BOE Memer is proposing to study school boundary in MCPS
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Anonymous
In regards to the topic of the thread about over crowding and a study to determine if a boundary study is needed to address over crowding, yes any new development that doesn't address crowding issues in a cluster that is already over crowded is "over development". It's certainly not under development. If we were not talking about school crowding and only discussing how many MPDUs or retail space there is near the metro, then sure, maybe there is under development, but in regards to the topic at hand, yes any new development is over development. Please try to keep the context in mind and try not to be so pedantic. |
Anonymous
And of course you feel they would spontaneously combust because they would be upset about a school with more brown people? That's the only reason people act, right? I'd be opposed to that because we are a 10 minute walk to Whitman, whereas it would be at least a 20 minute bus ride to get to BCC. Would you like that switch or think it makes sense? |
Anonymous
And they can try to make up for decades of terrible housing policies like red-lining that created the segregated areas we have today. |
Anonymous
No. Unless you're also willing to ban sales or leases of existing residences to people who have or may soon have children in MCPS. What's more, the proposed consultant study is not only about school capacity, but also about school segregation. Student board member Ananya Tadikonda, a senior at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, proposed the boundary assessment study in response to an increase in enrollment and student diversity that she believes challenges the school district’s ability to provide equitable facilities throughout the county. Tadikonda suggests hiring an independent consultant to study whether boundaries of neighboring school clusters countywide could be altered to even the distribution of students among schools. The consultant would be tasked with providing a report by June 4. In general, in my experience, people talking about "overdevelopment" generally aren't concerned about school enrollment, they're concerned about their neighborhood changing as a result of lots of new big apartment buildilngs and attached houses getting built. People in detached houses are worried about attached houses and apartment buildings, people in attached houses are worried about apartment buildings. Also, if you're worried about school capacity, the proportion of MPDUs vs. market-rate units is irrelevant. |
Anonymous
If it's not about you, why make it about you? |
Anonymous
Not even a reason like, the school is over HERE and the kid is over THERE? Or maybe a reason like, the school has capacity now but won't in 3 years so everyone will have to switch schools? There is not any reason that is a good reason? For 3 years we keep one school at 120% and other at 90% ? We simply adjust against after 5 years if needed, but there is no rational behind not utilizing the current empty seats if it's possible to do so without busing too much. No one is suggesting we should bus kids across county, but entire county boundary should be looked closely to not waste previous seats. |
Anonymous
Right. What is "busing too much"? And do you want MCPS to spend lots of time, every 3 years, deciding what "busing not too much" is and then defending its decisions? I don't. |
Anonymous
If it meant, we had made amends for the decades of discrimination and Jim Crowe then yes I'm all for it. |
Anonymous
If MCPS has to put one person full time doing boundary adjustment and if it helps even 10K kids getting better education then yes, they should do it every 3 years. not doing any adjustment and then crying about lack of seats when having empty seats some where else is simply irresponsible. Busing too much or too little is common sense. You don't bus between Whitman and Rockville HS, but you bus between Einstein to BCC. It's not that hard. |
Anonymous
The student BOE member is in RMIiB magnet and RM is NOT her home school. MCPS can move the magnet program into another school to reduce overcrowding in RM, that is simple. By the way, the student BOE member is a senior so she will attend Harward, Yale, or Princeton University in 2019, just like all other student BOE members previously. Redistrict? It will be YOUR problem. |
Anonymous
Which W isn’t crowded? |
Anonymous
What is the miscarriage Alex? Some people pay to terminate a pregnancy, people pay not to go to the DCC |
Anonymous
Wootton, if you count Wootton, and maybe Churchill. There’s a lot of talk about Wootton, which shares a boundary with Gaithersburg, being chronically not overcrowded. But that is the outlier in the County. I don’t think there’s any other cluster in the same situation. And when the BOE proposed re districting between Gaithersburg and Wootton, the Gaithersburg families didn’t want it. But that doesn’t fit some people’s narrative. |
Anonymous
The prior post was about Wood Acres parents would oppose a move to Westbrook/BCC. I am a Wood Acres parent who would oppose a move to Westbrook/BCC, so how is this not about me? And the fact that PP and others misattribute the motive for that opposition is also directly relevant to the discussion. |
Anonymous
Magruder cluster is very underutilized. Mostly smaller single family homes built in the 60s and 70s with a lot of retirees. I could see a consortium of Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill, Magruder, and possibly Damascus with all of the schools offering different specialties. Expand Gaithersburg's PLTW more like Wheaton, Watkins Mill has IB, Magruder could have business or something similar or put another high school magnet there because this quadrant of the county can't get to Poolesville easily. There's plenty of middle area that would have similar bus rides to all three/four schools where letting people choose could even out utilization. People are talking like changing fixed boundaries is the only solution. The purpose of hiring a consultant is not only to look at MCPS, but to look at practices of other districts and suggest other methods of populating schools. One possibility would be to give up the "cluster" model and just "zone" every neighborhood to its nearest 2 or 3 schools at each level (ES, MS, HS). When a kid enters a new level they participate in a choice lottery, which allocates on choice AND space available. That method would allow school utilization to remain balanced across the county over time, even as neighborhood demographics change. |