Rezoning Wootton and Churchill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the W posters trying to side-step the extreme economic segregation.

You think they'd finally address the 40-year-old gerrymandering that led to this.

Would you be ok breaking up all neighborhood schools and simply letting the system pick where your child goes based on a income and diversity mixing algorithm loosely factoring in commute time? Because it is going to be Tacoma park and 20910 kids having to be bussed to New Hampshire estates and the like to balance those schools and lots of those kids bused to the few richer east county schools. It’s all or nothing if you want to break the neighborhood school concept and the places with the highest concentrations and lowest levels of poverty will sill be the areas that feel it most today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the W posters trying to side-step the extreme economic segregation.

You think they'd finally address the 40-year-old gerrymandering that led to this.

Would you be ok breaking up all neighborhood schools and simply letting the system pick where your child goes based on a income and diversity mixing algorithm loosely factoring in commute time? Because it is going to be Tacoma park and 20910 kids having to be bussed to New Hampshire estates and the like to balance those schools and lots of those kids bused to the few richer east county schools. It’s all or nothing if you want to break the neighborhood school concept and the places with the highest concentrations and lowest levels of poverty will sill be the areas that feel it most today.

Literally no one is proposing "breaking up all neighborhood schools." But there are numerous examples of schools which already have a lot of students riding a bus to get there, and these students could possibly ride a different bus in another direction to the adjacent school. That's it. If there's room at that other school and it would help make the demographics more similar between the schools, then why not at least consider it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the W posters trying to side-step the extreme economic segregation.

You think they'd finally address the 40-year-old gerrymandering that led to this.

Would you be ok breaking up all neighborhood schools and simply letting the system pick where your child goes based on a income and diversity mixing algorithm loosely factoring in commute time? Because it is going to be Tacoma park and 20910 kids having to be bussed to New Hampshire estates and the like to balance those schools and lots of those kids bused to the few richer east county schools. It’s all or nothing if you want to break the neighborhood school concept and the places with the highest concentrations and lowest levels of poverty will sill be the areas that feel it most today.

Literally no one is proposing "breaking up all neighborhood schools." But there are numerous examples of schools which already have a lot of students riding a bus to get there, and these students could possibly ride a different bus in another direction to the adjacent school. That's it. If there's room at that other school and it would help make the demographics more similar between the schools, then why not at least consider it?

The study the county paid for had different scenarios. None of which were radical. Some tweaked existing borders to improve diversity here and there but it wasn't at the expense of proximity. If you are actually interested in what might happen, I'd look at this. Most people will arrive at logical common sense solutions to these problems.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why boundaries are arbitrarily drawn. Put the point of a compass on the school. Draw a circle 1,3,5 miles out. That's the school boundary.

Where the boundaries intersect, the parents can choose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the W posters trying to side-step the extreme economic segregation.

You think they'd finally address the 40-year-old gerrymandering that led to this.

Would you be ok breaking up all neighborhood schools and simply letting the system pick where your child goes based on a income and diversity mixing algorithm loosely factoring in commute time? Because it is going to be Tacoma park and 20910 kids having to be bussed to New Hampshire estates and the like to balance those schools and lots of those kids bused to the few richer east county schools. It’s all or nothing if you want to break the neighborhood school concept and the places with the highest concentrations and lowest levels of poverty will sill be the areas that feel it most today.

Wake Co, NC (Raleigh and the Containment Area) did that a few years ago. That got turnover at the Board of Ed.

[Anonymous]

I have to laugh if the board thinks parents want diversity more than they want proximity and convenience. MoCo will need to (a) keep the boundaries as is, (b) assign to a newly opening school, or (c) assign to the closest schools for any rezoning to make sense to parents. Anything else will poke the bear.

Parents are like hibernating bears. They mostly sleep during the school year, but if you poke them enough they react. If MCPS can't stand parents reactions now, just wait until they open up Crown and Woodward.

MCPS won't be able to play games once parents realize their kid got rezoned on the sly. How much trouble can 2000 parents cause for MCPS? Some of the parents are pretty good lawyers themselves. They'll need triple the legal budget they have now if they go too far.

[Anonymous]

Do they grandfather students who complete two years of high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do they grandfather students who complete two years of high school?

Yes, the last time they changed high school boundaries that is what they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone been following latest from MCPS? Wootton is already over crowded with new construction in the area. They plan to build a new school at Crown and shift the boundaries. Western part of Wooton may go to Crown along with some from Churchill and Richard Montgomery. More Cabin John students may go elsewhere?

Hope they can adjust these boundaries to help increase the diversity in these schools.

Huh? Where did that come from? Parents want their kids to be sent to their closest school. Diversity is not a priority.

I remember reading the board of educated voted to prioritize this over the other criteria like proximity when making these decisions.

Yes, it's inevitable since the average school has 35% FARMS and many are at 70% while these schools with gerrymandered boundaries are at <5%. I get that when they were setup things were different but this needs to be addressed.

Yes, for all the progressive talk MCPS is very segregated - the W schools in particular.

I'm not sure where you're getting that many of the W schools are 70% white. In fact, none that I can find are. These are actual, factual percentages of how white some of these schools are:

Churchill is 46.7% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04602.pdf

Wootton is 41.6% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04234.pdf

Whitman is 67% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04427.pdf

BCC is 57.6% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04406.pdf

The W's which don't include BCC are 90% white or Asian but more importantly <5% FARMS.

None of them are "90% white or Asian", as you claimed.

Sorry 89%

Try again

[Anonymous]

Whatever the outcome the Asian parents will raise hell if one Asian student is moved out of Wootton. Count on it. You can’t reason with these people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever the outcome the Asian parents will raise hell if one Asian student is moved out of Wootton. Count on it. You can’t reason with these people.

"these people"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone been following latest from MCPS? Wootton is already over crowded with new construction in the area. They plan to build a new school at Crown and shift the boundaries. Western part of Wooton may go to Crown along with some from Churchill and Richard Montgomery. More Cabin John students may go elsewhere?

Hope they can adjust these boundaries to help increase the diversity in these schools.

Huh? Where did that come from? Parents want their kids to be sent to their closest school. Diversity is not a priority.

I remember reading the board of educated voted to prioritize this over the other criteria like proximity when making these decisions.

Yes, it's inevitable since the average school has 35% FARMS and many are at 70% while these schools with gerrymandered boundaries are at <5%. I get that when they were setup things were different but this needs to be addressed.

Yes, for all the progressive talk MCPS is very segregated - the W schools in particular.

I'm not sure where you're getting that many of the W schools are 70% white. In fact, none that I can find are. These are actual, factual percentages of how white some of these schools are:

Churchill is 46.7% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04602.pdf

Wootton is 41.6% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04234.pdf

Whitman is 67% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04427.pdf

BCC is 57.6% white: extension://bfdogplmndidlpjfhoijckpakkdjkkil/pdf/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.montgomeryschoolsmd.org%2Fdepartments%2Fregulatoryaccountability%2Fglance%2Fcurrentyear%2Fschools%2F04406.pdf

The W's which don't include BCC are 90% white or Asian but more importantly <5% FARMS.

None of them are "90% white or Asian", as you claimed.

Sorry 89%

Try again

Sorry 91%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever the outcome the Asian parents will raise hell if one Asian student is moved out of Wootton. Count on it. You can’t reason with these people.

I don't know anything about that, but Wooton has one of the most nonsensical boundaries in the county. It's at one end of it's long narrow boundary with an island off to the north. It's the opposite of compact. Most of the students currently in boundary live closer to another HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever the outcome the Asian parents will raise hell if one Asian student is moved out of Wootton. Count on it. You can’t reason with these people.

I don't know anything about that, but Wooton has one of the most nonsensical boundaries in the county. It's at one end of it's long narrow boundary with an island off to the north. It's the opposite of compact. Most of the students currently in boundary live closer to another HS.

What do you say then? Move 80% Wootton kids to other schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever the outcome the Asian parents will raise hell if one Asian student is moved out of Wootton. Count on it. You can’t reason with these people.

I don't know anything about that, but Wooton has one of the most nonsensical boundaries in the county. It's at one end of it's long narrow boundary with an island off to the north. It's the opposite of compact. Most of the students currently in boundary live closer to another HS.

What do you say then? Move 80% Wootton kids to other schools?

If it were my call, I'd try to minimize commute and balance utilization, but kids have to go somewhere and changing this impacts the adjacent schools so it may not be possible. Anyway, this is just speculative. The county isn't cavalier about this stuff. I wouldn't be worried. Even if they made some changes students would end up at other fine schools which are even closer to them.