Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up

[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.

Exactly! Research shows the benefit for white students to be around non-white students in school, but the research for non-white students overwhelmingly shows how important it is to not be an only in their class.

[Anonymous]

Please.. you just don’t want black and brown students at your Lily white school. MCPS is all about diversity so get over it. #3 is most likeky their top choice.

[Anonymous]

My kids were in public schools until Covid and the never ending MCPS shutdown. We saw the writing on the wall and left for private but with major regret not sending my oldest to BCC which still weighs heavy.

To see this happening is horrible and so disheartening. These kids deserve neighborhood schools with strong communities where they can get to and from activities and home easily. Putting a wealthier kid in a poorer school and vice versa isn’t going to change outcomes for the poor kids because it starts at home.

This is just a way for MCPS to better hide the exploding number of FARMs students at the underperforming schools without giving them what they really need in serious substantial support. It’s insulting and unfair to those kids.

The wealthy kids won’t mingle with the FARMs kids and vice versa no matter what and it will cause students to self segregate in the schools. I saw this first hand at Rosemary Hills where kids played with other kids only inside their own neighborhoods. Even little kids gravitate onlt to people they identity with. Middle school and high school it’s even worse. Social engineering is not going to work.

Meanwhile, Most anyone with means will pull their kid for private rather than send their kid cross county. This is a disaster and I am grateful my kids werent caught up in this. Montgomery county will see serious flight to other counties and a major loss in tax revenue and school support as the wealthy flee to private and to live elsewhere. What a mess they are creating. So sorry for all of you affected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://moderatelymoco.com/mcps-50-school-redistricting-how-boundary-changes-could-impact-families-opinion/

Great article here about the history of the four factors as well as some information on how lengthy bus rides to school contribute to absenteeism.

Thank you for this very helpful link! I was unaware of the 2019 MCPS Countywide Boundary Analysis and that’s very helpful background for those of us who haven’t been following this for years and years.

I find this fascinating: “More than 70% of respondents stated that minimizing boundary changes, ensuring students attend the school closest to home, cohort stability and maximizing walkers were extremely important. Only 10% responded that school diversity was extremely important.”

So there was clearly a large, broad consensus on what variables matter to the community when doing this boundary study, yet some of these variables, such as cohort stability, aren’t even a priority. How is that? How did MCPS arrive at these final 4 priorities, which do not fully reflect the priorities of our community?

Demographic characteristics of student population
Geography
Stability of school assignments over time
Facility utilization

This whole process seems rather ridiculous. They ask for feedback from
the community and then ignore what people say they want as their priorities. They then establish their own priorities (still not clear on how this happened) that do not reflect the values of the community. And now we’re expected to weigh in (and probably get ignored) on some really poor options, most of which are in direct contradiction to the previously stated community priorities? How many millions of taxpayer dollars are funding this insanity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Option 1- What is with the neighborhood carve-out off of Tuckerman (adjacent to Woodward property) zoned for Silver Creek and not Tilden?

I would like my kid to go to the same MS with his ES friends. Option 2,3,4 all suggest split articulation for this little island.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids were in public schools until Covid and the never ending MCPS shutdown. We saw the writing on the wall and left for private but with major regret not sending my oldest to BCC which still weighs heavy.

To see this happening is horrible and so disheartening. These kids deserve neighborhood schools with strong communities where they can get to and from activities and home easily. Putting a wealthier kid in a poorer school and vice versa isn’t going to change outcomes for the poor kids because it starts at home.

This is just a way for MCPS to better hide the exploding number of FARMs students at the underperforming schools without giving them what they really need in serious substantial support. It’s insulting and unfair to those kids.

The wealthy kids won’t mingle with the FARMs kids and vice versa no matter what and it will cause students to self segregate in the schools. I saw this first hand at Rosemary Hills where kids played with other kids only inside their own neighborhoods. Even little kids gravitate onlt to people they identity with. Middle school and high school it’s even worse. Social engineering is not going to work.

Meanwhile, Most anyone with means will pull their kid for private rather than send their kid cross county. This is a disaster and I am grateful my kids werent caught up in this. Montgomery county will see serious flight to other counties and a major loss in tax revenue and school support as the wealthy flee to private and to live elsewhere. What a mess they are creating. So sorry for all of you affected.

All this. No matter what MCPS tries to do with mixing up the boundaries etc, it isn’t going to help the majority of the low-income students. Home life and invested parents is a huge predictor of success in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://moderatelymoco.com/mcps-50-school-redistricting-how-boundary-changes-could-impact-families-opinion/

Great article here about the history of the four factors as well as some information on how lengthy bus rides to school contribute to absenteeism.

Thank you for this very helpful link! I was unaware of the 2019 MCPS Countywide Boundary Analysis and that’s very helpful background for those of us who haven’t been following this for years and years.

I find this fascinating: “More than 70% of respondents stated that minimizing boundary changes, ensuring students attend the school closest to home, cohort stability and maximizing walkers were extremely important. Only 10% responded that school diversity was extremely important.”

So there was clearly a large, broad consensus on what variables matter to the community when doing this boundary study, yet some of these variables, such as cohort stability, aren’t even a priority. How is that? How did MCPS arrive at these final 4 priorities, which do not fully reflect the priorities of our community?

Demographic characteristics of student population
Geography
Stability of school assignments over time
Facility utilization

This whole process seems rather ridiculous. They ask for feedback from
the community and then ignore what people say they want as their priorities. They then establish their own priorities (still not clear on how this happened) that do not reflect the values of the community. And now we’re expected to weigh in (and probably get ignored) on some really poor options, most of which are in direct contradiction to the previously stated community priorities? How many millions of taxpayer dollars are funding this insanity?

Cohort stability is the same thing as stability of school assignments over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://moderatelymoco.com/mcps-50-school-redistricting-how-boundary-changes-could-impact-families-opinion/

Great article here about the history of the four factors as well as some information on how lengthy bus rides to school contribute to absenteeism.

Thank you for this very helpful link! I was unaware of the 2019 MCPS Countywide Boundary Analysis and that’s very helpful background for those of us who haven’t been following this for years and years.

I find this fascinating: “More than 70% of respondents stated that minimizing boundary changes, ensuring students attend the school closest to home, cohort stability and maximizing walkers were extremely important. Only 10% responded that school diversity was extremely important.”

So there was clearly a large, broad consensus on what variables matter to the community when doing this boundary study, yet some of these variables, such as cohort stability, aren’t even a priority. How is that? How did MCPS arrive at these final 4 priorities, which do not fully reflect the priorities of our community?

Demographic characteristics of student population
Geography
Stability of school assignments over time
Facility utilization

This whole process seems rather ridiculous. They ask for feedback from
the community and then ignore what people say they want as their priorities. They then establish their own priorities (still not clear on how this happened) that do not reflect the values of the community. And now we’re expected to weigh in (and probably get ignored) on some really poor options, most of which are in direct contradiction to the previously stated community priorities? How many millions of taxpayer dollars are funding this insanity?

FYI that survey only covered about 2,000 people out of the hundreds of thousands of MCPS parents, less than 10% were Black or Hispanic (despite the majority of MCPS students being Black or Hispanic), 57% of respondents were from Bethesda/Chevy Chase/Potomac, and there was a lot of hubbub and organizing around fighting the "countywide boundary study plans to bus your kids across the county for diversity" that led people very opposed to diversity-based changes to get people to fill the survey saying that, to basically set up exactly the narrative you and Moderately Moco are running with. It may in fact be true that people in the county prioritize those things, but those survey answers can't tell us those things because it's about as far from a representative, unbiased sample as you can get.

[Anonymous]

What will happen to property values of those in WJ rezoned to Woodward?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids were in public schools until Covid and the never ending MCPS shutdown. We saw the writing on the wall and left for private but with major regret not sending my oldest to BCC which still weighs heavy.

To see this happening is horrible and so disheartening. These kids deserve neighborhood schools with strong communities where they can get to and from activities and home easily. Putting a wealthier kid in a poorer school and vice versa isn’t going to change outcomes for the poor kids because it starts at home.

This is just a way for MCPS to better hide the exploding number of FARMs students at the underperforming schools without giving them what they really need in serious substantial support. It’s insulting and unfair to those kids.

The wealthy kids won’t mingle with the FARMs kids and vice versa no matter what and it will cause students to self segregate in the schools. I saw this first hand at Rosemary Hills where kids played with other kids only inside their own neighborhoods. Even little kids gravitate onlt to people they identity with. Middle school and high school it’s even worse. Social engineering is not going to work.

Meanwhile, Most anyone with means will pull their kid for private rather than send their kid cross county. This is a disaster and I am grateful my kids werent caught up in this. Montgomery county will see serious flight to other counties and a major loss in tax revenue and school support as the wealthy flee to private and to live elsewhere. What a mess they are creating. So sorry for all of you affected.

Parents like you are the problem. We were at a high farms school and the majority of kids came to our parties. We just had to make it more inline with their family style vs typical. Meaning lots of food, entire family invited, dual language invitations,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please.. you just don’t want black and brown students at your Lily white school. MCPS is all about diversity so get over it. #3 is most likeky their top choice.

If mcps even tries to actually make 3 happen they will find themselves neck deep in a lawsuit. This admin is looking for reasons to litigate against DEI fueled discrimination. I am not at all a supporter of this administration and their ideology but there is no way 3 will ever happen without causing a lawsuit that bogs this down for years (and makes them drop any diversity based change off the agenda).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://moderatelymoco.com/mcps-50-school-redistricting-how-boundary-changes-could-impact-families-opinion/

Great article here about the history of the four factors as well as some information on how lengthy bus rides to school contribute to absenteeism.

Thank you for this very helpful link! I was unaware of the 2019 MCPS Countywide Boundary Analysis and that’s very helpful background for those of us who haven’t been following this for years and years.

I find this fascinating: “More than 70% of respondents stated that minimizing boundary changes, ensuring students attend the school closest to home, cohort stability and maximizing walkers were extremely important. Only 10% responded that school diversity was extremely important.”

So there was clearly a large, broad consensus on what variables matter to the community when doing this boundary study, yet some of these variables, such as cohort stability, aren’t even a priority. How is that? How did MCPS arrive at these final 4 priorities, which do not fully reflect the priorities of our community?

Demographic characteristics of student population
Geography
Stability of school assignments over time
Facility utilization

This whole process seems rather ridiculous. They ask for feedback from
the community and then ignore what people say they want as their priorities. They then establish their own priorities (still not clear on how this happened) that do not reflect the values of the community. And now we’re expected to weigh in (and probably get ignored) on some really poor options, most of which are in direct contradiction to the previously stated community priorities? How many millions of taxpayer dollars are funding this insanity?

FYI that survey only covered about 2,000 people out of the hundreds of thousands of MCPS parents, less than 10% were Black or Hispanic (despite the majority of MCPS students being Black or Hispanic), 57% of respondents were from Bethesda/Chevy Chase/Potomac, and there was a lot of hubbub and organizing around fighting the "countywide boundary study plans to bus your kids across the county for diversity" that led people very opposed to diversity-based changes to get people to fill the survey saying that, to basically set up exactly the narrative you and Moderately Moco are running with. It may in fact be true that people in the county prioritize those things, but those survey answers can't tell us those things because it's about as far from a representative, unbiased sample as you can get.

Also the 4 factors are from Board Policy FAA (the same policy/factors they use for every boundary study), every time they update the policy they do it at a Board meeting in public and there is a chance for community input, and you can always lobby them to update it if you don't like it (but most people just focus on lobbying around the specific boundary changes themselves.) Nothing nefarious or secret here. If your complaint is that they didn't overhaul their list of factors based on the results of the WXY survey, well, see again the explanation of how ridiculously unrepresentative it was

And cohort stability/avoiding split articulation is in there under the geography factor (although it looks to me like for this study the contractor

[Anonymous]

Mcps shouldn’t have spent the millions and millions of dollars they have wasted on these consultants and poured them into actually helping improve the lower performing higher FARMS schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mcps shouldn’t have spent the millions and millions of dollars they have wasted on these consultants and poured them into actually helping improve the lower performing higher FARMS schools

*should have

[Anonymous]

Sorry. Was going to say that cohort stability/minimizing split articulation is in FAA, labeled as articulation and listed under geography ("In accordance with MCPS’ emphasis on community involvement in
schools, options should, unless otherwise required, take into account the
geographic proximity of communities to schools, as well as articulation,
traffic, and transportation patterns and topography"), it appears to me that the contractor combined stability of assignments and cohort stability both into option #1.

(Board Policy FAA is here, by the way, and is important reading for anyone interested in boundary studies' https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/faa.pdf)