Residents appeal MCPS boundary changes, challenge legality of diversity focus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The law was different then.

Yes, it was. It was less likely to be on the side of diversity.

I encourage you to do a little reading on this PP. Educate yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is vital that folks coming to this discussion late understand that the redistricting of SV, Clarksburg, and Northwest was not primarily about diversity. It was primarily about capacity, and the fact that Seneca Valley was expanded to accommodate about double the amount of students it could originally handle.

So, you have adjoining clusters with wild disparities in utilization, and a school being rebuilt and expanded. By any measure, this situation demanded a boundary revision, which also meant a revision to middle school zones because you needed to fill those 1000 new seats in the high school somehow.

So, you had a middle school (Neelsville) that had been run down for years, but the folks sitting pretty right next door didn't care, because it wasn't their kids who were supposed to attend.

The Board of Education considered some large number of options, more than 10 if I remember correctly, and chose one after a series of public meetings.

Now the parents who had a run-down middle school next door are furious, because suddenly this is their problem. Except....if we are a community, it was always their problem. They just didn't care back then.

At any rate, I don't see this "appeal" going anywhere. The BoE did all the things they were supposed to do in terms of public comment and considering different options. They just have solicit comment, not put the zoning up to a direct vote.

As a person who has followed this from the beginning, I felt this was a pretty good summary. I think you got to the real issue is that people only care about these issues when it affects them, but the BoE is charged with looking after all the students. Not sure why that's so hard for people to grasp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

...is a statement that's totally irrelevant to the specific topic of this thread.

It’s not ittelevant PP. you may not like it, but it is true and on-topic.

Nope. Because this isn't a court case, and the boundary decision wasn't based on racial balancing.

So true, but some people are just impervious to the truth.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how long the state BOE has to make a decision on this appeal? They also have the Howard County appeals to decide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

...is a statement that's totally irrelevant to the specific topic of this thread.

It’s not irrelevant PP. you may not like it, but it is true and on-topic.

Nope. Because this isn't a court case, and the boundary decision wasn't based on racial balancing.

So true, but some people are just impervious to the truth.

Wrong. Actually the Clarksburg redistribution is based on Racial Balancing. They want equal number of Asians in each of the impacted schools. Clarksburg is a larger number of Asian-Americans in the area. No wonder the school is doing well. MCPS wants to redistribute so that the number of Asian-Americans increase in SVHS.

Asian-Americans should have known not to vote Republican for President of the country and not to vote Democrats for Montgomery County. Reverse!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In spite of the progressive movement wanting more racial balancing, the courts have consistently moved away from that over time.

...is a statement that's totally irrelevant to the specific topic of this thread.

It’s not ittelevant PP. you may not like it, but it is true and on-topic.

Nope. Because this isn't a court case, and the boundary decision wasn't based on racial balancing.

So true, but some people are just impervious to the truth.

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. Great summary!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

Ask in the crazy Facebook group and someone will remember. There are still people bitching about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

When we moved into the Ritchie Park neighborhood with young kids in 2005 we found that the 1987 rezoning was something of a legend. (The neighborhood was rezoned for Richard Montgomery though it is closer to both Churchill and Wootton.) Oldtimers would regale us with stories, about the lawsuits and bitter disputes that occurred at the time.

In twenty years I may be regaling my young neighbors about the great school boundary dispute of 2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

When we moved into the Ritchie Park neighborhood with young kids in 2005 we found that the 1987 rezoning was something of a legend. (The neighborhood was rezoned for Richard Montgomery though it is closer to both Churchill and Wootton.) Oldtimers would regale us with stories, about the lawsuits and bitter disputes that occurred at the time.

In twenty years I may be regaling my young neighbors about the great school boundary dispute of 2020.

But was there an actual lawsuit or just an appeal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

When we moved into the Ritchie Park neighborhood with young kids in 2005 we found that the 1987 rezoning was something of a legend. (The neighborhood was rezoned for Richard Montgomery though it is closer to both Churchill and Wootton.) Oldtimers would regale us with stories, about the lawsuits and bitter disputes that occurred at the time.

In twenty years I may be regaling my young neighbors about the great school boundary dispute of 2020.

But was there an actual lawsuit or just an appeal?

it's an appeal that will be quickly dismissed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

When we moved into the Ritchie Park neighborhood with young kids in 2005 we found that the 1987 rezoning was something of a legend. (The neighborhood was rezoned for Richard Montgomery though it is closer to both Churchill and Wootton.) Oldtimers would regale us with stories, about the lawsuits and bitter disputes that occurred at the time.

In twenty years I may be regaling my young neighbors about the great school boundary dispute of 2020.

But was there an actual lawsuit or just an appeal?

it's an appeal that will be quickly dismissed

Well they changed the policy without required notice, but maybe that's fine now, or fine so long as you agree with the change. Careful though, that system means little policy stability.

[Anonymous]

At this point the people from clarksburg should be scared- they are making such a fuss their kids will definitely get jumped now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

When we moved into the Ritchie Park neighborhood with young kids in 2005 we found that the 1987 rezoning was something of a legend. (The neighborhood was rezoned for Richard Montgomery though it is closer to both Churchill and Wootton.) Oldtimers would regale us with stories, about the lawsuits and bitter disputes that occurred at the time.

In twenty years I may be regaling my young neighbors about the great school boundary dispute of 2020.

But was there an actual lawsuit or just an appeal?

it's an appeal that will be quickly dismissed

Well they changed the policy without required notice, but maybe that's fine now, or fine so long as you agree with the change. Careful though, that system means little policy stability.

No, they actually didn't, but if it makes you feel better to buy into fictional conspiracy theories, be my guest.

[Anonymous]

I really really don't think that adding "shall especially strive" rises to the level of a substantial change, but I guess that's for the relevant body to decide.

As for the assertion that the boundary change was "illegal?" That's nonsense. Changing a school attendance zone is well within the legal purview of the BoE, which was duly elected by the citizens of this county.

As others have noted, someone was going to get reassigned. With a high school doubling in capacity, and adjacent middle schools with dramatic differences in utilization, some group of kids was always going to need to change their attendance pattern.

That it fell on this specific group? I wish they would use all of this unlimited advocacy energy to fight for improvements to their new school.

[Anonymous]

While this is an appeal not a lawsuit, it does raise an interesting legal question. The Supreme Court ruled years ago that schools could not use race to determine school assignments. Racial quotas are now unconstitutional. However, those same decision also clearly stated that schools could strive to achieve racial diversity. This basically allowed placing test-in magnets that the school could predict would attract whites in high minority schools. A federal court in Florida has found that schools can give disadvantaged groups such as low income minorities additional points toward admissions in test in programs.

Where the Clarksburg neighborhood and the Asian Americans who filed multiple complaints of discrimination to the OCR have an argument, is whether MCPS has crossed that line from legal ways to promote diversity into illegal ways that equate to racial balancing or racial quotas. The politics behind both are very different.

The Asian Americans have a stronger case but they are generally the weakest political group and are not supported by liberal whites, conservative whites, AA or hispanics. We'll see what happens there.

On the boundary changes, this will end up in the Supreme Court either coming from MD or NY or somewhere else in the NE/Mid Atlantic. The legal question will be clarification on where the line between racial balancing/racial quota and seeking diversity exists. Depending on the case, the line could get pushed back much farther away from diversity efforts, especially if MCPS ends up being the defendant in that case. MCPS hyper focuses on race, spends a huge amount of time and resources tracking kids by race, has plenty of public statements about prioritizing some racial groups over others, and generally has a huge paper trail that would be far more likely to hurt the case than help it. At this level, MCPS can't claim that it was trying to racial balance schools through school assignment out of one side its mouth and then turn around with all the statements to the contrary. The Supreme Court being conservative now does not help either.