Is busing really an option?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
MCPS already does this. Kids in Darnestown who live closer to QO are bussed up to NW. Now with the new initiative to populate Seneca Valley one of the proposals is to bus the Darnestown kids past QO and NW over to Seneca Valley. Brown Station is its own island and gets bussed down to QO so QO isn't all white/high SES. Its not great for the BS kids because they are isolated and their HS is further from home. MCPS tried very hard to bus kids from GHS into Wootton. Wootton didn't object but the GHS neighborhoods did strongly object to being bussed past their nearby school down to Wootton. It didn't go through because the GHS neighborhoods put up such a huge fit but MCPS was pissed.

It shouldn't be an option because no rational person thinks that bussing is good or works. Even Bernie Sanders has said that taking kids away from their communities to be bussed based on the color of their skin or SES is wrong. He supports integrating communities not bussing kids around. Harris has also come out and said the is not in favor bussing either.

MCPS is not rational. They see this as way to hold off on some schools further declining in scores. They know perfectly well from their own data that bussing a bunch of white kids into a poor performing school does nothing to raise the performance of the low SES kids. What it does do is allow MCPS to hide the failures more. It benefits MCPS even though it hurts the students and the county. Whenever something benefits the central office -even if it hurts everyone else- well that's what they do.

So yes its an option and a very likely one. It will hurt the entire county and benefit no one but MCPS in their own minds. Good time to move.



Brown Station is only an island because they moved Diamond ES from QO to Northwest (when Northwest was built). It used to be contiguous.

This is exactly the problem with busing. Diamond ES was ONLY moved out of QO and into NW to send more higher SES white kids to NW and Brown Station was kept in QO becoming an island because they wanted low SES minority kids at QO. Anytime a school district chooses to spit up contiguous areas to send kids to a different school based on their race its busing and no one likes it.

Town of Kensington folks seem to be perfectly okay with busing and would like to continue busing their children.

why should we pay to bus kinsington kids to far away schools when their are perfectly fine ones nearby

Because everyone-goes-to-the-closest-school-to-their-home is not how school zones work.

[Anonymous]

And this is largely due to there being no high school inside the Beltway near Silver Spring. If there were, then the southern portion of Einstein's zone could go there, and there'd be room for TOK to go to Einstein. But there isn't, so the lines are as they are.

[Anonymous]

MCPS should have acquired the hospital site in Takoma Park. I think it's the only piece of land big enough for a HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS should have acquired the hospital site in Takoma Park. I think it's the only piece of land big enough for a HS.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS should have acquired the hospital site in Takoma Park. I think it's the only piece of land big enough for a HS.

For how much, and with what money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And this is largely due to there being no high school inside the Beltway near Silver Spring. If there were, then the southern portion of Einstein's zone could go there, and there'd be room for TOK to go to Einstein. But there isn't, so the lines are as they are.

I know people who literally live across the street from Blair that are zoned to Northwood, but there are schools inside the beltway like B-CC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And this is largely due to there being no high school inside the Beltway near Silver Spring. If there were, then the southern portion of Einstein's zone could go there, and there'd be room for TOK to go to Einstein. But there isn't, so the lines are as they are.

I know people who literally live across the street from Blair that are zoned to Northwood, but there are schools inside the beltway like B-CC.

But that's because Blair moved but MCPS didn't redo the boundaries, isn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And this is largely due to there being no high school inside the Beltway near Silver Spring. If there were, then the southern portion of Einstein's zone could go there, and there'd be room for TOK to go to Einstein. But there isn't, so the lines are as they are.

I know people who literally live across the street from Blair that are zoned to Northwood, but there are schools inside the beltway like B-CC.

But that's because Blair moved but MCPS didn't redo the boundaries, isn't it?

Blair moves before Northwood re-opened, so they had to re-do the boundaries after the move (when Northwood re-opened). Blair moved to the new building in the ‘98-‘99 school year. North wood was still a holding school in ‘99-‘00, and possibly later than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And this is largely due to there being no high school inside the Beltway near Silver Spring. If there were, then the southern portion of Einstein's zone could go there, and there'd be room for TOK to go to Einstein. But there isn't, so the lines are as they are.

I know people who literally live across the street from Blair that are zoned to Northwood, but there are schools inside the beltway like B-CC.

But that's because Blair moved but MCPS didn't redo the boundaries, isn't it?

Blair moves before Northwood re-opened, so they had to re-do the boundaries after the move (when Northwood re-opened). Blair moved to the new building in the ‘98-‘99 school year. North wood was still a holding school in ‘99-‘00, and possibly later than that.

It really wouldn't have changed anything even if Northwood was open then. There's this massive population inside the beltway with basically only one high-school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It really wouldn't have changed anything even if Northwood was open then. There's this massive population inside the beltway with basically only one high-school.

Whitman and B-CC are inside the Beltway too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It really wouldn't have changed anything even if Northwood was open then. There's this massive population inside the beltway with basically only one high-school.

Whitman and B-CC are inside the Beltway too.

The issue is there's no HS inside the Beltway in Silver Spring or Takoma Park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It really wouldn't have changed anything even if Northwood was open then. There's this massive population inside the beltway with basically only one high-school.

Whitman and B-CC are inside the Beltway too.

They don't want poors at their school

[Anonymous]

MCPS should not have sold all the land nor should the county have. MSCP should take back leased buildings like the one in Kensington to HOC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
MCPS already does this. Kids in Darnestown who live closer to QO are bussed up to NW. Now with the new initiative to populate Seneca Valley one of the proposals is to bus the Darnestown kids past QO and NW over to Seneca Valley. Brown Station is its own island and gets bussed down to QO so QO isn't all white/high SES. Its not great for the BS kids because they are isolated and their HS is further from home. MCPS tried very hard to bus kids from GHS into Wootton. Wootton didn't object but the GHS neighborhoods did strongly object to being bussed past their nearby school down to Wootton. It didn't go through because the GHS neighborhoods put up such a huge fit but MCPS was pissed.

It shouldn't be an option because no rational person thinks that bussing is good or works. Even Bernie Sanders has said that taking kids away from their communities to be bussed based on the color of their skin or SES is wrong. He supports integrating communities not bussing kids around. Harris has also come out and said the is not in favor bussing either.

MCPS is not rational. They see this as way to hold off on some schools further declining in scores. They know perfectly well from their own data that bussing a bunch of white kids into a poor performing school does nothing to raise the performance of the low SES kids. What it does do is allow MCPS to hide the failures more. It benefits MCPS even though it hurts the students and the county. Whenever something benefits the central office -even if it hurts everyone else- well that's what they do.

So yes its an option and a very likely one. It will hurt the entire county and benefit no one but MCPS in their own minds. Good time to move.



Brown Station is only an island because they moved Diamond ES from QO to Northwest (when Northwest was built). It used to be contiguous.

This is exactly the problem with busing. Diamond ES was ONLY moved out of QO and into NW to send more higher SES white kids to NW and Brown Station was kept in QO becoming an island because they wanted low SES minority kids at QO. Anytime a school district chooses to spit up contiguous areas to send kids to a different school based on their race its busing and no one likes it.

Town of Kensington folks seem to be perfectly okay with busing and would like to continue busing their children.

why should we pay to bus kinsington kids to far away schools when their are perfectly fine ones nearby

Because everyone-goes-to-the-closest-school-to-their-home is not how school zones work.

Doesn't have to be closest, but should be reasonably close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Doesn't have to be closest, but should be reasonably close.

Sure. But what is "reasonably"? Who decides, based on what?