MCPS BOE petition re: making student demographics the primary factor in redistricting decisions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

For some people it's about real estate. If home prices fall, many people will be upside down on their loans and most normal middle class families don't have the means to sell at that point.

And why would home prices fall?

Why is a shit shack assigned to one school worth more than a shit shack across the street assigned to a different school? Don't ask stupid.

[Anonymous]

To be completely honest, I don't think this will happen. The reason? Because poor people don't usually vote. The rich like their elite public schools and if someone tries to change things the rich will vote them out and install someone that will change things back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think most of these white parents care about color so much as not wanting too many lower income kids who tend take resources away from the other kids, and because they don't want their kids on longer bus rides than necessary.

I'm Asian American btw, and don't live in a W cluster.

I'm not sure what's best to close the achievement gap - a smaller class size that Title 1 schools get or a 30+person class size with more wealthy kids. I"m no expert in this area, but I would think lower income kids who get lost in a large class size wouldn't benefit all that much from being surrounded by a few wealthy students.

I am aware of the study that shows that when a lower income student goes to school where the FARMs rate is about 25%, they do better than going to a school with a much higher FARMS rate, but given that the majority of the students on FARMs live on one side of the county, how is MCPS going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs (which reflects the total county) without long distance busing?

Nobody is proposing to do this.

BOE is proposing to do this as much as possible.

Link, please?

? What do you think the goal is to put more weight on diversity than the other three factors? Does everything need to be perfectly laid out for you? Are you not good at making inferences?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone looked at the options for RM #5 that they were voting on? Look at options C and D. They're busing kids all over the place past one another. In case you didn't know, they voted for Option B.
http://gis.mcpsmd.org/boundarystudypdfs/RMES5_UpdatedBOEAlternativesAE111417.pdf


FYI:
One of the only people to vote for the busing all over the place options was the STUDENT MEMBER. Why is a student from MCPS's allowed to participate and be a voting member of the board of education? I find that completely absurd. He is not at all answerable to the voters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

FYI:
One of the only people to vote for the busing all over the place options was the STUDENT MEMBER. Why is a student from MCPS's allowed to participate and be a voting member of the board of education? I find that completely absurd. He is not at all answerable to the voters.

Because the law says so. If you don't like what the law says, contact your state-level elected officials about changing the law.

[Anonymous]

It's a noble goal to try to have each of the schools demographically representative of the whole county. But, I live in a gerrymandered cluster (Gaithersburg) and the bus times are rather extreme. There's a high cost in terms of how kids spend their time- 2 hours of commute time per day is hard on teenagers. People assuming that the low income kids will be bused in should brace themselves- it is more likely that your high income kids will be bused to the lower income area (this is how it works in the Gburg cluster).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think most of these white parents care about color so much as not wanting too many lower income kids who tend take resources away from the other kids, and because they don't want their kids on longer bus rides than necessary.

I'm Asian American btw, and don't live in a W cluster.

I'm not sure what's best to close the achievement gap - a smaller class size that Title 1 schools get or a 30+person class size with more wealthy kids. I"m no expert in this area, but I would think lower income kids who get lost in a large class size wouldn't benefit all that much from being surrounded by a few wealthy students.

I am aware of the study that shows that when a lower income student goes to school where the FARMs rate is about 25%, they do better than going to a school with a much higher FARMS rate, but given that the majority of the students on FARMs live on one side of the county, how is MCPS going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs (which reflects the total county) without long distance busing?

Nobody is proposing to do this.

BOE is proposing to do this as much as possible.

Link, please?

? What do you think the goal is to put more weight on diversity than the other three factors? Does everything need to be perfectly laid out for you? Are you not good at making inferences?

I think that's circular reasoning: MCPS is going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs; I know this because I know that MCPS is going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs.

[Anonymous]

This petition states that it was created by Katya Simon. Before signing, I would like to know what schools (cluster) she is part of. This is important to me because the county is huge and I can’t confirm that I share her interests and needs without this information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This petition states that it was created by Katya Simon. Before signing, I would like to know what schools (cluster) she is part of. This is important to me because the county is huge and I can’t confirm that I share her interests and needs without this information.

But what would that prove? Not everyone in each cluster has the same values. Do you hope she is in a W cluster and you can just dismiss her as a privileged racist? If she is part of a poorer cluster and opposes busing, would that give her greater credibility and make her preference for neighborhood schools "acceptable" to you?

From a simply google search, there appears to be a Katya Simon in Gaithersburg. I don't know if this is accurate, or if this is the same person. But I still don't see how this would be relevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

FYI:
One of the only people to vote for the busing all over the place options was the STUDENT MEMBER. Why is a student from MCPS's allowed to participate and be a voting member of the board of education? I find that completely absurd. He is not at all answerable to the voters.

Because the law says so. If you don't like what the law says, contact your state-level elected officials about changing the law.

Also, the student member of the board this year is a woman (check your pronouns and assumptions...)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This petition states that it was created by Katya Simon. Before signing, I would like to know what schools (cluster) she is part of. This is important to me because the county is huge and I can’t confirm that I share her interests and needs without this information.

But what would that prove? Not everyone in each cluster has the same values. Do you hope she is in a W cluster and you can just dismiss her as a privileged racist? If she is part of a poorer cluster and opposes busing, would that give her greater credibility and make her preference for neighborhood schools "acceptable" to you?

From a simply google search, there appears to be a Katya Simon in Gaithersburg. I don't know if this is accurate, or if this is the same person. But I still don't see how this would be relevant.

Forgot the link. https://www.whitepages.com/name/Katya-Simon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think most of these white parents care about color so much as not wanting too many lower income kids who tend take resources away from the other kids, and because they don't want their kids on longer bus rides than necessary.

I'm Asian American btw, and don't live in a W cluster.

I'm not sure what's best to close the achievement gap - a smaller class size that Title 1 schools get or a 30+person class size with more wealthy kids. I"m no expert in this area, but I would think lower income kids who get lost in a large class size wouldn't benefit all that much from being surrounded by a few wealthy students.

I am aware of the study that shows that when a lower income student goes to school where the FARMs rate is about 25%, they do better than going to a school with a much higher FARMS rate, but given that the majority of the students on FARMs live on one side of the county, how is MCPS going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs (which reflects the total county) without long distance busing?

Nobody is proposing to do this.

BOE is proposing to do this as much as possible.

Link, please?

? What do you think the goal is to put more weight on diversity than the other three factors? Does everything need to be perfectly laid out for you? Are you not good at making inferences?

I think that's circular reasoning: MCPS is going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs; I know this because I know that MCPS is going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This petition states that it was created by Katya Simon. Before signing, I would like to know what schools (cluster) she is part of. This is important to me because the county is huge and I can’t confirm that I share her interests and needs without this information.

Just send your own email to the board with your own personal views. Don't worry about where a random person who started a petition lives. The board isn't likely to see this petition before today's vote anyway...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think most of these white parents care about color so much as not wanting too many lower income kids who tend take resources away from the other kids, and because they don't want their kids on longer bus rides than necessary.

I'm Asian American btw, and don't live in a W cluster.

I'm not sure what's best to close the achievement gap - a smaller class size that Title 1 schools get or a 30+person class size with more wealthy kids. I"m no expert in this area, but I would think lower income kids who get lost in a large class size wouldn't benefit all that much from being surrounded by a few wealthy students.

I am aware of the study that shows that when a lower income student goes to school where the FARMs rate is about 25%, they do better than going to a school with a much higher FARMS rate, but given that the majority of the students on FARMs live on one side of the county, how is MCPS going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs (which reflects the total county) without long distance busing?

Nobody is proposing to do this.

BOE is proposing to do this as much as possible.

Link, please?

? What do you think the goal is to put more weight on diversity than the other three factors? Does everything need to be perfectly laid out for you? Are you not good at making inferences?

I think that's circular reasoning: MCPS is going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs; I know this because I know that MCPS is going to try to make all the schools about 30% FARMs.

I'm sure if they could make it all 30% they would. But without sending kids across county, they can't, so they'll do the next best thing.

If they didn't want diversity as a goal, then why give it more weight than the other factors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm sure if they could make it all 30% they would. But without sending kids across county, they can't, so they'll do the next best thing.

If they didn't want diversity as a goal, then why give it more weight than the other factors?

Which is what? Making demographic characteristics a slightly more important factor than geographic considerations, long-term stability, and facility utilization?

Factors for School Boundaries, Site Selection, and Student Assignment Plans : In addition to the equity implications of Board Policy ACA, Nondiscrimination, Equity, and Cultural Proficiency , the Board proposes to retain the existing four factors to guide these key facilities planning processes:

Demographic characteristics of the student population;
Geography;
Stability of school assignments over time; and
Facility utilization.
The proposed revisions add language adapted from Regulation FAA-RA to provide greater clarity regarding each factor. For instance, the description of the first factor explains that options will strive to promote the creation of a diverse student body in each of the affected schools. With respect to the second factor, the revisions explain that, unless otherwise required, options should take into account the geographic proximity of communities to schools, as well as articulation, traffic, transportation patterns, and topography. Moreover, options should consider, at a minimum, not only schools within a high school cluster but also other adjacent schools.

The Policy also requires the superintendent to develop options that reflect a range of approaches to advance these factors and provide a rationale for each. Any alternatives put forward by the Board should explain how they advance one or more of these factors.

The Board voted to approve an amendment to the committee draft and took tentative action. The draft of tentatively approved Policy FAA is available for public comment until Friday, September 7, 2018. In addition, over the spring and summer, MCPS staff will conduct a robust stakeholder engagement process around the proposed revisions.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/policy-for-public-comment.aspx