Taylor Meeting at Wootton

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Wootten community finds itself defending certain actions and attitudes that to much of the county appear indefensible. Sometimes we are unsure just how to frame our response in terms of reason. We are not arguing against the Gaithersburg community as persons, but for the preservation of the neighborhood school and the geographic integrity of our communities, which are the only sure safeguards of our academic and neighborhood heritage.

That last sentence negates your argument. You want a bubble around your community to preserve the heritage. Again displaying the underlying classist attitudes coming from Wootton pkwy.

And Silver Spring and Damascus and Olney and go ahead and name all the communities in Montgomery County that are exactly the same.

Public school policy and governance are not based on the feelings of one supreme leader. They are based on laws, policies and procedures. If you don't understand that then MCPS really failed you in your education.

The nature of public school means no boundaries are forever and nothing is guaranteed. You want certainties then go private.

Duh. That's why there are laws and policies in place for how to make these changes. You want a king? Go live at the White House.

Process has been followed. Sorry you don't like the outcome.

Not even close. Sorry you can’t read.

DP- I've read this whole thread and there are a lot of assertions of improper process and violations of COMAR, etc. But not one person has identified a single process step that is required that has not been met, or a COMAR language that has been violated.

COMAR is probably not the place to find an issue; it defers a lot to the local school board. They'd have to assert that there was a breach in MCPS not following its own policies.

That said, there's two different arguments at play: whether the process followed the legal requirements vs. whether the process was done in a way that felt like a good, transparent process.

Even as a Pro-H person, the process has felt immensely chaotic. We looked over the initial 4 options, which were wildly different, because they were emphasizing different parts of the Policy FAA criteria. After freaking out about some of the options (option 3 was sheer lunacy), options A-D were presented which looked mostly fine in October.

Then the superintendent threw a bomb into the whole process by suggesting Crown as a holding school. Then Option H was included among the other options of Crown being a holding school, making Wootton the holding school and moving Wootton to Crown in December.

So, we started this process in July and the entire premise was upended more than half way through. Never mind that concurrently, they're also pushing through the biggest changes to the criteria programs in generations at the same time and arguing that the regional programs and boundary study are interlinked.

The process has generally been bad at setting expectations and getting community buy-in. We still have a lot of unanswered questions about the criteria program, but the Wootton issue is sucking so much oxygen that it's getting left behind.

For the Wootton move, I don't think a delay would make a huge difference; there's been plenty of vocal feedback and I'm not sure what new information can be surfaced with holding more hearings. The situation is the situation, MCPS has the data that they have, and the decision needs to be made soon so that the school is ready to open on-time.

I think the end result given the situation as it stands makes the most sense. Enrollment is declining, Wootton's current building is in bad shape, Wootton is close to the Crown building and its school boundaries are adjacent to the new building. It sucks that it's come to this point, because they neglected the Wootton building enough that it's in such poor shape and they stuck to poor projections that showed a new high school was needed. It's not great, but MCPS needs to think county and system wide.

there you go being reasonable and sensible. DCUM is not the place for reason! teach reasoning to your kids, not adults arguing on an anonymous platform

But my property values! Didn’t MCPS consider the cost of my kitchen renovations and how I have no ROI now. That lack of consideration much have violated COMAR somehow

I am the tiny townhome PP. i thought i was paying for a W but now it will be crown. have some mercy please.

Crown will also be a wealthy school and those crown homes are worth far more than yours. Why overpay for a crummy townhome? What is small? 4000 square feet? Just move and you can still have your kids at a W school.

The single family homes in Crown sell for over $1.6million and some of the town houses sell for close to that. Crown is generally an affluent neighborhood.

+1. Crown *will* be a W school (though DCUM will need to come up with a name to replace "W"). It will be current Wootton plus some additional more expensive homes plus some additional less expensive homes. Yes, the FARMs rate will go up a bit, but not that much. And that doesn't actually matter for what you're looking for. Technically, the school's average SAT score may go down (irrelevant), but the whole current Wootton population will be there, so it will have just as many APs, just as many serious students. The reality of any school is that for most classes (and pretty much all after sophomore year) the strong students are generally separated academically from the weaker students by virtue of class choice.

I feel for current-walkers who will now be bus riders. But otherwise, this is a really positive outcome for the community as a whole.

You fundamentally don't understand what a W school is. It's not a positive outcome for anyone who sought out Wootton for it's culture and academic rigor. That will be gone now. You can't sustain it when the community is not on board. The tests results will reflect that, which you've already acknowledged and dismissed as "irrelevant".

People with means who don't like the result will leave, and now there's a new forcing function for high achievers to leave MCPS. For Taylor and some here, that is a positive outcome for the community as a whole.

Wow what an assumption that the academic rigor and test results will suffer because they get a new building?!?

You know what happens when you assume?

They cannot come up with any real justifications so they are stretching. With a new building and new science labs and tech they could offer more.

The research is there. Go read it. Again, why isn’t Magruder getting Crown first? Don’t you want a majority minority school to get it?

Confused. I thought Wootton was a majority minority school but you are saying only Magruder is?

A non-troll, real post is that Magruder doesn't get Crown because Wootton is being moved to Crown. That's how these things work, Magruder will then use Wootton as a holding school while Magruder gets rebuilt.

Another alternative that has never been discussed could be this scenario - Magruder moves to Crown, Wootton moves to Magruder as a holding school, Wootton get's rebuilt. Magruder becomes a holding school forever. Does Magruder want this? Speak now!

Magruder isn't part of this boundary study, so they can't be moved to Crown.

The reason that Wootton is being moved is because it's the one that makes the most geographic sense. There's already a neighborhood that goes to Wootton that is literally across the street from Crown (the Rio apartments) and there are several neighborhoods that are just as close if not closer to the Crown site as the Parkway site.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Wootten community finds itself defending certain actions and attitudes that to much of the county appear indefensible. Sometimes we are unsure just how to frame our response in terms of reason. We are not arguing against the Gaithersburg community as persons, but for the preservation of the neighborhood school and the geographic integrity of our communities, which are the only sure safeguards of our academic and neighborhood heritage.

That last sentence negates your argument. You want a bubble around your community to preserve the heritage. Again displaying the underlying classist attitudes coming from Wootton pkwy.

And Silver Spring and Damascus and Olney and go ahead and name all the communities in Montgomery County that are exactly the same.

Public school policy and governance are not based on the feelings of one supreme leader. They are based on laws, policies and procedures. If you don't understand that then MCPS really failed you in your education.

The nature of public school means no boundaries are forever and nothing is guaranteed. You want certainties then go private.

Duh. That's why there are laws and policies in place for how to make these changes. You want a king? Go live at the White House.

Process has been followed. Sorry you don't like the outcome.

Not even close. Sorry you can’t read.

DP- I've read this whole thread and there are a lot of assertions of improper process and violations of COMAR, etc. But not one person has identified a single process step that is required that has not been met, or a COMAR language that has been violated.

COMAR is probably not the place to find an issue; it defers a lot to the local school board. They'd have to assert that there was a breach in MCPS not following its own policies.

That said, there's two different arguments at play: whether the process followed the legal requirements vs. whether the process was done in a way that felt like a good, transparent process.

Even as a Pro-H person, the process has felt immensely chaotic. We looked over the initial 4 options, which were wildly different, because they were emphasizing different parts of the Policy FAA criteria. After freaking out about some of the options (option 3 was sheer lunacy), options A-D were presented which looked mostly fine in October.

Then the superintendent threw a bomb into the whole process by suggesting Crown as a holding school. Then Option H was included among the other options of Crown being a holding school, making Wootton the holding school and moving Wootton to Crown in December.

So, we started this process in July and the entire premise was upended more than half way through. Never mind that concurrently, they're also pushing through the biggest changes to the criteria programs in generations at the same time and arguing that the regional programs and boundary study are interlinked.

The process has generally been bad at setting expectations and getting community buy-in. We still have a lot of unanswered questions about the criteria program, but the Wootton issue is sucking so much oxygen that it's getting left behind.

For the Wootton move, I don't think a delay would make a huge difference; there's been plenty of vocal feedback and I'm not sure what new information can be surfaced with holding more hearings. The situation is the situation, MCPS has the data that they have, and the decision needs to be made soon so that the school is ready to open on-time.

I think the end result given the situation as it stands makes the most sense. Enrollment is declining, Wootton's current building is in bad shape, Wootton is close to the Crown building and its school boundaries are adjacent to the new building. It sucks that it's come to this point, because they neglected the Wootton building enough that it's in such poor shape and they stuck to poor projections that showed a new high school was needed. It's not great, but MCPS needs to think county and system wide.

there you go being reasonable and sensible. DCUM is not the place for reason! teach reasoning to your kids, not adults arguing on an anonymous platform

But my property values! Didn’t MCPS consider the cost of my kitchen renovations and how I have no ROI now. That lack of consideration much have violated COMAR somehow

I am the tiny townhome PP. i thought i was paying for a W but now it will be crown. have some mercy please.

Crown will also be a wealthy school and those crown homes are worth far more than yours. Why overpay for a crummy townhome? What is small? 4000 square feet? Just move and you can still have your kids at a W school.

The single family homes in Crown sell for over $1.6million and some of the town houses sell for close to that. Crown is generally an affluent neighborhood.

+1. Crown *will* be a W school (though DCUM will need to come up with a name to replace "W"). It will be current Wootton plus some additional more expensive homes plus some additional less expensive homes. Yes, the FARMs rate will go up a bit, but not that much. And that doesn't actually matter for what you're looking for. Technically, the school's average SAT score may go down (irrelevant), but the whole current Wootton population will be there, so it will have just as many APs, just as many serious students. The reality of any school is that for most classes (and pretty much all after sophomore year) the strong students are generally separated academically from the weaker students by virtue of class choice.

I feel for current-walkers who will now be bus riders. But otherwise, this is a really positive outcome for the community as a whole.

You fundamentally don't understand what a W school is. It's not a positive outcome for anyone who sought out Wootton for it's culture and academic rigor. That will be gone now. You can't sustain it when the community is not on board. The tests results will reflect that, which you've already acknowledged and dismissed as "irrelevant".

People with means who don't like the result will leave, and now there's a new forcing function for high achievers to leave MCPS. For Taylor and some here, that is a positive outcome for the community as a whole.

Wow what an assumption that the academic rigor and test results will suffer because they get a new building?!?

You know what happens when you assume?

They cannot come up with any real justifications so they are stretching. With a new building and new science labs and tech they could offer more.

The research is there. Go read it. Again, why isn’t Magruder getting Crown first? Don’t you want a majority minority school to get it?

Confused. I thought Wootton was a majority minority school but you are saying only Magruder is?

A non-troll, real post is that Magruder doesn't get Crown because Wootton is being moved to Crown. That's how these things work, Magruder will then use Wootton as a holding school while Magruder gets rebuilt.

Another alternative that has never been discussed could be this scenario - Magruder moves to Crown, Wootton moves to Magruder as a holding school, Wootton get's rebuilt. Magruder becomes a holding school forever. Does Magruder want this? Speak now!

Magruder isn't part of this boundary study, so they can't be moved to Crown.

The reason that Wootton is being moved is because it's the one that makes the most geographic sense. There's already a neighborhood that goes to Wootton that is literally across the street from Crown (the Rio apartments) and there are several neighborhoods that are just as close if not closer to the Crown site as the Parkway site.

Ok but what if we don't like those neighborhoods? Can we vote them off the Island? The tribe has spoken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Wootten community finds itself defending certain actions and attitudes that to much of the county appear indefensible. Sometimes we are unsure just how to frame our response in terms of reason. We are not arguing against the Gaithersburg community as persons, but for the preservation of the neighborhood school and the geographic integrity of our communities, which are the only sure safeguards of our academic and neighborhood heritage.

That last sentence negates your argument. You want a bubble around your community to preserve the heritage. Again displaying the underlying classist attitudes coming from Wootton pkwy.

And Silver Spring and Damascus and Olney and go ahead and name all the communities in Montgomery County that are exactly the same.

Public school policy and governance are not based on the feelings of one supreme leader. They are based on laws, policies and procedures. If you don't understand that then MCPS really failed you in your education.

The nature of public school means no boundaries are forever and nothing is guaranteed. You want certainties then go private.

Duh. That's why there are laws and policies in place for how to make these changes. You want a king? Go live at the White House.

Process has been followed. Sorry you don't like the outcome.

Not even close. Sorry you can’t read.

DP- I've read this whole thread and there are a lot of assertions of improper process and violations of COMAR, etc. But not one person has identified a single process step that is required that has not been met, or a COMAR language that has been violated.

COMAR is probably not the place to find an issue; it defers a lot to the local school board. They'd have to assert that there was a breach in MCPS not following its own policies.

That said, there's two different arguments at play: whether the process followed the legal requirements vs. whether the process was done in a way that felt like a good, transparent process.

Even as a Pro-H person, the process has felt immensely chaotic. We looked over the initial 4 options, which were wildly different, because they were emphasizing different parts of the Policy FAA criteria. After freaking out about some of the options (option 3 was sheer lunacy), options A-D were presented which looked mostly fine in October.

Then the superintendent threw a bomb into the whole process by suggesting Crown as a holding school. Then Option H was included among the other options of Crown being a holding school, making Wootton the holding school and moving Wootton to Crown in December.

So, we started this process in July and the entire premise was upended more than half way through. Never mind that concurrently, they're also pushing through the biggest changes to the criteria programs in generations at the same time and arguing that the regional programs and boundary study are interlinked.

The process has generally been bad at setting expectations and getting community buy-in. We still have a lot of unanswered questions about the criteria program, but the Wootton issue is sucking so much oxygen that it's getting left behind.

For the Wootton move, I don't think a delay would make a huge difference; there's been plenty of vocal feedback and I'm not sure what new information can be surfaced with holding more hearings. The situation is the situation, MCPS has the data that they have, and the decision needs to be made soon so that the school is ready to open on-time.

I think the end result given the situation as it stands makes the most sense. Enrollment is declining, Wootton's current building is in bad shape, Wootton is close to the Crown building and its school boundaries are adjacent to the new building. It sucks that it's come to this point, because they neglected the Wootton building enough that it's in such poor shape and they stuck to poor projections that showed a new high school was needed. It's not great, but MCPS needs to think county and system wide.

there you go being reasonable and sensible. DCUM is not the place for reason! teach reasoning to your kids, not adults arguing on an anonymous platform

But my property values! Didn’t MCPS consider the cost of my kitchen renovations and how I have no ROI now. That lack of consideration much have violated COMAR somehow

I am the tiny townhome PP. i thought i was paying for a W but now it will be crown. have some mercy please.

Crown will also be a wealthy school and those crown homes are worth far more than yours. Why overpay for a crummy townhome? What is small? 4000 square feet? Just move and you can still have your kids at a W school.

The single family homes in Crown sell for over $1.6million and some of the town houses sell for close to that. Crown is generally an affluent neighborhood.

+1. Crown *will* be a W school (though DCUM will need to come up with a name to replace "W"). It will be current Wootton plus some additional more expensive homes plus some additional less expensive homes. Yes, the FARMs rate will go up a bit, but not that much. And that doesn't actually matter for what you're looking for. Technically, the school's average SAT score may go down (irrelevant), but the whole current Wootton population will be there, so it will have just as many APs, just as many serious students. The reality of any school is that for most classes (and pretty much all after sophomore year) the strong students are generally separated academically from the weaker students by virtue of class choice.

I feel for current-walkers who will now be bus riders. But otherwise, this is a really positive outcome for the community as a whole.

You fundamentally don't understand what a W school is. It's not a positive outcome for anyone who sought out Wootton for it's culture and academic rigor. That will be gone now. You can't sustain it when the community is not on board. The tests results will reflect that, which you've already acknowledged and dismissed as "irrelevant".

People with means who don't like the result will leave, and now there's a new forcing function for high achievers to leave MCPS. For Taylor and some here, that is a positive outcome for the community as a whole.

Wow what an assumption that the academic rigor and test results will suffer because they get a new building?!?

You know what happens when you assume?

They cannot come up with any real justifications so they are stretching. With a new building and new science labs and tech they could offer more.

The research is there. Go read it. Again, why isn’t Magruder getting Crown first? Don’t you want a majority minority school to get it?

Confused. I thought Wootton was a majority minority school but you are saying only Magruder is?

It's a moot point - there is no world where Magruder goes to Crown in 2027. Even if Crown were to open as a holding school, Magruder still isn't on the CIP. It's a misleading bait and switch to suggest the choices are the Wootton goes to Crown or Magruder does. There is no choice where Magruder goes to Crown. To be clear, this sucks for Magruder and I think pretty much everyone agrees they are not being treated equitably - but it's also not a good cudgel for anti-H as there are no choices on the table that address Magruder's needs. Wootton walkers centering them because they think it makes their argument more palatable is gross.

I thought Wootton was being “wronged” because they are a majority minority school? Isn’t that what those opposed to the move think or am I wrong?

Are Asians a minority or not?

At Wootton, no.

They are minorities who are not in the minority! They are minorities when people do things they don’t like. They are not minorities when they argue that Wootton is closing a majority Asian school. They are minorities when they file a civil rights claim. They are not minorities when they talk about minorities having lower test scores and bad behavior. Is that clear enough for you?? Ok, I’m confused too. 😂😂

[Anonymous]

I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

College and grad school are far more important than high school. No one cares where you go to high school except casual conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

College and grad school are far more important than high school. No one cares where you go to high school except casual conversation.

Tell me you're not from MoCo without telling me you're not from MoCo.

Not saying you are wrong, you are 100% right, but this area has a thing about W high schools---excluding, of course, 1/4 of the actual W schools--I see and honor you Watkins Mill and Wheaton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

What is Wootton’s graduation rate compared to all other MoCo high schools? That alone demonstrates academic rigor and discipline. Graduation from high school is a key indicator of success (but obviously not a guaranty).

Can you guaranty that Crown will have the same graduation and quality of college acceptance rate as Wootton does?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

What is Wootton’s graduation rate compared to all other MoCo high schools? That alone demonstrates academic rigor and discipline. Graduation from high school is a key indicator of success (but obviously not a guaranty).

Can you guaranty that Crown will have the same graduation and quality of college acceptance rate as Wootton does?

You cannot just look at QO and Gburg HS grad rates to guess what the Wootton @ Crown grad rate will be because its only a small percentage from each school actually joining Wootton. We could very well be adding the BEST of those schools. We dont know. But Wootton @ Crown will have the SAME programs and SAME teachers as Wootton so we know they will get the very best education in that aspect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

College and grad school are far more important than high school. No one cares where you go to high school except casual conversation.

Tell me you're not from MoCo without telling me you're not from MoCo.

Not saying you are wrong, you are 100% right, but this area has a thing about W high schools---excluding, of course, 1/4 of the actual W schools--I see and honor you Watkins Mill and Wheaton.

I am a lifelong resident and when you meet another MCPS alum, high schools come up but I can't imagine judging anyone positively or negatively by where their parents lived when they were teenagers. It does give you a sense of if they grew up relatively affluent or less so, but it's not a perfect way to gauge that.

I went to a "bad" high school and occasionally meet people who also went there who are successful and contribute to the community. I've never once thought that anyone would judge me for going there (other than people on this board, lol).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

What is Wootton’s graduation rate compared to all other MoCo high schools? That alone demonstrates academic rigor and discipline. Graduation from high school is a key indicator of success (but obviously not a guaranty).

Can you guaranty that Crown will have the same graduation and quality of college acceptance rate as Wootton does?

Not PP but this is an absurd question. Even Wootton itself can't make that guarantee year over year.

And even if the answer is no, it still doesn't change the assessment of Option H when looking at the totality fo the factors and taking into account the best interests of all MCPS students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

What is Wootton’s graduation rate compared to all other MoCo high schools? That alone demonstrates academic rigor and discipline. Graduation from high school is a key indicator of success (but obviously not a guaranty).

Can you guaranty that Crown will have the same graduation and quality of college acceptance rate as Wootton does?

Not PP but this is an absurd question. Even Wootton itself can't make that guarantee year over year.

And even if the answer is no, it still doesn't change the assessment of Option H when looking at the totality fo the factors and taking into account the best interests of all MCPS students.

We cant even make the assumption that if the people mad about the decision decide to move out that we wont also have people of the same caliber moving back in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

What is Wootton’s graduation rate compared to all other MoCo high schools? That alone demonstrates academic rigor and discipline. Graduation from high school is a key indicator of success (but obviously not a guaranty).

Can you guaranty that Crown will have the same graduation and quality of college acceptance rate as Wootton does?

Why does that matter? Boundaries are being moved. Student bodies are being changed. That's the purpose of a boundary study.

Northwest is having a much bigger percentage point increase in FARMS than Wootton is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Wootten community finds itself defending certain actions and attitudes that to much of the county appear indefensible. Sometimes we are unsure just how to frame our response in terms of reason. We are not arguing against the Gaithersburg community as persons, but for the preservation of the neighborhood school and the geographic integrity of our communities, which are the only sure safeguards of our academic and neighborhood heritage.

That last sentence negates your argument. You want a bubble around your community to preserve the heritage. Again displaying the underlying classist attitudes coming from Wootton pkwy.

And Silver Spring and Damascus and Olney and go ahead and name all the communities in Montgomery County that are exactly the same.

Public school policy and governance are not based on the feelings of one supreme leader. They are based on laws, policies and procedures. If you don't understand that then MCPS really failed you in your education.

The nature of public school means no boundaries are forever and nothing is guaranteed. You want certainties then go private.

Duh. That's why there are laws and policies in place for how to make these changes. You want a king? Go live at the White House.

Process has been followed. Sorry you don't like the outcome.

Not even close. Sorry you can’t read.

DP- I've read this whole thread and there are a lot of assertions of improper process and violations of COMAR, etc. But not one person has identified a single process step that is required that has not been met, or a COMAR language that has been violated.

COMAR is probably not the place to find an issue; it defers a lot to the local school board. They'd have to assert that there was a breach in MCPS not following its own policies.

That said, there's two different arguments at play: whether the process followed the legal requirements vs. whether the process was done in a way that felt like a good, transparent process.

Even as a Pro-H person, the process has felt immensely chaotic. We looked over the initial 4 options, which were wildly different, because they were emphasizing different parts of the Policy FAA criteria. After freaking out about some of the options (option 3 was sheer lunacy), options A-D were presented which looked mostly fine in October.

Then the superintendent threw a bomb into the whole process by suggesting Crown as a holding school. Then Option H was included among the other options of Crown being a holding school, making Wootton the holding school and moving Wootton to Crown in December.

So, we started this process in July and the entire premise was upended more than half way through. Never mind that concurrently, they're also pushing through the biggest changes to the criteria programs in generations at the same time and arguing that the regional programs and boundary study are interlinked.

The process has generally been bad at setting expectations and getting community buy-in. We still have a lot of unanswered questions about the criteria program, but the Wootton issue is sucking so much oxygen that it's getting left behind.

For the Wootton move, I don't think a delay would make a huge difference; there's been plenty of vocal feedback and I'm not sure what new information can be surfaced with holding more hearings. The situation is the situation, MCPS has the data that they have, and the decision needs to be made soon so that the school is ready to open on-time.

I think the end result given the situation as it stands makes the most sense. Enrollment is declining, Wootton's current building is in bad shape, Wootton is close to the Crown building and its school boundaries are adjacent to the new building. It sucks that it's come to this point, because they neglected the Wootton building enough that it's in such poor shape and they stuck to poor projections that showed a new high school was needed. It's not great, but MCPS needs to think county and system wide.

there you go being reasonable and sensible. DCUM is not the place for reason! teach reasoning to your kids, not adults arguing on an anonymous platform

But my property values! Didn’t MCPS consider the cost of my kitchen renovations and how I have no ROI now. That lack of consideration much have violated COMAR somehow

I am the tiny townhome PP. i thought i was paying for a W but now it will be crown. have some mercy please.

Crown will also be a wealthy school and those crown homes are worth far more than yours. Why overpay for a crummy townhome? What is small? 4000 square feet? Just move and you can still have your kids at a W school.

The single family homes in Crown sell for over $1.6million and some of the town houses sell for close to that. Crown is generally an affluent neighborhood.

+1. Crown *will* be a W school (though DCUM will need to come up with a name to replace "W"). It will be current Wootton plus some additional more expensive homes plus some additional less expensive homes. Yes, the FARMs rate will go up a bit, but not that much. And that doesn't actually matter for what you're looking for. Technically, the school's average SAT score may go down (irrelevant), but the whole current Wootton population will be there, so it will have just as many APs, just as many serious students. The reality of any school is that for most classes (and pretty much all after sophomore year) the strong students are generally separated academically from the weaker students by virtue of class choice.

I feel for current-walkers who will now be bus riders. But otherwise, this is a really positive outcome for the community as a whole.

You fundamentally don't understand what a W school is. It's not a positive outcome for anyone who sought out Wootton for it's culture and academic rigor. That will be gone now. You can't sustain it when the community is not on board. The tests results will reflect that, which you've already acknowledged and dismissed as "irrelevant".

People with means who don't like the result will leave, and now there's a new forcing function for high achievers to leave MCPS. For Taylor and some here, that is a positive outcome for the community as a whole.

Wow what an assumption that the academic rigor and test results will suffer because they get a new building?!?

You know what happens when you assume?

They cannot come up with any real justifications so they are stretching. With a new building and new science labs and tech they could offer more.

The research is there. Go read it. Again, why isn’t Magruder getting Crown first? Don’t you want a majority minority school to get it?

Confused. I thought Wootton was a majority minority school but you are saying only Magruder is?

A non-troll, real post is that Magruder doesn't get Crown because Wootton is being moved to Crown. That's how these things work, Magruder will then use Wootton as a holding school while Magruder gets rebuilt.

Another alternative that has never been discussed could be this scenario - Magruder moves to Crown, Wootton moves to Magruder as a holding school, Wootton get's rebuilt. Magruder becomes a holding school forever. Does Magruder want this? Speak now!

Magruder Dan holds the cards. BOE hates Wootton community bc all they do is yell and call them complicit criminals, but Magruder Dan has been able to make inroads with several members because well, he's not a jerk. Magruder might have had the opportunity to use Crown as the holding facility beginning in 2027 but doing so would have come with an indefinite timeline since while the facility will exist for use in 2027, the money to fix Magruder building will not until 2033, at the earliest. I imagine they were disinterested in this plan since it effectively would have made their own renovation less of a priority as they would have been seen as already being in a safe building, albeit not their own. But Magruder Dan has more power than all of the Wootton voices combined. No wonder Wootton has been courting him so hard. Spoiler: he knows they're disingenuous but is smart and keeping them in his palm. And THAT, my hear Wootton friends, is how you get things done, unless, of course, you have Julie Yang in your corner like some of us.

Can’t wait to hear the rants on Thursday. Wonder how the split of testimony will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

College and grad school are far more important than high school. No one cares where you go to high school except casual conversation.

Tell me you're not from MoCo without telling me you're not from MoCo.

Not saying you are wrong, you are 100% right, but this area has a thing about W high schools---excluding, of course, 1/4 of the actual W schools--I see and honor you Watkins Mill and Wheaton.

DP - from MoCo and agree it’s a thing. But it’s certainly not a thing that most people should care about to this level. As a non W school grad, I’m judging my current Wootton community and their entitlement in this situation very harshly. A lot of these people really suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know Wootton graduates from the heyday of Wootton in the late 90s and early aughts. Lots of them aren’t super successful. Lots of them are super successful. I know wooton dropouts from the heyday. I know those that overdosed and died after graduating. I know some of had babies in their teens. All this to say - going to “super academic rigor” high schools doesn’t equal success for your kids. I know more successful people from Gaithersburg, Watkins mill, BALTIMORE CITY. Your kids will be OKAY. Just love them and support them. That’s the most important thing for your kids.

What is Wootton’s graduation rate compared to all other MoCo high schools? That alone demonstrates academic rigor and discipline. Graduation from high school is a key indicator of success (but obviously not a guaranty).

Can you guaranty that Crown will have the same graduation and quality of college acceptance rate as Wootton does?

Not PP but this is an absurd question. Even Wootton itself can't make that guarantee year over year.

And even if the answer is no, it still doesn't change the assessment of Option H when looking at the totality fo the factors and taking into account the best interests of all MCPS students.

+1 Cohorts do matter - ask anyone teaching kids who were in preK and kindy during Covid.

With that said, it's possible that test scores and graduation rates will be lower at Crown than at Wootton but that doesn't tell you anything at all about your individual child. An individual high performing kid is going to do as well as Crown as they would anywhere else, as long as that "anywhere else" has a critical mass of high performing kids.