Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

25% Farms is no big deal. Our school has 55% farms and some years its been up to 75%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Gotta get the poors their own district.

It's not about that. It's about how local needs are different. Poolesville has different weather patterns than Silver Spring. They probably need way more school closures than we do in the southern part of the county.

Most of the covid cases are also in the east side of the county. North county is green. They should be able to open at least hybrid, but they can't because we are one school district.

Yep get the poors with their wage-working Covid-carrying parents outta my school district

You can look at it that way, or you could look at it as a way for the poorer areas to be able to address their needs more easily. They would not have to wait in line to get the hvac fixed along with a whole lot of other schools.

Taxes go to the county. The county could provide more funds to the certain districts, much like Title 1 funding.

Our cluster has about 25% FARMS rate, with at least one Title 1 school, so it's not like we have no FARMs kids

You do know it doesn't really work that way in practice though, right? There's plenty of areas in the country where school districts are by city, so there are lots of examples to look at.

Most of those cities allocate property tax by the city. I'm stating that the budget would be provided at the county level.

Lower income areas could get more funding, again like Title 1 funding. Right now, the budget is for the entire school district which means that poorer areas still have to wait in line to get their needs met.

That's partially true, though most of those areas still use state-level funding to even out some of the inequalities.

And assuming funding is still some through the county (and state), it doesn't really address the example you provided of HVAC systems. Capital improvements would still be allocated differently in the budget, meaning you'd still have a problem of the loudest parents getting the most money.

? budget would include CIP. This would be for the entire budget. Separate districts can prioritize based on their own needs.

I keep reading on here how Silver Spring/TP parents on the loudest, so based on what you wrote, they'd get more funding. win/win.

How does the county decide when and where to build new high schools? Particularly if other schools in the county are underutilized?

Like we do now.. based on population size. If the schools are under utilized they would lose funding. It should follow the population size.

I'm originally from out west. School budget for each school district is determined by the state/county, and there can be multiple school districts in the county.

You can also have reciprocal agreements with the neighboring district when schools in one district get overcrowded.

This is not a novel idea. It can be done.

Serious question: can you point me to examples where schools have such reciprocal agreements? I don't really understand how that would work in practice. School districts over capacity presumably don't just pick a handful of students to bus over to a neighboring district, do they?

I'm from the Midwest. Open enrollment is pretty common in rural school districts. My high school got a lot of students choosing to enroll there from other towns, which had much smaller schools. But it was always the students/families asking to move to a different school, and the receiving school could always say no. I'm not aware of any cases where the schools themselves could send students to neighboring districts, unless they merged districts (which was pretty common in rural areas).

They need to completely start over and redraw the boundaries. They should also keep the SN and other kids in their home schools and make better programs at each home school. You'd probably see much different test scores at some of these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta get the poors their own district.

It's not about that. It's about how local needs are different. Poolesville has different weather patterns than Silver Spring. They probably need way more school closures than we do in the southern part of the county.

Most of the covid cases are also in the east side of the county. North county is green. They should be able to open at least hybrid, but they can't because we are one school district.

Yep get the poors with their wage-working Covid-carrying parents outta my school district

You can look at it that way, or you could look at it as a way for the poorer areas to be able to address their needs more easily. They would not have to wait in line to get the hvac fixed along with a whole lot of other schools.

Taxes go to the county. The county could provide more funds to the certain districts, much like Title 1 funding.

Our cluster has about 25% FARMS rate, with at least one Title 1 school, so it's not like we have no FARMs kids

You really don't get it, do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, I'm happy to let folks spin their wheels in this direction. It will NEVER happen for lots of good reasons, including the need for an actual ballot initiative on the topic, not to mention the critical mass of folks who would oppose it living in the eastern part of the county.

But....if folks are expending their political efforts on splitting the school district rather than ridiculous court cases about magnet admissions, then have at it.

That's where I'm at, too.

It is highly political because MCPS needs Bethesda and Potomac to keep fiscally subsidizing the rest of the huge county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

Then you should move to a place that uses the township model. Here in Maryland, the county is the unit of local government.

[Anonymous]

Trust me, we wish we had noticed it was a big loser county model when we bought in our early 30s. Instead coworkers kept harping about how good the schools were. Haha. Never would have left DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trust me, we wish we had noticed it was a big loser county model when we bought in our early 30s. Instead coworkers kept harping about how good the schools were. Haha. Never would have left DC.

It's not too late to go back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo? This pandemic has me questioning how the school system is setup in the county. It’s gotten to big to manage. Is it time to break it up to smaller manageable school districts within the county? This is done in Texas, California etc.

Well that will take a few years. By all means.

[Anonymous]

First break up public school teacher unions.

This has gotten much more traction nationally and locally. Time is now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

MCPS tried charters and the one charter at Community Crossways got shut down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people pushing for smaller districts really just want protection from being redrawn into a less desirable cluster.

Let's say that's true.. and? I'm ok with balancing SES. My cluster has about 25% FARMs. But the pandemic has really shown that having such a large district is really unwieldy and doesn't serve anyone well, lower income or not.

There's an economy of scale with MCPS that makes it more efficient than a smaller district but this was never about that. This is about the people in wealthy areas shirking any responsibility for the less fortunate.

Ahh yes, the same economy of scale that's the reason MCPS can't reopen for in-person learning at all, even though other districts in MD are. "Too difficult with such a big school system" they say.

A big school system can do it but we need a lot more schools and staff to open safely and the older schools need remodeled and the new schools need better HVAC as several don't work properly. 500-3K kids in a school plus staff will not work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Nothing happened in MKE.

Someone is conflating the City of Milwaukee public schools district with the town districts throughout Milwaukee county. Property tax rates per $100 of home value are indeed high in Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many many states do not do the asinine huge 500k-5 million+ population county thing for the school district level. That doesn’t serve anyone well and results in $$$$ billion mismanaged budgets and one size fits all curriculum fails. Too many students, too many admins, too many teachers, too many zip codes, too many cities/villages, too many square miles, to many dollars flying around.

OK, but Maryland does, and MCPS is in Maryland.

That’s OPs point: huge county level public school districts are highly ineffective and worse. Township model is better.

500 sq miles
220 schools
160,000 students
600-800 students per MS and HS grade
Biggest employer in the county
5 weather zones
Takes 90 minutes to drive across in rush hour

DCPS is the real turnaround story since 2004. charter school success, NW DC schools kicking @$$ academically and athletically, free PK for all for decades, everyone walks to school, strong Pk-8 curriculum, great ECs in ES. Only downside is the $2k per kid pta fees for non title 1 schools since DC doesn’t give those schools much of the kitty.

LOL
What DCPS turnaround you're talking about?