Residents appeal MCPS boundary changes, challenge legality of diversity focus

[Anonymous]

I really really don't think that adding "shall especially strive" rises to the level of a substantial change, but I guess that's for the relevant body to decide.

As for the assertion that the boundary change was "illegal?" That's nonsense. Changing a school attendance zone is well within the legal purview of the BoE, which was duly elected by the citizens of this county.

As others have noted, someone was going to get reassigned. With a high school doubling in capacity, and adjacent middle schools with dramatic differences in utilization, some group of kids was always going to need to change their attendance pattern.

That it fell on this specific group? I wish they would use all of this unlimited advocacy energy to fight for improvements to their new school.

1. It is illegal to use race to determine boundary assignments. So yes a school board can change boundaries but they have to do so without violating constitutional law.

2. Second point, yes someone was going to get assigned but at the heart of this issue is why this particular was chosen over others. If the BOE had spun a wheel and it was entirely random the BOE would be fine. If the area was geographically adjacent it would be fine. If there was an underutilized public bus route that could be used to save money that only existed there, it would be fine. If this neighborhood had just been built a few years ago and was the newest in the cluster then the BOE could say it chose the area because fewer people had established community ties to the schools. If the BOE used racial data to pick this area then there is a problem. If the BOE used median house value but also had the racial data it could go either way. Its highly unlikely that the BOE did not know the racial make ups of the area and its a risky chance to be untruthful in court and try to claim you only used house value when you've made statements about seeking racial diversity and you have the data.

3. Safety is not something that should be left tp parents to advocate for here. The reasons the teachers do not feel safe at Neelsville is not simply that the students behave in dangerous manners. It is that MCPS and the BOE has failed miserably tp create a safe environment for the teachers AND the at risk students. The changes that MCPS has put in place regarding discipline are at the root of the problems at Neelsville and other schools. If disruptive and dangerous students are allowed to remain in the classroom and receive no consequences for their behaviors, this is how you get a 24% safety rating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While this is an appeal not a lawsuit, it does raise an interesting legal question. The Supreme Court ruled years ago that schools could not use race to determine school assignments. Racial quotas are now unconstitutional. However, those same decision also clearly stated that schools could strive to achieve racial diversity. This basically allowed placing test-in magnets that the school could predict would attract whites in high minority schools. A federal court in Florida has found that schools can give disadvantaged groups such as low income minorities additional points toward admissions in test in programs.

Where the Clarksburg neighborhood and the Asian Americans who filed multiple complaints of discrimination to the OCR have an argument, is whether MCPS has crossed that line from legal ways to promote diversity into illegal ways that equate to racial balancing or racial quotas. The politics behind both are very different.

The Asian Americans have a stronger case but they are generally the weakest political group and are not supported by liberal whites, conservative whites, AA or hispanics. We'll see what happens there.

On the boundary changes, this will end up in the Supreme Court either coming from MD or NY or somewhere else in the NE/Mid Atlantic. The legal question will be clarification on where the line between racial balancing/racial quota and seeking diversity exists. Depending on the case, the line could get pushed back much farther away from diversity efforts, especially if MCPS ends up being the defendant in that case. MCPS hyper focuses on race, spends a huge amount of time and resources tracking kids by race, has plenty of public statements about prioritizing some racial groups over others, and generally has a huge paper trail that would be far more likely to hurt the case than help it. At this level, MCPS can't claim that it was trying to racial balance schools through school assignment out of one side its mouth and then turn around with all the statements to the contrary. The Supreme Court being conservative now does not help either.

Accept it isn't racial balancing at all since race wasn't a factor. They looked at FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I really really don't think that adding "shall especially strive" rises to the level of a substantial change, but I guess that's for the relevant body to decide.

As for the assertion that the boundary change was "illegal?" That's nonsense. Changing a school attendance zone is well within the legal purview of the BoE, which was duly elected by the citizens of this county.

As others have noted, someone was going to get reassigned. With a high school doubling in capacity, and adjacent middle schools with dramatic differences in utilization, some group of kids was always going to need to change their attendance pattern.

That it fell on this specific group? I wish they would use all of this unlimited advocacy energy to fight for improvements to their new school.

1. It is illegal to use race to determine boundary assignments. So yes a school board can change boundaries but they have to do so without violating constitutional law.

2. Second point, yes someone was going to get assigned but at the heart of this issue is why this particular was chosen over others. If the BOE had spun a wheel and it was entirely random the BOE would be fine. If the area was geographically adjacent it would be fine. If there was an underutilized public bus route that could be used to save money that only existed there, it would be fine. If this neighborhood had just been built a few years ago and was the newest in the cluster then the BOE could say it chose the area because fewer people had established community ties to the schools. If the BOE used racial data to pick this area then there is a problem. If the BOE used median house value but also had the racial data it could go either way. Its highly unlikely that the BOE did not know the racial make ups of the area and its a risky chance to be untruthful in court and try to claim you only used house value when you've made statements about seeking racial diversity and you have the data.

3. Safety is not something that should be left tp parents to advocate for here. The reasons the teachers do not feel safe at Neelsville is not simply that the students behave in dangerous manners. It is that MCPS and the BOE has failed miserably tp create a safe environment for the teachers AND the at risk students. The changes that MCPS has put in place regarding discipline are at the root of the problems at Neelsville and other schools. If disruptive and dangerous students are allowed to remain in the classroom and receive no consequences for their behaviors, this is how you get a 24% safety rating.

Point 3 -- the issue of "Not feeling safe" is not a legal reason for the appeal or lawsuit. Otherwise, current parents of that MS could file such a lawsuit now, and so could lots of other parents around the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I really really don't think that adding "shall especially strive" rises to the level of a substantial change, but I guess that's for the relevant body to decide.

As for the assertion that the boundary change was "illegal?" That's nonsense. Changing a school attendance zone is well within the legal purview of the BoE, which was duly elected by the citizens of this county.

As others have noted, someone was going to get reassigned. With a high school doubling in capacity, and adjacent middle schools with dramatic differences in utilization, some group of kids was always going to need to change their attendance pattern.

That it fell on this specific group? I wish they would use all of this unlimited advocacy energy to fight for improvements to their new school.


1. It is illegal to use race to determine boundary assignments. So yes a school board can change boundaries but they have to do so without violating constitutional law.

2. Second point, yes someone was going to get assigned but at the heart of this issue is why this particular was chosen over others. If the BOE had spun a wheel and it was entirely random the BOE would be fine. If the area was geographically adjacent it would be fine. If there was an underutilized public bus route that could be used to save money that only existed there, it would be fine. If this neighborhood had just been built a few years ago and was the newest in the cluster then the BOE could say it chose the area because fewer people had established community ties to the schools. If the BOE used racial data to pick this area then there is a problem. If the BOE used median house value but also had the racial data it could go either way. Its highly unlikely that the BOE did not know the racial make ups of the area and its a risky chance to be untruthful in court and try to claim you only used house value when you've made statements about seeking racial diversity and you have the data.

3. Safety is not something that should be left tp parents to advocate for here. The reasons the teachers do not feel safe at Neelsville is not simply that the students behave in dangerous manners. It is that MCPS and the BOE has failed miserably tp create a safe environment for the teachers AND the at risk students. The changes that MCPS has put in place regarding discipline are at the root of the problems at Neelsville and other schools. If disruptive and dangerous students are allowed to remain in the classroom and receive no consequences for their behaviors, this is how you get a 24% safety rating.


Point 3 -- the issue of "Not feeling safe" is not a legal reason for the appeal or lawsuit. Otherwise, current parents of that MS could file such a lawsuit now, and so could lots of other parents around the country.

Other parents could sue and I suspect have sued MCPS over safety in equally unsafe environments. However, whether or not other parents have sued has no bearing on whether its relevant or not. I'm not sure about appeals but law suits require some potential or actual loss to the plaintiff so the data on the low safety rating is relevant from this standpoint.

I think what the lawyers of the Clarksburg case are putting forward is that the Board did not follow due process, selected these plaintiffs based on race, and is assigning them based on race to a lessor school as demonstrated by the low safety ratings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At this point the people from clarksburg should be scared- they are making such a fuss their kids will definitely get jumped now.

This is the most truthful comment on this thread. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to recall... when Ritchie Park was rezoned from Wootton to RM, was there an appeal? A lawsuit? How did that go?

You're trying to recall events from 1987?

When we moved into the Ritchie Park neighborhood with young kids in 2005 we found that the 1987 rezoning was something of a legend. (The neighborhood was rezoned for Richard Montgomery though it is closer to both Churchill and Wootton.) Oldtimers would regale us with stories, about the lawsuits and bitter disputes that occurred at the time.

In twenty years I may be regaling my young neighbors about the great school boundary dispute of 2020.

I hope you don't leave them ignorant about the Horrors of 87, though. They need to hear it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1. It is illegal to use race to determine boundary assignments. So yes a school board can change boundaries but they have to do so without violating constitutional law.

2. Second point, yes someone was going to get assigned but at the heart of this issue is why this particular was chosen over others. If the BOE had spun a wheel and it was entirely random the BOE would be fine. If the area was geographically adjacent it would be fine. If there was an underutilized public bus route that could be used to save money that only existed there, it would be fine. If this neighborhood had just been built a few years ago and was the newest in the cluster then the BOE could say it chose the area because fewer people had established community ties to the schools. If the BOE used racial data to pick this area then there is a problem. If the BOE used median house value but also had the racial data it could go either way. Its highly unlikely that the BOE did not know the racial make ups of the area and its a risky chance to be untruthful in court and try to claim you only used house value when you've made statements about seeking racial diversity and you have the data.

3. Safety is not something that should be left tp parents to advocate for here. The reasons the teachers do not feel safe at Neelsville is not simply that the students behave in dangerous manners. It is that MCPS and the BOE has failed miserably tp create a safe environment for the teachers AND the at risk students. The changes that MCPS has put in place regarding discipline are at the root of the problems at Neelsville and other schools. If disruptive and dangerous students are allowed to remain in the classroom and receive no consequences for their behaviors, this is how you get a 24% safety rating.

1. They didn't use race.
2. It is geographically adjacent.
3. Safety at Neelsville MS is a boundary-change issue.

[Anonymous]

PP above +1

On all three points.

The people of clarksburg can take splice in knowing had they lived in the civil rights era, they would have voted to keep segregation. Not everyone gets a chance to know their truth like this!

[Anonymous]

They need to solve safety issues at Neelesville ASAP. It just means more supervision, security guards etc. These are kids and personal safety has to come first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
1. They didn't use race.
2. It is geographically adjacent.
3. Safety at Neelsville MS is a boundary-change issue.

^^^ISN'T! Safety at Neelsville MS ISN'T a boundary-change issue.

Drat my stupid typing errors.

[Anonymous]

Come on. People are defending their constitutional rights. Have all of you read the appeal?

Google "Appeal Filed in Response to Board of Education's Boundary Changes" with the double quotes and read the pdf appeal yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point the people from clarksburg should be scared- they are making such a fuss their kids will definitely get jumped now.

This is the most truthful comment on this thread. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on. People are defending their constitutional rights. Have all of you read the appeal?

Google "Appeal Filed in Response to Board of Education's Boundary Changes" with the double quotes and read the pdf appeal yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point the people from clarksburg should be scared- they are making such a fuss their kids will definitely get jumped now.

This is the most truthful comment on this thread. Thanks.

Does not mean they won’t get beat up for it.

But then again, they did come in swinging.

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants their children to be a social experiment and that’s just what MCPS is doing to the student body at these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on. People are defending their constitutional rights. Have all of you read the appeal?

Which constitution grants them the right not to be reassigned to a different school within their school district?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on. People are defending their constitutional rights. Have all of you read the appeal?

Which constitution grants them the right not to be reassigned to a different school within their school district?

Did you read the appeal?

The United States Supreme Court ruled that racial balancing is unconstitutional, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.