Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

There are middle school changes for Wootton too. Cold Spring is now Hoover Churchill (formerly Cabin John- Wootton)

Stone Mill is now Hoover (formerly Cabin John) and Wootton.

Travilah is now Cabin John (formerly Frost) and Wootton.

Don’t understand why they swapped stone mill to Hoover.

[Anonymous]

How does Wootton at Crown have room to add Fields to the original option H? I know they moved cold spring out but isn't cold spring very small?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does Wootton at Crown have room to add Fields to the original option H? I know they moved cold spring out but isn't cold spring very small?

Isn't it there will be a countywide elementary schools boundary study in 2027/2028 something like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are middle school changes for Wootton too. Cold Spring is now Hoover Churchill (formerly Cabin John- Wootton)

Stone Mill is now Hoover (formerly Cabin John) and Wootton.

Travilah is now Cabin John (formerly Frost) and Wootton.

Don’t understand why they swapped stone mill to Hoover.

This is not good. Why should Wootton in Crown have 3 feeder middle schools--two with only one sending school? Seems poorly thought out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is not good. Why should Wootton in Crown have 3 feeder middle schools--two with only one sending school? Seems poorly thought out.

Agreed. Why not move Bells Mill to Hoover and have both Stone Mill and Travilah at Cabin John. That way all of Hoover will go to Churchill, all of Frost to Wootton and Cabin John will be split similar to how it is now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think Wootton has much to complain about.

Quince Orchard is obviously to he happiest with the boundaries.

Northwest is the big loser.

QO is a loser with the regional programs; QO is in a region with Gaithersburg, Magruder, and Watkins Mill and not Poolesville.

Watkins Mill already has an IB set up, but SMACs and Humanities will have to be stood up from scratch and both will be at Gaithersburg.

Correction, SMACS will be at Gaithersburg, Humanities will be at Watkins Mill along with the IB and Critical Languages, Cultures, and Global Connections.

Under the regional program, it looks like Gaithersburg HS is set up as the tech high school (SMACS, Cybersecurity, Digital Communication: Animation and Game Design), while Watkins Mill will be the Humanities high school

What is SMACS? Is Gaithersburg HS strong in high tech & Watlkin Mills strong in humanities?

SMACS is Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science. It's the STEM magnets at Blair (for Down County) and Poolesville (Up County).

General consensus is that Watkins Mill IB is not as good as the County-Wide Program at Richard Montgomery.

It's to be determined how good the new programs will be, since they're expanding the programs from 2 schools to 6. I think it's going to be a rough start, but maybe once my kids have kids, it'll be well-established...

There is no A SMCS...and it is becoming STEM because it's a new curriculum.

The impression I got was that SMCS was going to stay essentially the same. Each region gets 5 different concentrations
1. Medical Science and Healthcare
2. STEM
3. IB, Humanities, and Languages
4. Leadership and Public Service
5. Visual and Performing Arts, Design and Communication

And then each region will determine how they're going to meet them. So Poolesville is going to shoehorn their Global Ecology into the Leadership concentration, rather than the STEM.

The slide about Region 5 shows Gaithersburg will have SMCS as a STEM concentration, so my assumption will be they will try to mirror the curriculum for SMCS. That said, they're going to be building the plane as it takes off, so the initial cohort and classes will be the entry level 9th grade classes and then they will try to build up as the classes age up.

Instead, the fear for Blair / Poolesville is that since they're drawing from a smaller pool of students that some of the really advanced classes (really high level math, physics) won't be able to be offered because there won't be enough students at that school with the interest and capability of taking them. I heard talk that maybe they can do remote classes across the regions for some of these classes, but the quality cannot be the same.

[Anonymous]

How can we be seriously considering a proposal where a middle school (Gaithersburg) goes from 57.8 to 62.4 percent FARMS? No discussion in the 35 page recommendation document. Are we being punked?

[Anonymous]

Lawsuit will get dismissed just like Clarksburg a few years back. No way MCPS loses. Calling it a closure rather than relocation since boundaries are changing makes no sense when boundaries everywhere are changing. It’s not as if MCPS is “closing” all the other schools whose boundaries are changing. In reality, don’t think board will approve the recommendation to move Wootton, and Wootton will get some new paint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just say it like it is. Many Wootton families were all for moving to Crown until they found out that their uppity SES school was going to have to bring in some lower SES areas. Personally, I thought Crown should have been Crown/Rio area and Wootton should have stayed Wootton but it almost seems like this decision a big F-U to the Wootton community from the superintendent for changing their minds once they heard his plan.

I don't see any issue with FARMS going from 14 to 19%. As long as it's around 20, it won't be having any negative effect on school.

It will have a huge affect

More importantly I don’t want my kids driving to Crown period.

Good job MCPS closing one of your top performing schools fabulous idea

Time to move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is not good. Why should Wootton in Crown have 3 feeder middle schools--two with only one sending school? Seems poorly thought out.

This is my concern as well. Two small sending schools rejoining the rest of the cluster will establish both the Stone Mill and Travilah kids as outsiders, and break up friendships/connections they make in MS. Could they at least articulate to CJ together?

[Anonymous]

Adding in Fields Road does NOT add enough FARMS to make a noticeable difference to Wootton. Part of Fields Road comes from Washingtonian Woods, which is a nicer neighborhood with high performing students.I'm not sure why (other than the distance for some) anyone thinks going from 14% to 17% FARMS will make a huge difference....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adding in Fields Road does NOT add enough FARMS to make a noticeable difference to Wootton. Part of Fields Road comes from Washingtonian Woods, which is a nicer neighborhood with high performing students.I'm not sure why (other than the distance for some) anyone thinks going from 14% to 17% FARMS will make a huge difference....

Of course it won't. Anyone who says/thinks that is in a very, very small (albeit vocal) minority. Ignore them. As a Wootton parent I assure you the vast, vast majority of the opposition is distance-based. We have no problem with Fields or Rosemont. Still hoping for a miracle regarding location, but if not, I guess we'll figure it out somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are middle school changes for Wootton too. Cold Spring is now Hoover Churchill (formerly Cabin John- Wootton)

Stone Mill is now Hoover (formerly Cabin John) and Wootton.

Travilah is now Cabin John (formerly Frost) and Wootton.

Don’t understand why they swapped stone mill to Hoover.

Maybe the Stone Mill change is in anticipation of the elementary school boundary changes. Buckle up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can we be seriously considering a proposal where a middle school (Gaithersburg) goes from 57.8 to 62.4 percent FARMS? No discussion in the 35 page recommendation document. Are we being punked?

Same reason why the proposed regions 2 and 5 have all of the high FARMS schools grouped together.

They're basically segregating the schools and just leaving them in their own little islands and not giving them access to the schools outside of the proposed regions like they used to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think Wootton has much to complain about.

Quince Orchard is obviously to he happiest with the boundaries.

Northwest is the big loser.

QO is a loser with the regional programs; QO is in a region with Gaithersburg, Magruder, and Watkins Mill and not Poolesville.

Watkins Mill already has an IB set up, but SMACs and Humanities will have to be stood up from scratch and both will be at Gaithersburg.

This.

How is it that 3 schools in Region 5 are highest FARMS schools with 2 of them upcounty's largest FARMS schools - 50% each. Where is the cohort for Region 5? My kid will lose access to Poolesville.

QO needs to be with Region 6 and Damascus back with Region 5. How do they justify Laytonsville ES going to Poolesville while Thurgood Marshall gets the cut.

How do you justify thinking Thurgood Marshall is more entitled to go to Poolesville than Laytonsville? Too bad, so sad for you.