Don't buy in MoCo until the school redistricting is setled?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Highly unlikely they’d rezone the Somerset neighborhood away from Somerset elementary (possible that west cc or the parts of kenwood that feed will be rezoned), but they aren’t going to take a neighborhood out of its neighborhood school.

Psst, ask the people around Chevy Chase Elementary about neighborhood schools. The split articulation for Rosemary Hills was created specifically to mitigate segregation. Why do you assume MCPS wouldn't consider this model, which has been reasonably successful for 40+yrs, to enhance diversity? It's not as though Somerset is more diverse than the CCES & NCC neighborhoods.

Moral of the story, even if you buy in a high-income neighborhood, next door to a top elementary school, it's possible that MoCo will modify its approach to school assignments. I don't say that to deter anyone from buying, just to puncture the conviction among the whitest, richest corners of the county that they are somehow insulated from this whole conversation.

[Anonymous]

Isn't FFX and Arlington also going through rezoning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t buy moco. Why would you want to buy here knowing it has significant issues and you are uncomfortable?

It's an anti-MoCo advertising campaign OP is running. Lots of threads about this. Any rational person who felt as OP does (and as OP does on all the other threads) has clearly made up their mind not to move there, given their entrenched negative opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should focus on the elementary school. Highly unlikely MCPS is going to put small kids on long bus rides for PR reasons. Then you have five years to figure it out - and my sense is these folks are going to go to a lottery system for middle and high school - when all but Tiger parents care less. (That’s why they picked a firm that worked on NYC’s system) So your neighbor in a W school may go to a W school but your Larla is going somewhere else. Then you can decide what to do. All the research shows you will want a small middle school not the vast prison like structures this place builds....

OP here. Hadn't considered that a lottery system might be one outcome here. Unless there are restrictions on how far our kids would have to travel to the middle or high school they get assigned to, this would give us pause. Thanks for the insight.

No one has said that a lottery system is on the table in MoCo. If you can buy in the walk zone for a particular elementary school, middle school, and high school, you’ve got a pretty good chance of stable boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spouse and I were considering moving up houses in Bethesda next year, but the brewing school redistricting mess has us a little spooked. Are there areas of Bethesda that are more likely to emerge unscathed? We would be fine with Whitman or BCC but wouldn't want to buy an expensive home only to have our kids riding a bus to some school that is farther away than that.

Should we just wait it out and buy only when the new boundaries are set and final?

If you mean most likely to remain in their current cluster, then those would be the areas along the river and the DC line (furthest away from adjacent clusters), and also the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the school buildings themselves.

PP, you missed the point of the question, OP is probably wondering if any school will be immune to boundary
changes and if so, the answer is NO because even if the residents of the immediate areas won't be moved
form the boundary of the given school, many kids from poor neighborhoods will be bussed into the very
school and so most likely the character of the school will loose luster to the people who are not looking
for diversity. OP, if you embrace the diversity then any school will be fine. But my feel is that if you
were to embraced it then you probably would do it already and then Bethesda or not would not make
any difference. Right?

NP. I don't think the PP missed the point. I think many people are much more worried about being bused away from their neighborhood school than the character of the neighborhood changing because other kids are brought in through redistricting. First, that means the other kids have to deal with the commuting time and the loss of benefits of a neighborhood school. Second, it is not likely that the demographics will change so dramatically to change the quality of the school. I don't think most Whitman or BCC parents, for example, would care (and many would embrace) the school getting more diverse by bringing other students in. They don't want to be the ones moved out to make space, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should focus on the elementary school. Highly unlikely MCPS is going to put small kids on long bus rides for PR reasons. Then you have five years to figure it out - and my sense is these folks are going to go to a lottery system for middle and high school - when all but Tiger parents care less. (That’s why they picked a firm that worked on NYC’s system) So your neighbor in a W school may go to a W school but your Larla is going somewhere else. Then you can decide what to do. All the research shows you will want a small middle school not the vast prison like structures this place builds....

OP here. Hadn't considered that a lottery system might be one outcome here. Unless there are restrictions on how far our kids would have to travel to the middle or high school they get assigned to, this would give us pause. Thanks for the insight.

No one has said that a lottery system is on the table in MoCo. If you can buy in the walk zone for a particular elementary school, middle school, and high school, you’ve got a pretty good chance of stable boundaries.

+1. No one can no for sure about the future. But there is no particular reason to believe there will be a lottery. The cost and logistics of such massive busing would be prohibitive. Keeping in walking distance greatly increases your chances of not being moved, but again there are no absolute guarantees.

[Anonymous]

The only alternative to confusions about school zoning is to move to a low cost area in PG County or Prince William County and send your kids to private. Problem solved. Everywhere around here - in MoCo and in VA - is subject to rezoning and if you don't think it's going to happen in what is now liberal VA in counties like Arlington and Fairfax in the future you are severely misguided and naive.

[Anonymous]

The county get tons of illegal immigrants because of their policies. Illegal immigrants with very low education and skills cluster together in low-income areas, so then their kids all go to the same schools. Now all of the sudden there is a 'diversity' problem, because you have too many children of illegal immigrants concentrated at certain schools. The solution now is to bus them into schools where more wealthy parents and citizens send their kids, and to send the wealthier kids into schools where illegal immigrants send their kids. It is an astounding display of entitlement. Just by coming here illegally you deserve to have access to the best schools and slice of the American wealth pie that our own citizens have built up. Get out of here with that nonsense. Maybe the county wouldn't have so many problems with diversity if they didn't keep rolling out the carpet for illegal immigration.

I grew up in DE and went to school there all throughout the 80s and 90s. Busing did very little to solve the education quality in the state. DE schools remain terrible and have tons of problems staying open now because everyone sends their kids to private, vo-tech or charter schools to avoid terrible DE public schools. Take a look at VA, NJ, MD, PA, all the way up to MA. Why are homes sooooooooooo much more expensive everywhere on the East Coast compared to DE, yet DE has amazing location on the Eastern Seaboard? It's because the schools stink. I remember kids having to get up at 5:30 AM just to get bused to schools instead of being able to walk to the schools closest to them. It wasn't uncommon for people I grew up with to have to be sent to 4 different schools all across the county outside of their original feeder schools. The state had to buy huge fleets of busses that just added to the traffic and wasted tons of gas. It also completely ruined community based schooling and cultures of neighborhoods. People forget, that even some minorities in a city like Wilmington, DE were against bussing because they started to gain power in the local schools and there was a strong sense of community in the neighborhoods when every neighbor could send their kids to the school down the street and everyone would attend the same basketball, baseball, football games and other school events. Bussing ruined all of that. The most ironic part of it all, is that for how much flak Biden got for his stance on bussing during this election cycle, DE DID actually revert back to community based schools in 2000 under the Neighborhood Schools Act of 2000, but by then, all of the damage had already been done to DE's public schools system, and the quality decline has persisted to this day. People in DE still send tons of kids to private/charter/vo-tech schools or leave the state all-together once they have kids and move up to PA. The county and state of MD are headed the way of DE.

[Anonymous]

No one can tell OP what the future will bring but I doubt there will be substantial changes.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a legitimate concern. Yes, I would wait.

MoCo really continues to make bad decisions but this is what happens in a welfare state like Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a legitimate concern. Yes, I would wait.

MoCo really continues to make bad decisions but this is what happens in a welfare state like Maryland.

So you keep saying.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s important to note that all school districts in the country have to redistrict periodically. It’s not like you’re “safe” anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't FFX and Arlington also going through rezoning?

Yes and Howard too.

[Anonymous]

OP, an actual boundary study to be aware of is the one for Somerset and Westbrook elementary schools. The study is scheduled to begin in Spring 2020, with reassignments decided in November 2020, to take effect in Fall 2021. In the spring there will be information posted on the web site and several public meetings. There are no other imminent boundary studies in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, given that there are three brand new high schools being built in MC to open in 2025 (Crown, Northwood and Woodward), you have a long wait. Meanwhile, your children will get settled in the schools where you live now, make good friends, and you won't want to move.

Northwood is not a brand new HS, LOL!