Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just have the Tilden MS kids matriculate to Woodward and add some kids from Einstein and Wheaton to fill the seats. Leave everything else alone.

Agree! That’s what I thought they were going to do all along. I mean, what demographics were these maps based off of to begin with? MoCo is still suffering the consequences of the second Trump administration. Uprooting everyone would be a moot point if half the county moves out of state to find new jobs.

Well they decided some time ago to seize this opportunity to rebalance a whole bunch of schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just have the Tilden MS kids matriculate to Woodward and add some kids from Einstein and Wheaton to fill the seats. Leave everything else alone.

Agree! That’s what I thought they were going to do all along. I mean, what demographics were these maps based off of to begin with? MoCo is still suffering the consequences of the second Trump administration. Uprooting everyone would be a moot point if half the county moves out of state to find new jobs.

Agree with all of this. They should open this new school with the least amount of disruptions possible, especially considering how so many kids were impacted by COVID. Let’s give the majority of kids stability in their lives.

So you favor option 1?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just have the Tilden MS kids matriculate to Woodward and add some kids from Einstein and Wheaton to fill the seats. Leave everything else alone.

Agree! That’s what I thought they were going to do all along. I mean, what demographics were these maps based off of to begin with? MoCo is still suffering the consequences of the second Trump administration. Uprooting everyone would be a moot point if half the county moves out of state to find new jobs.

Agree with all of this. They should open this new school with the least amount of disruptions possible, especially considering how so many kids were impacted by COVID. Let’s give the majority of kids stability in their lives.

But if the status quo is suboptimal, we shouldn’t stick with it just because change will cause disruption for a couple of years. Leaders should look beyond only the short term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just have the Tilden MS kids matriculate to Woodward and add some kids from Einstein and Wheaton to fill the seats. Leave everything else alone.

Agree! That’s what I thought they were going to do all along. I mean, what demographics were these maps based off of to begin with? MoCo is still suffering the consequences of the second Trump administration. Uprooting everyone would be a moot point if half the county moves out of state to find new jobs.

Well they decided some time ago to seize this opportunity to rebalance a whole bunch of schools.

They have not decided anything yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just have the Tilden MS kids matriculate to Woodward and add some kids from Einstein and Wheaton to fill the seats. Leave everything else alone.

Agree! That’s what I thought they were going to do all along. I mean, what demographics were these maps based off of to begin with? MoCo is still suffering the consequences of the second Trump administration. Uprooting everyone would be a moot point if half the county moves out of state to find new jobs.

MCPS has been VERY clear for a very long time that opening Woodward and Crown, plus the addition of many hundreds of seats at Northwood, would lead to at the very least a large-scale boundary revision at the HS levels. The only surprise was that MS boundaries were also being considered.

But, truly, there is no way to figure out who goes to Woodward without looking across the bottom half of the county. It's just not possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just have the Tilden MS kids matriculate to Woodward and add some kids from Einstein and Wheaton to fill the seats. Leave everything else alone.

But that would be too easy.

MCPS NEVER does the simplest, easiest thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that most concerns me is that, with all the options, they'd move kids around right in the middle of middle school.

If I read it correctly, a rising 7th grader in the 2027-28 school year who lives within a shifting boundary would be forced to move to their new boundary-assigned school. It's a recipe for disaster for those kids.

That scenario will likely happen to my youngest kid. 6th grade at one school, then 7th and 8th at another.

My main thought is that she won’t be alone in that transition. A good portion of our friends and neighbors from elementary school will be doing the same thing, and we can all figure it out together.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn’t it be easiest to have Tilden go to Woodward and North Bethesda MS go to WJ?

[Anonymous]

As an OTES parent I’d selfishly vote for 1 as it keeps our MS/HS right next to eachother, Otherwise I guess it looks like Sligo MS/Einstein HS for us.

Am I naive enough to assume they’re taking into consideration immersion programs (which OTES has) and how that may flow to a new MS? I believe Newport Mills just got set up for biliteracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an OTES parent I’d selfishly vote for 1 as it keeps our MS/HS right next to eachother, Otherwise I guess it looks like Sligo MS/Einstein HS for us.

Am I naive enough to assume they’re taking into consideration immersion programs (which OTES has) and how that may flow to a new MS? I believe Newport Mills just got set up for biliteracy.

Fellow OTES parent here. It does not look like these options take the immersion program into consideration. I am (perhaps naively) hopeful this will get flagged soon in the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:These 4 maps are clearly tied to the 4 priorities. I don't think any is going to stay the same. I think we will have some new maps that look different and are a combination of these. I don't understand what the purpose of having maps that are very clearly tied to one of the priorities are. They obviously will work to balance them -- this is not a helpful starting place.

Can you help name which map goes to which? Clearly map 3 is the diversity map. What are the others?

Map 2 is the utilization map

Is option 4 supposed to be the proximity map? What’s weird about that one is the split articulation. That’s antithetical to neighborhood schools

I think it maximizes walk zone potential (least busing).

But it doesn't maximize walkers at Blair, Wheaton, or Einstein.

There's no way you can maximize walkers at every single school without sending the non-walkers to schools pretty far away (in which case you're not really prioritizing proximity anymore.) Parents seem to think there is some magic way to do this but there is not. Schools are not equally spread out, they are clumped in some places and far from others, so you have to do things like send Takoma Park kids to Blair and send kids near Blair further north. #4 is likely the best they can do on the proximity front, or close to it, especially since it seems to do a poor job on all of the other three factors.

I think they can do better. They need to draw the potential walk zones rather than just the existing ones. Start there and then work out the options for the remaining available space. Like TOK isn't shaded as being in the walk zone for Einstein, but that's only because it's not currently zoned to Einstein. They need to look at the walk zones without being restricted by current boundary lines.

Wait, are you telling me that when they overlay the walk zones, it's not the actual walk zone from the school out but based on the current boundary? That is ridiculous. They need to use the actual walk zone regardless of boundary so we can evaluate options.

What are we paying these consultants for? They have lots of fancy maps, but it sounds like we can't actually trust the info in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 3 is the only one that addressed diversity/demographics. Not perfect but with some tweaks they can make it work.

They should definitely do option 3 with some tweaks. It's the only option that can add real diversity to Whitman.

I'm not a Whitman parent but honestly, I don't think diversity should be the end-all be-all. Option 3 sucks for a lot of people.

I mean, could we just get super simple and say let’s pick the option that sucks for the fewest people? Maximize happiness?

If it were that easy, it would be a much simpler process! But how would you do that? Every option sucks for a significant number of kids.

I mean you could use these 4 options (or a set of refined options in the future) and ask families to pick the one that they like best. Or you could get fancier and do rank choice. Yes every option has downsides for some people, but it doesn’t need to be hard to figure out which scenario has the most support and minimizes unhappy people.

My perception right now is that option 3 is deeply unpopular and I don’t even know why you bother having community input and engagement if you’re seriously considering the option that the fewest people prefer (that incidentally is likely to cost the most money).

The problem is that folks from wealthier areas will respond in greater numbers while the folks meaningfully impacted in poorer ones won’t. It’s the level of parental engagement that diversity or social engineering can’t overcome. But I’m fine with this approach since the affluent in my cluster would get a disproportionate say.

3 meaningfully impacts many people with low incomes. As just one example, in our ES, they are proposing to bus kids right by B-CC (where they are currently zoned) to send them to Whitman just to add diversity to Whitman. That doesn't benefit them, and they are being used as tokens to diversify the whitest school in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know option 3 = bad, but which option is good?

I'd say option 2 -- good utilization and reasonable looking distances/clusters.

And split elementary articulations for at least 11 schools, mostly from the DCC. No thanks.

This is why there should be at least 2 more options currently on the table, offering blends. Going with 4, each of which is heavily weighted towards a single priority, doesn't allow us to see what more balanced configurations might bring. That will tip public opinion toward a best-of-the-bad one such as 2, typically expressed in the survey without nuance (most won't take the time to provide such), which inappropriately will result in a conclusion that things like continuity or diversity don't matter and, then, to a rather suboptimal decision.

I agree that they should be giving us different options -- and none that they aren't seriously considering. I don't think having 4 extreme options each that maximizes just one of the factors they are looking at is a good starting place. I don't know why anyone from MCPS thought that was a helpful idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can literally see Blair from my house as I type this, but now it's very possible my elementary school-aged son wouldn't actually be zoned for Blair. Make it make sense!

And we are right by B-CC, and they are suggesting our kids attend Blair.
I can't make it make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that most concerns me is that, with all the options, they'd move kids around right in the middle of middle school.

If I read it correctly, a rising 7th grader in the 2027-28 school year who lives within a shifting boundary would be forced to move to their new boundary-assigned school. It's a recipe for disaster for those kids.

That scenario will likely happen to my youngest kid. 6th grade at one school, then 7th and 8th at another.

My main thought is that she won’t be alone in that transition. A good portion of our friends and neighbors from elementary school will be doing the same thing, and we can all figure it out together.

Might be fine for neurotypical kids whose main concern is being with their friends. For neurodivergent kids whose main rely on special ed services this is a huge change. It’s a FT job as a parent making sure MCPS follows through with IEPs and 504’s. Not fair to learn the tricks for one admin only to change the next year.