Concerned about buying in WJ cluster because of re-zoning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's projected both WJ and Einstein will be 800 over capacity when Woodward opens. At least 1600 spots will be filled from these schools The remaining 1100 will go to the other nearby schools, namely, B-CC and Kennedy.

I'd be shocked if they drew at all from BCC or Kennedy. BCC is 95% inside the beltway. Woodward is in Rockville.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's projected both WJ and Einstein will be 800 over capacity when Woodward opens. At least 1600 spots will be filled from these schools The remaining 1100 will go to the other nearby schools, namely, B-CC and Kennedy.

I'd be shocked if they drew at all from BCC or Kennedy. BCC is 95% inside the beltway. Woodward is in Rockville.

Kennedy seems unlikely. Although there's some overcrowding there, they have that covered by an addition.

Although Kennedy isn't near Woodward's boundary, B-CC is which makes it more likely. Sure, it won't be overcrowded but there's so much going on with other nearby schools I can imagine some boundary tweaks will happen to shift a few hundred kids around.

[Anonymous]

I wonder how long this thread is going to be by 2021, when anyone will actually know anything about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's projected both WJ and Einstein will be 800 over capacity when Woodward opens. At least 1600 spots will be filled from these schools The remaining 1100 will go to the other nearby schools, namely, B-CC and Kennedy.

I'd be shocked if they drew at all from BCC or Kennedy. BCC is 95% inside the beltway. Woodward is in Rockville.

Kennedy seems unlikely. Although there's some overcrowding there, they have that covered by an addition.

Although Kennedy isn't near Woodward's boundary, B-CC is which makes it more likely. Sure, it won't be overcrowded but there's so much going on with other nearby schools I can imagine some boundary tweaks will happen to shift a few hundred kids around.

They just built a new middle school for BCC, cementing the zones, especially in the eastern part of the boundary. It would be a political nightmare to unwind that. The west parts of BCC probably should go to BCC (they're closer to WHitman), but they also wouldn't go to Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's projected both WJ and Einstein will be 800 over capacity when Woodward opens. At least 1600 spots will be filled from these schools The remaining 1100 will go to the other nearby schools, namely, B-CC and Kennedy.

Again, fake news. They are not filling a newly opened school to capacity. They are going to give it a big cushion to grow, or else they're going to have to build another high school. Common sense.

This school is going to draw from WJ ESs schools zoned for Tilden, Einstein (prob Rock View ES and/or Oakland Terrace ES) and Wheaton (prob Viers Mill). Look at a map.

Yes, look at a map. Rock View is a few blocks from Einstein. Kids who live in houses on all sides of Einstein are zoned for Rock View. I don't see them rezoning them to Woodward. Better to rezone another Einstein ES that isn't right near any HS.

If they did this the Einstein cluster would be broken in half with Rock View being an island in and of itself.

I think what they should do is just redraw the boundaries for the whole DCC while figuring out what part of WJ fits into Woodward.

[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:Predicted future high school distributions:

WJ/Woodward: Mixture of current WJ plus two DCC elementary school areas and maybe one Whitman school (perhaps Bradley Hills). Will create two very good schools, but not Whitman level.
BCC: Bethesda Elementary, the three Chevy Chase elementaries (CC, NCC, and RCF) and probably Somerset; no appreciable change in test scores from the change (ie remains an extremely strong school, but with some lower scoring demographics included).
Whitman: add Westbrook and maybe Somerset from BCC and cede Bradley Hills to WJ/Woodward. No other changes; cements status as highest scoring MoCo district.
Churchill: no change

I think this is probably right. The only question I have is whether the county will find a way to inject a little diversity into Whitman along the way. I don't see an obvious way to do that, but it does seem to go against what the BoE has been all about to embark on a major change to the HS in and around Bethesda while making the richest, white-est HS even wealthier and whiter than ever while the others (BCC, WJ, and Woodward) include some racial/ethnic/SES diversity.

Diversity will come to Whitman with the Westbard development.

MoCo has to stop trying to bus people into diverse schools and to just have policies to encourage more diversity in housing instead so that people of different income levels live in the same community. Instead they are building teardown McMansion after teardowns McMansion in Bethesda. Why not some subdividing lots with smaller houses too? What about duplexes? The 6000 square foot McMansions take up the entire lot and house four people and a fancy purebred dog max in a space that could house 10-20 people instead.

That will eventually need to happen

It needs to happen NOW. Or yesterday. We have no leadership in this county.

For decades the county built low-income projects up North or East. I agree it's time they show leadership and place all future projects in the Western close-in areas to ensure there is an equitable FARMS distribution @W's.

Clustering low income housing together has meant that gangs can harass people all in one place - threatening people and regularly hitting people up for money . Stupid.

+1

There shouldn't be a concentration of low income housing. It should be distributed.

Right, and since up until now it has all been "distributed" in Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, and Germantown, it's time to "distribute" more of it in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Potomac. I'd love to see them sue because the coverage in the media would be so entertaining. What can they say other than "I didn't pay $2 million to live near those people!"

+1

I want to see low income housing in all parts of County. If it was true then we wouldn't be discussing fall of housing price in WJ due to rezoning.

This is exactly the problem. The wealthier western part of the county has been able to segregate themselves and create schools with inflated test scores imply by locking out nearly all low income students. Distribute them evenly across all the schools and everyone west will see a slight dip in scores while those east will see a slight rise and you will see that overall, we aren't as far apart as we seem. But then, why did they pay top dollar for the house in WJ?

Something should be done to offset decades of segregation and redlining that created this situation. Everyone benefits from integrated schools.

Exactly. Liberals are real liberal until its time to walk the walk and right the wrongs of the past. Segregation and redlining absolutely play a major role in why we are in this situation. The only way to fix the issue is to dismantle the system that allowed this to happen in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't really matter. Einstein will be 800 over capacity in 2022 which is the earliest Woodward will open. Given it's direct proximity to Woodward you can bet 800 kids from its western boundary are headed there.

Of course it matters. I agree a bunch of Einstein kids will be zoned for Woodward, but there are many ways the boundaries can be redrawn. Why would they want to leave Einstein with zero students from the adjacent neighborhoods, which is what rezoning Rock View would do?

Why would they bus kids all the way from Woodside or other neighborhoods that are even further from Woodward when they need to address overcrowding? It's not rocket science that they'd want to bus kids to Woodward to ease overcrowding at Einstein from ESs that are closer to Woodward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how long this thread is going to be by 2021, when anyone will actually know anything about this.

Right? I'm sure OP is loooooong gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't really matter. Einstein will be 800 over capacity in 2022 which is the earliest Woodward will open. Given it's direct proximity to Woodward you can bet 800 kids from its western boundary are headed there.

Of course it matters. I agree a bunch of Einstein kids will be zoned for Woodward, but there are many ways the boundaries can be redrawn. Why would they want to leave Einstein with zero students from the adjacent neighborhoods, which is what rezoning Rock View would do?

Why would they bus kids all the way from Woodside or other neighborhoods that are even further from Woodward when they need to address overcrowding? It's not rocket science that they'd want to bus kids to Woodward to ease overcrowding at Einstein from ESs that are closer to Woodward.

Because kids who live near downtown SS are already taking a ~30 minute bus ride to Einstein. Whereas kids who live across the street from Einstein walk there, so why bus them to Woodward? The problem is there is no DCC high school inside the beltway. All five of them are on University Blvd. or further north, so kids from Woodlin etc. are going to have a longish bus ride to high school no matter which school it is.

[Anonymous]

Kids who live six blocks closer to Rock View, which I'm zoned for, than I do go to WJ. Once you're on the other side of University/Connecticut from Einstein, the boundary lines are kind of crazy. Those kids could walk to Einstein in 10 minutes. Instead, they get bussed for 20 to WJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how long this thread is going to be by 2021, when anyone will actually know anything about this.

Right? I'm sure OP is loooooong gone.

I thought they are doing the boundary study in 2019.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids who live six blocks closer to Rock View, which I'm zoned for, than I do go to WJ. Once you're on the other side of University/Connecticut from Einstein, the boundary lines are kind of crazy. Those kids could walk to Einstein in 10 minutes. Instead, they get bussed for 20 to WJ.

Because they didn't want to break up the Town of Kensington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how long this thread is going to be by 2021, when anyone will actually know anything about this.

Right? I'm sure OP is loooooong gone.

I thought they are doing the boundary study in 2019.

Nope, the earliest Woodward could reopen is Sept. 2022. Boundary studies would be 18 months earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids who live six blocks closer to Rock View, which I'm zoned for, than I do go to WJ. Once you're on the other side of University/Connecticut from Einstein, the boundary lines are kind of crazy. Those kids could walk to Einstein in 10 minutes. Instead, they get bussed for 20 to WJ.

Because they didn't want to break up the Town of Kensington.

AKA rich white people lobbied to keep themselves at the rich white school. Because otherwise it would not matter to "break up" the Town of Kensington. Every other municipality is broken up with kids going to different schools? Why is ToK special? Those kids should be at Einstein. Many of them could walk to Einstein.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids who live six blocks closer to Rock View, which I'm zoned for, than I do go to WJ. Once you're on the other side of University/Connecticut from Einstein, the boundary lines are kind of crazy. Those kids could walk to Einstein in 10 minutes. Instead, they get bussed for 20 to WJ.

Because they didn't want to break up the Town of Kensington.

AKA rich white people lobbied to keep themselves at the rich white school. Because otherwise it would not matter to "break up" the Town of Kensington. Every other municipality is broken up with kids going to different schools? Why is ToK special? Those kids should be at Einstein. Many of them could walk to Einstein.

Agree here strongly. Kensington should be in Einstein. BOE should look at arranging boundaries to keep distance minimal for everyone. No point in busing kids to WJ when they can walk to another HS.