Initial boundary options for Crown/Damascus study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure I feel like sorting through all this confusing gobble-de-gook.

Just looking for a Cliff notes version: generally speaking, I bought west of 270 in large part to be in an elite school district surrounded with like minded people. If I live west of 270, am I generally safe to assume I’ll still be in an elite school district?

Thanks everyone, this was me. I’ll have you know that I’ll still be in Wootton hope your kiddos enjoy your crime filled Gaithersburg and Crown HS experiences!

Okie dokie, Mr. President. Didn’t realize you had moved up to MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure I feel like sorting through all this confusing gobble-de-gook.

Just looking for a Cliff notes version: generally speaking, I bought west of 270 in large part to be in an elite school district surrounded with like minded people. If I live west of 270, am I generally safe to assume I’ll still be in an elite school district?

This is the perfect example of what is wrong with our area. There is only one school district in Montgomery county. Buying a house does not give you the right to a specific school assignment in perpetuity. What is elite? You do your own research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

+1

Wayside going to Wootton should be the least controversial decision in entire boundary change. Wayside going to Wootton makes perfect sense. Folks who are arguing about leave this school or that school are missing the point. Boundaries will change when we have 2-3 near HS a same time. We can't leave schools.

No boundary will cover all bases, but positive outweighs negative in moving Wayside to Woottoon.

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

+1

Wayside going to Wootton should be the least controversial decision in entire boundary change. Wayside going to Wootton makes perfect sense. Folks who are arguing about leave this school or that school are missing the point. Boundaries will change when we have 2-3 near HS a same time. We can't leave schools.

No boundary will cover all bases, but positive outweighs negative in moving Wayside to Woottoon.

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

Agreed re: keeping elementary kids together, but the problem is the elementary boundaries are all messed up. Thry need to restart at the foundation by redoing elementary boundaries and that will fix most of the split articulation issues at the middle and high school labels.

And why has no one mentioned that Tobytown students should go to Potomac ES and Churchill instead of Travilah and Wootton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

+1

Wayside going to Wootton should be the least controversial decision in entire boundary change. Wayside going to Wootton makes perfect sense. Folks who are arguing about leave this school or that school are missing the point. Boundaries will change when we have 2-3 near HS a same time. We can't leave schools.

No boundary will cover all bases, but positive outweighs negative in moving Wayside to Woottoon.

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

I think this is an interesting point, but isn't this just mostly a function of the catchment areas of the schools? Changing these will just change which activities people choose to participate in, although in some cases the distances might be too large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travilah and dufief should go to QO and Kentlands should go to Crown with all the other City of Gaithersburg schools.

That is very logical. North Potomac, Travilah, and Darnestown go to Ridgeview / QO. The City of Gaithersburg schools go to Lakelands / Crown. Falls Grove and Ritchie Park to Wooton.

I have said this for a long time, before any boundary discussion. It is the most elegant contiguous solution. Of course people have their preferences based on past experience but none of that matters in these discussions. Now Kentlands leaving is a new topic of course with Crown, but agree with City boundaries being logical here, and having enough students to fill Crown in one swath.

Yup. Same reason why Fallsgrove and Ritchie Park should go to Wootton and all of King Farm to RM.

RM parent here and I would totally support that. Lets be real, "unofficially" most of King Farm goes to RM, even the Gaithersburg HS part. So tired of RPES parents whining about Wootton. I get it, you want to go to W school and not RM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travilah and dufief should go to QO and Kentlands should go to Crown with all the other City of Gaithersburg schools.

That is very logical. North Potomac, Travilah, and Darnestown go to Ridgeview / QO. The City of Gaithersburg schools go to Lakelands / Crown. Falls Grove and Ritchie Park to Wooton.

I have said this for a long time, before any boundary discussion. It is the most elegant contiguous solution. Of course people have their preferences based on past experience but none of that matters in these discussions. Now Kentlands leaving is a new topic of course with Crown, but agree with City boundaries being logical here, and having enough students to fill Crown in one swath.

Yup. Same reason why Fallsgrove and Ritchie Park should go to Wootton and all of King Farm to RM.

RM parent here and I would totally support that. Lets be real, "unofficially" most of King Farm goes to RM, even the Gaithersburg HS part. So tired of RPES parents whining about Wootton. I get it, you want to go to W school and not RM.

People want to be able to walk to the school that is literally behind their house...just like the walker neighborhood behind RM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travilah and dufief should go to QO and Kentlands should go to Crown with all the other City of Gaithersburg schools.

That is very logical. North Potomac, Travilah, and Darnestown go to Ridgeview / QO. The City of Gaithersburg schools go to Lakelands / Crown. Falls Grove and Ritchie Park to Wooton.

I have said this for a long time, before any boundary discussion. It is the most elegant contiguous solution. Of course people have their preferences based on past experience but none of that matters in these discussions. Now Kentlands leaving is a new topic of course with Crown, but agree with City boundaries being logical here, and having enough students to fill Crown in one swath.

Yup. Same reason why Fallsgrove and Ritchie Park should go to Wootton and all of King Farm to RM.

RM parent here and I would totally support that. Lets be real, "unofficially" most of King Farm goes to RM, even the Gaithersburg HS part. So tired of RPES parents whining about Wootton. I get it, you want to go to W school and not RM.

Nah. I'm in the RPES cluster, and a lot of parents here would rather stay at RM than go to Wootton. I'm the PP who has stated repeatedly that MCPS is not going to move RPES to Wootton. And I'm fine with that.

RM Main Street is really nice. They did a great job. Kids love having open lunch. My kids enjoy/ed their time at RM. Many years ago when we moved here, we looked at homes from N. Potomac down to Kensington (I think we looked at over 40 homes). We could afford homes in Potomac. We chose the RM cluster for a reason.

Wootton is also falling apart (shame on MCPS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

Wayside families definitely closer to Churchill for the most part. For us, it is 3 miles more to Wootton than to Churchill and an additional 10 minutes (give or take) round trip. Not horrible but doesn't make sense.

The Wayside families that should never been zoned to Wayside in the first place are in the Potomac Glen area. There are three other elementary schools closer to that neighborhood, namely Lakewood, Stone Mill, and Travilah. Why they were ever zoned for Wayside/Churchill is bizarre, but from what I understand the contractor that built that development had some connections with Montgomery County politicians who made it happen. That is the only area that should be rezoned to Wootton and to the appropriate elementary school. The rest of Wayside belongs at Churchill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travilah and dufief should go to QO and Kentlands should go to Crown with all the other City of Gaithersburg schools.

That is very logical. North Potomac, Travilah, and Darnestown go to Ridgeview / QO. The City of Gaithersburg schools go to Lakelands / Crown. Falls Grove and Ritchie Park to Wooton.

I have said this for a long time, before any boundary discussion. It is the most elegant contiguous solution. Of course people have their preferences based on past experience but none of that matters in these discussions. Now Kentlands leaving is a new topic of course with Crown, but agree with City boundaries being logical here, and having enough students to fill Crown in one swath.

Yup. Same reason why Fallsgrove and Ritchie Park should go to Wootton and all of King Farm to RM.

RM parent here and I would totally support that. Lets be real, "unofficially" most of King Farm goes to RM, even the Gaithersburg HS part. So tired of RPES parents whining about Wootton. I get it, you want to go to W school and not RM.

No. RPES and JWMS parent here. We much prefer RM over Wootton. RM is diverse in all aspects. Wootton is biracial only and not socioeconomically diverse. We’d prefer exposure the wider viewpoints as well from the RM community vs Wootton. What we really care about is not separating Fallsgrove from the southern communities surrounding RPES via split articulation. We are in the latter, but many friendships with the former. It would be better to reassign ES boundaries to create a new RPES community that continues through MS and HS at JW and RM without Fallsgrove than to split articulate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

+1

Wayside going to Wootton should be the least controversial decision in entire boundary change. Wayside going to Wootton makes perfect sense. Folks who are arguing about leave this school or that school are missing the point. Boundaries will change when we have 2-3 near HS a same time. We can't leave schools.

No boundary will cover all bases, but positive outweighs negative in moving Wayside to Woottoon.

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

I think this is an interesting point, but isn't this just mostly a function of the catchment areas of the schools? Changing these will just change which activities people choose to participate in, although in some cases the distances might be too large.

In 2 and 4, it splits up some students that go to the same elementary school to different high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

+1

Wayside going to Wootton should be the least controversial decision in entire boundary change. Wayside going to Wootton makes perfect sense. Folks who are arguing about leave this school or that school are missing the point. Boundaries will change when we have 2-3 near HS a same time. We can't leave schools.

No boundary will cover all bases, but positive outweighs negative in moving Wayside to Woottoon.

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

Agreed re: keeping elementary kids together, but the problem is the elementary boundaries are all messed up. Thry need to restart at the foundation by redoing elementary boundaries and that will fix most of the split articulation issues at the middle and high school labels.

And why has no one mentioned that Tobytown students should go to Potomac ES and Churchill instead of Travilah and Wootton.

I suppose because a) many of us have never heard of Tobytown, and b) they're not changing ES boundaries.

Having looked it up and as a Churhchill parent, though, I'd welcome anything that would bring more income diversity to the school. I was disappointed that they divided the two different boundary studies in a way that Churchill couldn't bring in a few clusters to the East that would bring more diversity (sets of apartments here and there). Though the same issue of not changing ES boundaries would probably have arisen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of you need to learn mapping skills

Wayside to Wootton vs Stonemill to Wooton

Wayside is farther away and if buses go the back way it’s dangerous. If they go falls road it’s longer.

Stonemill by car is 10 minutes to Wootton Google maps.

Stonemill to Crown 10 minutes to Wootton 10 min however kids can walk to Wootton from Stonemill mine have Crown not as easy.

I don’t particularly care as my kids are grown and I don’t need the money from my house.

However logistics if someone has a kid at Frost and a kid at Crown no that’s dumb logistically.


Whoever drew these maps dies not know how to read a map.

I'd like to drink whatever Cool Aid that you are drinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

Wayside families definitely closer to Churchill for the most part. For us, it is 3 miles more to Wootton than to Churchill and an additional 10 minutes (give or take) round trip. Not horrible but doesn't make sense.

The Wayside families that should never been zoned to Wayside in the first place are in the Potomac Glen area. There are three other elementary schools closer to that neighborhood, namely Lakewood, Stone Mill, and Travilah. Why they were ever zoned for Wayside/Churchill is bizarre, but from what I understand the contractor that built that development had some connections with Montgomery County politicians who made it happen. That is the only area that should be rezoned to Wootton and to the appropriate elementary school. The rest of Wayside belongs at Churchill.

But they're not changing ES boundaries. And ES split articulation to different middle schools sounds terrible. And you're citing a 5 minute increase (one way) for part of the school zone to go to Wootton where another part of the school zone would probably save 2 or 3 times that by going to Wootton. And MCPS is trying to put together a big jigsaw puzzle in which not every household will benefit, but the overall system is better. So all in all, adding 5 minuts to a commute for some people isn't going to be a deal-changer in the overall puzzle.

Based on what you said, if we could invent a time machine, people here might push for the school zone to have been created differently 20 years ago. And it sounds like there are a lot of people here who would favor looking at ES boundaries but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. So this is where we are.

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Anonymous wrote:Moving Wayside out of Churchill helps with utilization. How else will they get Churchill below 100%?

It’s a BS utilization at Churchill. They’ve reduced capacity by 100 seats from when it first opened. What happened did the school shrink? Churchill has just had a period of a few years with higher enrollment which was consistently in lower figures and never had a portable until a year or two I believe. Kids there have stated it’s not crowded aside from the portable there’s no evidence to that.

Churchill parent here. There's no problem with Churchill being overcapacity. Yes, there are a couple of portables and I'm sure those teachers aren't excited about them. But I've never felt Churchill had too many kids generally. It's not hurting education or the social environment. And there's not much new construction in this area, so I wouldn't expect the problem to become worse in the next decade.

I have always wondered, though, why there are kids sooo far west that come to Churchill. Those are largely Wayside kids, and some Potomac kids. So yes, to drive from Wayside ES to Wootton HS, it may be about the same distance as going to from Wayside ES to Churchill HS. But a huge part of that geography is far closer to Wootton than to Churchill. Same with the Northern part of the Potomac ES boundaries. The culprit is that they're not looking at ES boundaries. I'd be interested in knowing the *average* student's bus time to both high schools-- there is certainly some house that is closer to Churchill and some house that is closer to Wootton. In sum, I think, capacity-wise, it would be fine for Wayside to continue to go to Churchill. But I think the quality of life for the average Wayside kid might improve by going to the closer school.

+1

Wayside going to Wootton should be the least controversial decision in entire boundary change. Wayside going to Wootton makes perfect sense. Folks who are arguing about leave this school or that school are missing the point. Boundaries will change when we have 2-3 near HS a same time. We can't leave schools.

No boundary will cover all bases, but positive outweighs negative in moving Wayside to Woottoon.

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

Agreed re: keeping elementary kids together, but the problem is the elementary boundaries are all messed up. Thry need to restart at the foundation by redoing elementary boundaries and that will fix most of the split articulation issues at the middle and high school labels.

And why has no one mentioned that Tobytown students should go to Potomac ES and Churchill instead of Travilah and Wootton.

I suppose because a) many of us have never heard of Tobytown, and b) they're not changing ES boundaries.

Having looked it up and as a Churhchill parent, though, I'd welcome anything that would bring more income diversity to the school. I was disappointed that they divided the two different boundary studies in a way that Churchill couldn't bring in a few clusters to the East that would bring more diversity (sets of apartments here and there). Though the same issue of not changing ES boundaries would probably have arisen.

For those that don't know, Tobeytown is one of the historically Black communities in Montgomery County.

Churchill already has Scotland.

Tobeytown could potentially go to QO or Northwest too.

But they have a bus service, Ride On bus route 301, that goes down Travilah Road through the current Wootton school district. There was an article or posts not too long ago talking about how it took a long time for them to get a route to service their community too.