SSIMS activists spreading misinformation about boundary options
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Anonymous
This. Thank you. |
Anonymous
Weird. It's really important to you to keep it open but you don't care if your kids go there or not? |
Anonymous
People in the neighborhood obviously want their kids to go there. But for people who could geographically go elsewhere and have it make sense, why is this weird? Many people do not want to lose a middle school for the region and have their kids go to a larger school. |
Anonymous
It's not weird. It's an acknowledgement of the reality that there is a huge boundary study going on right now and school assignments are changing throughout the broader area. The argument that a school should only exist if its boundaries remain static is a logical fallacy. Every school in this boundary study—Sligo, Silver Spring International, Takoma Park—will likely see its catchment area shift. If those schools are only worth keeping open under their current articulation pattern, there would be reason to close all of them too. Your argument simply does not make sense. Keeping SSIMS open isn’t about protecting a specific group of students or maintaining a static boundary; it’s about maintaining the integrity of the entire downcounty MS cluster. Closing it would turn Eastern into the largest middle school in MCPS. I don't want that -- for my kids or for other kids. Furthermore, I don’t want a vital building in the heart of DTSS to sit vacant and rot, nor do I want to trade a walkable community for increased bus traffic in a dense urban area. MCPS should be exhausting all other holding school options before we even consider dismantling a successful, walkable community institution -- and they have not shown yet that they have done that. But this has all been explained already so I'm not sure why I am trying to explain it again in response to this very simple-minded argument. |
Anonymous
| I hate the idea of making any middle or high school larger. They’re already too big. The larger schools are more chaotic, overwhelming and hard to navigate for kids. It’s just less expensive for the county to have larger schools, fewer admin and fewer buildings. It’s definitely not what’s best for kids or families. |
Anonymous
+100 And I don’t think the argument is just simple minded. It’s purposefully gaslighting and misconstruing what the Save our Schools group is advocating for. |
Anonymous
| The SSIMS building has numerous problems that are not fixable; students at SSIMS deserve better. An upgraded or newer building is a much better solution. Redistricting SSIMS kids to a newer or upgraded school is the best solution IMO. |
Anonymous
From a long term perspective though, making SSIMS a holding school seems unwise. Students will still have to endure the conditions but they'll be bussed to a congested urban area from other parts of the county. The location is not suitable for a holding school. |
Anonymous
The B-CC HS building is about the same age and was completely gutted on the inside, and rebuilt with the historic exterior preserved. MCPS could do the same for SSIMS. |
Anonymous
They are definitely fixable. Yes it would be expensive, but so is the plan to expand eastern and Sligo. They could fix the buildings if they chose to, but right now they are not. And keeping it as a holding school means students will still be learning there, and they will do the bare minimum to keep it functional. A secondary school could use SSIMS for 2 years. Middle school is only 3 years long. I don’t think that’s fair to other students either. |
Anonymous
I hate the set-up around here. They really put the screws to our neighborhood in several ways and I cannot figure out why. My 5th grader was really hoping SFC would get rezoned to Eastern for the 2027 school year. There are barely any SFC kids starting 6th grade at SSIMS in 2026. MY DC will hardly know anyone there, with the majority of PCES kids going to Eastern and then other friends in the neighborhood trying for one of the MSMC schools. |
Anonymous
If only the wealthier community of BCC would move to SS. Then, this would be done. |
Anonymous
+1. If SSIMS were to close our MS would get much bigger, which I don't think is good. And I think it's bad for urban planning in general to lose schools in walkable, urban areas. But there's a lot going on and obviously not everyone has the same priority. There are other parents in our ES where avoiding split ariculation from ES to MS is the #1 goal, even if that means those options are the ones that assume SSIMS closes. |