Superintendent's Recommendation for Richard Montgomery ES #5 Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Again, it was their choice. The 3 other schools shouldn't all have to be bussed further away when then entire RM#5's population is almost walkable.

It's not walk able. If you can walk then it's classified as walk zone. Walk zone of any school was not up for debate. Some kids from non-walk zone can also walk, not many kids can walk. Using your logic most elementary kids can walk, but in reality MCPS have 8-10 bus routes in pretty much all elementary. Even in RM#5, we are going to have 8-10 buses.

Let's not create false impression here. Boundary was not created to have kids walk to school. That's absolutely false. If all we were going to do is to take a map and draw a circle then this boundary study was simply a dog and pony show by MCPS. Distributing SES point was raised by many RM#5 parents when talking about option 1-8. Option 1-8 didn't even have 53% farm rate and now recommendation is for 53% in class farm rate in RM#5.

So it went like this, Hey Rm#5 parents are worried about 30-40% farm rate. Well, who cares, let's raise it to 53% and everything can be explained by kids can almost walk to school.

8-10 busses? You are seriously misinformed. The entire area south of first street and west of 270 is walkable. 1 mile is walkable as long as kids do not need to cross a major road. That is how all of MCPS is set up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Again, it was their choice. The 3 other schools shouldn't all have to be bussed further away when then entire RM#5's population is almost walkable.

It's not walk able. If you can walk then it's classified as walk zone. Walk zone of any school was not up for debate. Some kids from non-walk zone can also walk, not many kids can walk. Using your logic most elementary kids can walk, but in reality MCPS have 8-10 bus routes in pretty much all elementary. Even in RM#5, we are going to have 8-10 buses.

Let's not create false impression here. Boundary was not created to have kids walk to school. That's absolutely false. If all we were going to do is to take a map and draw a circle then this boundary study was simply a dog and pony show by MCPS. Distributing SES point was raised by many RM#5 parents when talking about option 1-8. Option 1-8 didn't even have 53% farm rate and now recommendation is for 53% in class farm rate in RM#5.

So it went like this, Hey Rm#5 parents are worried about 30-40% farm rate. Well, who cares, let's raise it to 53% and everything can be explained by kids can almost walk to school.

8-10 busses? You are seriously misinformed. The entire area south of first street and west of 270 is walkable. 1 mile is walkable as long as kids do not need to cross a major road. That is how all of MCPS is set up.

I assume you actually mean east of 270.... Walking in the wrong direction to the wrong school would be a real waste of time.

[Anonymous]

There are scientific evidence indicate that low income kids performe better when FARM rate kept at reasonable level (~less than 30%).
If you look at RM cluster at whole, you would wish majority of kids achieve good performance.

At suggested FARM level 53'%, it will be very hard for ES@#5 excel in performance, that will really change the dynamic of the community, People moving in and out, it is like "dominos effect" going downward.

If that happens, with two low performing ES, I highly doubt that RM high school could maintain current level of performance. In fact, this year its rating already went down, imagining RM going down further, it really doesn't matter which elementary you are in, all will be affected.

[Anonymous]

I honestly think for those low income families that lives at the boarder of the walkable zone, they will be better off with school bus access, think about without a car, walk little kids ~1 mile one way in rainy, cold, or snowy days..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are scientific evidence indicate that low income kids performe better when FARM rate kept at reasonable level (~less than 30%).
If you look at RM cluster at whole, you would wish majority of kids achieve good performance.

At suggested FARM level 53'%, it will be very hard for ES@#5 excel in performance, that will really change the dynamic of the community, People moving in and out, it is like "dominos effect" going downward.

If that happens, with two low performing ES, I highly doubt that RM high school could maintain current level of performance. In fact, this year its rating already went down, imagining RM going down further, it really doesn't matter which elementary you are in, all will be affected.

A very good point. Effort should be to improve the RM cluster, but it looks like it's headed down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly think for those low income families that lives at the boarder of the walkable zone, they will be better off with school bus access, think about without a car, walk little kids ~1 mile one way in rainy, cold, or snowy days..

I doubt that anybody will walk one mile to school for RM ES #5. MCPS policy is to provide buses for kids who would have to walk across a "primary roadway", unless there is an adult crossing guard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I honestly think for those low income families that lives at the boarder of the walkable zone, they will be better off with school bus access, think about without a car, walk little kids ~1 mile one way in rainy, cold, or snowy days..

I doubt that anybody will walk one mile to school for RM ES #5. MCPS policy is to provide buses for kids who would have to walk across a "primary roadway", unless there is an adult crossing guard.

^^^that's the policy for elementary school, that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lack of dedicated PTA is hurting the new school. No one had dedicated voice for new school.

Superintended is making a point about reducing farm rate in Beall and RP. All those are getting added in new school.

Why will you point reducing farm rate from 25 to 17 or 17 to 10 if you are taking all those reduction to add into a new school to come up with class farm rate of 53%?

For the last time.....BECAUSE THOSE FARM KIDS ARE FROM THE NEIGHBORHOODS THAT ARE NOW WALKABLE TO RM#5. The site they chose happened to be in an area with high FARMS. The school was always going to have a good amount of FARMS because of the location they chose. This is not the fault of the other schools. No one should be walkable to one school and moved to another 15min away by bus. Like another poster said, that makes it very difficult with parents that need public transportation just to get to a school event. Or how about a latchkey child that needs to get home and misses the school bus? Having those kids around RM#5 in walking distance is very much a positive for the kids and their families. If you look on the map, it is obvious they picked that location to evenly spread out the elementary schools. That area is high density with a lot of smaller lot homes, apartments, and townhouses and having a school inside their neighborhood is very convenient.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/planning/Map(2).pdf

Fallsgrove...

Fallsgrove was never walkable to any school. Lakewood is the closest and they would still have to been bussed because it crosses a major road. They decided when it was being built that they were going to the RM cluster. The neighborhood is the same distance to GC, Beall, and RP and RP was the least crowded. So there is went. I personally think they should have split it up but look at the disaster of King Farm?

But Fallsgrove was never walkable and was never promised a new ES - ever. Now King Farm on the other hand? They got royally screwed. But that is what you get when you purchase a plot of land and aren't sure where your kids will go. It is a gamble. Just like Crown.

KF is indeed a disaster. We're on the 'bad' side of the KF. When it was time for my DC to go to K, we went to a catholic school like half of our neighbors did. But the long commute and carpool just wouldn't work for us. We ended up selling our home and moved to a place where we can have easier access to better public schools just like another half of our neighbors did. The empty promise of a new elementary school and middle school inside KF is just a nightmare to the buyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

KF is indeed a disaster. We're on the 'bad' side of the KF. When it was time for my DC to go to K, we went to a catholic school like half of our neighbors did. But the long commute and carpool just wouldn't work for us. We ended up selling our home and moved to a place where we can have easier access to better public schools just like another half of our neighbors did. The empty promise of a new elementary school and middle school inside KF is just a nightmare to the buyers.

It's a nightmare to buyers who assume, as you evidently did, that it is out of the question for their children to go to Rosemont ES, Forest Oak MS, and Gaithersburg HS. But that's on them, not on MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

[Anonymous]

I REALLY wish when they add the shell out, they would do something with it.

A bilingual Pre-K-1st grade curriculum for Spanish speaking families. Teaches the child AND parents English while starting to learn the core curriculum.

Make another HGC since Barnsley is ridiculously far away for some families

Increase the immersion program and make a Spanish one too.
Let the Spanish kids be the ones non-Spanish kids go to for help.

There is so many things that could be done to improve this school just by being in the area that it is.

[Anonymous]

53% is the percentage in regular classroom without CI, 42% is calculation including the CI, CI drag down the rate, but for the kids attending regular classroom, 53% is more accurate, all are listed in the report.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I REALLY wish when they add the shell out, they would do something with it.

A bilingual Pre-K-1st grade curriculum for Spanish speaking families. Teaches the child AND parents English while starting to learn the core curriculum.

Make another HGC since Barnsley is ridiculously far away for some families

Increase the immersion program and make a Spanish one too.
Let the Spanish kids be the ones non-Spanish kids go to for help.

There is so many things that could be done to improve this school just by being in the area that it is.

This may be true, but it's worth noting that despite the high FARMs rate, only about a quarter of the school's population will be Hispanic, and similarly only ~26% are ESOL, and we don't know the overlap between those two groups. So you've got another quarter of the enrollment that is low-income but English-speaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

CI kids won't be in class with regular kids. CI doesn't have many farm kids. Now you are left with regular kids with regular class. That will have 53% farm rate. It's listed in reports.

[Anonymous]

Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.