Or unjust. You get to choose which you support.

I choose not to support people who want the Supreme Court to overturn Brown vs. Board of Education.

Just to be clear, that part was written as tongue-in-cheek strawman hyperbole, for effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

It's surprising how many people think you can just generally turn park land owned by M-NCPPC into something else you might happen to like better. You can't, except under certain exceptional circumstances like Rock Creek Hills Local Park (now Silver Creek MS), or maybe Parkside. And you especially can't for Jesup Blair Park. I don't know why MCPS puts M-NCPPC park land on the site selection lists in the first place.

To say nothing of somehow building a high school around the Jesup Blair House.

Are you kidding? It may not be what should be done, but it is what almost always happens, especially because the county doesn't proactively purchase land for future need and developers typically jump when they can make more money from temporary relief of set-aside requirements. That leaves little choice but parkland when it comes to back-filling for even moderately developed areas.

Meanwhile, historical sites have been relocated before, and the house could, alternately, be incorporated into a HS campus, continuing to serve a public purpose in line with its original donation. Not saying this is a preferred way to go, but the question had been what the options were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair has two magnets. Why not move one of them to Northwood when it reopens with more space?

Northwood's expanded capacity is already going to be filled up with kids reassigned from Blair or other DCC schools.

They could move a magnet from Blair to Northwood, instead of reassigning kids from other DCC schools. Why should a super overcrowded school house 2 magnets? And that way, both schools would get the benefit of having a magnet.

The whole point of expanding capacity at Northwood was to add capacity to the DCC.

This would have the same impact on capacity without needing to redraw boundaries.

Moving one magnet program? No, it wouldn't. How big do you think the magnet programs are?

Someone can correct me, but I think the Blair magnets each have 75-100 kids per grade. That would probably fill the extra seats at Northwood. Having a magnet (especially if specialty classes are also offered to non-magnet students) could also make Northwood more appealing in the lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

It's surprising how many people think you can just generally turn park land owned by M-NCPPC into something else you might happen to like better. You can't, except under certain exceptional circumstances like Rock Creek Hills Local Park (now Silver Creek MS), or maybe Parkside. And you especially can't for Jesup Blair Park. I don't know why MCPS puts M-NCPPC park land on the site selection lists in the first place.

To say nothing of somehow building a high school around the Jesup Blair House.

Are you kidding? It may not be what should be done, but it is what almost always happens, especially because the county doesn't proactively purchase land for future need and developers typically jump when they can make more money from temporary relief of set-aside requirements. That leaves little choice but parkland when it comes to back-filling for even moderately developed areas.

Meanwhile, historical sites have been relocated before, and the house could, alternately, be incorporated into a HS campus, continuing to serve a public purpose in line with its original donation. Not saying this is a preferred way to go, but the question had been what the options were.

I don't think MCPS has purchased land in more than 30 years. Haven't looked back farther than that. It's all been dedication by developers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

It's surprising how many people think you can just generally turn park land owned by M-NCPPC into something else you might happen to like better. You can't, except under certain exceptional circumstances like Rock Creek Hills Local Park (now Silver Creek MS), or maybe Parkside. And you especially can't for Jesup Blair Park. I don't know why MCPS puts M-NCPPC park land on the site selection lists in the first place.

To say nothing of somehow building a high school around the Jesup Blair House.

Are you kidding? It may not be what should be done, but it is what almost always happens, especially because the county doesn't proactively purchase land for future need and developers typically jump when they can make more money from temporary relief of set-aside requirements. That leaves little choice but parkland when it comes to back-filling for even moderately developed areas.

Meanwhile, historical sites have been relocated before, and the house could, alternately, be incorporated into a HS campus, continuing to serve a public purpose in line with its original donation. Not saying this is a preferred way to go, but the question had been what the options were.

I don't think MCPS has purchased land in more than 30 years. Haven't looked back farther than that. It's all been dedication by developers.

Where are you, Clarksburg? We're talking about closer-in areas of older development with infill and upzoning, not green-field (where set-asides are comparatively easy for developers, and don't affect their profits nearly as much, even becoming a selling point).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

It's surprising how many people think you can just generally turn park land owned by M-NCPPC into something else you might happen to like better. You can't, except under certain exceptional circumstances like Rock Creek Hills Local Park (now Silver Creek MS), or maybe Parkside. And you especially can't for Jesup Blair Park. I don't know why MCPS puts M-NCPPC park land on the site selection lists in the first place.

To say nothing of somehow building a high school around the Jesup Blair House.

Are you kidding? It may not be what should be done, but it is what almost always happens, especially because the county doesn't proactively purchase land for future need and developers typically jump when they can make more money from temporary relief of set-aside requirements. That leaves little choice but parkland when it comes to back-filling for even moderately developed areas.

Meanwhile, historical sites have been relocated before, and the house could, alternately, be incorporated into a HS campus, continuing to serve a public purpose in line with its original donation. Not saying this is a preferred way to go, but the question had been what the options were.

I don't think MCPS has purchased land in more than 30 years. Haven't looked back farther than that. It's all been dedication by developers.

They definitely have - they bought the Phillips farm property in Germantown, via eminent domain.

What they have NOT done is bought park land from M-NCPPC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Similarly shocking is that MCPS, when faced with the cost of provisioning a new HS closer to downtown SS/Takoma Park, elected to turn their efforts towards relief of WJ, instead -- the Woodward solution was less expensive and posed far fewer problems, despite the community complaints (that happens no matter the location/configuration -- can't please 'em all). They had to sell that with the nod to some kind of relief for DCC -- more crowded, in general, than anything to the west of the tracks, with more coming from demographics and the differential effects of the noted development-friendly policies; however, the nature of that might be just from the marginal pull of a Woodward magnet.

Where? Don't just criticize. Suggest some options.

They had options. Not saying they were easy or mitigations were cheap. Some are water under the bridge.

Washington Adventist, Parkside (with the whole original property, including that occupied by the private preschool), redeveloping the old Blair property (redeveloping SSIMS & SCES elsewhere), an urban campus, the old Montgomery Hills JHS (occupied by another private) combined with Woodlin (which would have had to be relocated instead of rebuilt), the terribly underutilized Jessup Blair Park, probably more. Much of the documentation has been wiped from the facilities website. May be available on archive.org's wayback machine.

It's surprising how many people think you can just generally turn park land owned by M-NCPPC into something else you might happen to like better. You can't, except under certain exceptional circumstances like Rock Creek Hills Local Park (now Silver Creek MS), or maybe Parkside. And you especially can't for Jesup Blair Park. I don't know why MCPS puts M-NCPPC park land on the site selection lists in the first place.

To say nothing of somehow building a high school around the Jesup Blair House.

Are you kidding? It may not be what should be done, but it is what almost always happens, especially because the county doesn't proactively purchase land for future need and developers typically jump when they can make more money from temporary relief of set-aside requirements. That leaves little choice but parkland when it comes to back-filling for even moderately developed areas.

Meanwhile, historical sites have been relocated before, and the house could, alternately, be incorporated into a HS campus, continuing to serve a public purpose in line with its original donation. Not saying this is a preferred way to go, but the question had been what the options were.

Three recent examples, please?