Moving from DC to Takoma Park?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is decent only because it sends the poorest Takoma kids to Eastern much like the west county kids that Takoma parents decry. Takoma middle is way more gerrymandered to pick up SFH than most of the W’s. At least with the W’s they aren’t really excluding local poor kids because there aren’t any. Takoma just ships them to eastern. Don’t worry all the poor kids meet up with the snow flakes at Blair

This is a bizarre, and worse, inaccurate point you're trying to make. Eastern's boundaries do not include any area within Takoma Park. TP residents are zoned for either TPMS or SSIMS. No one is "shipped to Eastern" unless they're in the magnet program.

+1 I think there is a discussion to be had about school boundaries, but the above PP is just flat-out wrong. Here's the map of the Eastern MS attendance zone. Not only are there no Takoma Park kids zoned for Eastern, the boundary actually makes a fair amount of sense. I mean, maaaaybe some of the Oak View families are moderately closer to SSIMS, but no kid zoned for Eastern is within Takoma Park, or closer to TPMS than to EMS.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/EasternMS.pdf

Here is the TPMS map. Again, it makes sense. There are no weird islands, and it pulls from the entirety of both the TPES/PBES and ESSES boundaries. There's no jerrymandering, and there are plenty of kids who live in multi-family dwellings, including all of the kids who live in the big apartment complexes on the other side of New Hampshire, and the kids in the big apartment complexes on Sligo Ave and Thayer Ave.

[Anonymous]

Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

I though Silver Spring was all about reaching better SES mixing and diversity ratios at the expense of walkers? Diversity busing is ok for the Ws but just let Takoma Middle have artificially suppressed ratios because walking is important? Why is Takoma so much lower FARMS than all the other East County Middle schools? hummmmmm can't be racism because that doesn't happen there right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

I though Silver Spring was all about reaching better SES mixing and diversity ratios at the expense of walkers? Diversity busing is ok for the Ws but just let Takoma Middle have artificially suppressed ratios because walking is important? Why is Takoma so much lower FARMS than all the other East County Middle schools? hummmmmm can't be racism because that doesn't happen there right?

Many TPMS kids are walkers because there is a HUGE amount of high density housing in walking distance to TPMS. That's it. That's the answer. The population density in 20910 is 9,300 people per square mile. 20912 has a population density of 9,500 people per square mile.

By comparison, the most densely populated W zip code (20815) has a population density of 5,500 people per square mile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

I though Silver Spring was all about reaching better SES mixing and diversity ratios at the expense of walkers? Diversity busing is ok for the Ws but just let Takoma Middle have artificially suppressed ratios because walking is important? Why is Takoma so much lower FARMS than all the other East County Middle schools? hummmmmm can't be racism because that doesn't happen there right?

You thought wrong, then. No one wants walkers to be rezoned to schools they can't walk to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

I though Silver Spring was all about reaching better SES mixing and diversity ratios at the expense of walkers? Diversity busing is ok for the Ws but just let Takoma Middle have artificially suppressed ratios because walking is important? Why is Takoma so much lower FARMS than all the other East County Middle schools? hummmmmm can't be racism because that doesn't happen there right?

You thought wrong, then. No one wants walkers to be rezoned to schools they can't walk to.

Moreover, MCPS has repeatedly said that existing walk zones would be preserved if and when a boundary revision is undertaken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved a rented apartment in Petworth to a house in Takoma Park. When we first moved we were childless; now we have two young kids. Overall, we are very happy here. The neighborhood (especially all the parks) is great. Lots of young families. The downtown and the Junction make it very walkable. Farmers market is nice, even during covid. Kids not old enough for public school yet,so can't comment on that personally, although I have heard the schools are fine.

As other posters have observed, the city taxes make it more expensive than neighboring SS. The current mayoral election is turning into a fight over how to decrease the city tax rate. But at the end of the day, it's all lumped into your PITI, which is really what we focused on when buying a house.

Takoma Park is small town - for better and for worse. I love it, but it can tend towards provincial especially re: development and politics. The funny thing about the new candidate looking to decrease taxes is that he is part of very vocal group that wants the City to develop and operate a city-owned parking lot for community purposes (though there is a relatively new community building literally down the street) - so not sure how this fits into lower taxes.

Takoma Park isn't a small town. Its large and has a huge population. people confuse the historic area near the metro with being all of TP. That is the small town feel part. Go to the Chucky Cheese in TP and tell me if it still feels like a quaint middle class small town. Thats a larger part of TP and defines it more even if the white moms pretend it isn't part of it. The families that live in that part is why so, so many from the SFH part fight so hard to get their kids in immersion, magnet or Enriched programs. It isn't because their kids are that smart

What "white moms" pretend that the outlying areas of TKPK aren't in TKPK? I'm a white mom and the diversity of Takoma Park is a selling point, as is its proximity to Langley Park and all the good grocery stores and restaurants there. Some people don't want to live in 88% white Bethesda. And as for the size, not sure what you're getting at with that either. Bethesda has 66K. Hyattsville has 17K. Langley Park has 18K, Silver Spring has 71K. TKPK has 17K. Huge is a bit of an overstatement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

I though Silver Spring was all about reaching better SES mixing and diversity ratios at the expense of walkers? Diversity busing is ok for the Ws but just let Takoma Middle have artificially suppressed ratios because walking is important? Why is Takoma so much lower FARMS than all the other East County Middle schools? hummmmmm can't be racism because that doesn't happen there right?

This is such a weird argument to make. TPMS has a 40 percent ever-FARMS rate, and logical boundaries. It's like you have this hellscape vision of what the eastern side of Montgomery County is like, so you assume the TPMS boundaries must be badly jerrymandered if it has a FARMS rate of under 75%. In reality, the TPMS zone (and the elementary feeders) are genuinely diverse from an economic standpoint, with a mix of poor/working class families, and middle class/upper middle class families. I don't know why you find that offensive, but it's actually a pretty nice place to raise a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As PP said, the tax differences between DC and Takoma Park can be quite sizable.

At least you get better schools with the property taxes.

Maybe or maybe not. We live in Takoma DC and our charter is handling distance learning better than our friends schools just across the line. I think moving for MoCo schools makes some sense but not a lot, if you might take advantage of choice in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As PP said, the tax differences between DC and Takoma Park can be quite sizable.

At least you get better schools with the property taxes.

Maybe or maybe not. We live in Takoma DC and our charter is handling distance learning better than our friends schools just across the line. I think moving for MoCo schools makes some sense but not a lot, if you might take advantage of choice in DC.

Or you could play the lottery for years and never get a spot. Not everyone wins, PP. That's why they say "it's school chance, not school choice." There's nothing wrong with choosing not to sign up for gambling with your child's education for years potentially.

- Current DC charter school parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As PP said, the tax differences between DC and Takoma Park can be quite sizable.

At least you get better schools with the property taxes.

Maybe or maybe not. We live in Takoma DC and our charter is handling distance learning better than our friends schools just across the line. I think moving for MoCo schools makes some sense but not a lot, if you might take advantage of choice in DC.

I agree that you can get better charter elementary schools in DC than some elementary schools in MoCo and don’t have to deal with crowding. The issue is that it is still a lottery and it’s tough to get into top schools. And there are very few good or even decent middle or high schools (even among charters) in DC, which isn’t true of MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As PP said, the tax differences between DC and Takoma Park can be quite sizable.

At least you get better schools with the property taxes.

Maybe or maybe not. We live in Takoma DC and our charter is handling distance learning better than our friends schools just across the line. I think moving for MoCo schools makes some sense but not a lot, if you might take advantage of choice in DC.

How?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As PP said, the tax differences between DC and Takoma Park can be quite sizable.

At least you get better schools with the property taxes.

Maybe or maybe not. We live in Takoma DC and our charter is handling distance learning better than our friends schools just across the line. I think moving for MoCo schools makes some sense but not a lot, if you might take advantage of choice in DC.

I agree that you can get better charter elementary schools in DC than some elementary schools in MoCo and don’t have to deal with crowding. The issue is that it is still a lottery and it’s tough to get into top schools. And there are very few good or even decent middle or high schools (even among charters) in DC, which isn’t true of MoCo.

Some of this comes down to tolerance for uncertainty. Yes, you can put your kid in the lottery every year for a charter, and always be willing to jump mid-year if a spot comes open, and that might work for some families and some kids. Other families are going to want a clear path through high school, or have kids for whom a mid-year switch would be really academically and emotionally challenging.

There's no right or wrong answer, just different preferences, tolerances, and temperaments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As PP said, the tax differences between DC and Takoma Park can be quite sizable.

At least you get better schools with the property taxes.

Maybe or maybe not. We live in Takoma DC and our charter is handling distance learning better than our friends schools just across the line. I think moving for MoCo schools makes some sense but not a lot, if you might take advantage of choice in DC.

I agree that you can get better charter elementary schools in DC than some elementary schools in MoCo and don’t have to deal with crowding. The issue is that it is still a lottery and it’s tough to get into top schools. And there are very few good or even decent middle or high schools (even among charters) in DC, which isn’t true of MoCo.

We have friends with 27 kids in their WOTP elementary 2nd grade. The smaller class size in DC is often a myth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oops, forgot the TPMS map. No jerrymandering. Just a boundary that makes sense and has a ton of walkers. http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/TakomaParkMS.pdf

I though Silver Spring was all about reaching better SES mixing and diversity ratios at the expense of walkers? Diversity busing is ok for the Ws but just let Takoma Middle have artificially suppressed ratios because walking is important? Why is Takoma so much lower FARMS than all the other East County Middle schools? hummmmmm can't be racism because that doesn't happen there right?

This is such a weird argument to make. TPMS has a 40 percent ever-FARMS rate, and logical boundaries. It's like you have this hellscape vision of what the eastern side of Montgomery County is like, so you assume the TPMS boundaries must be badly jerrymandered if it has a FARMS rate of under 75%. In reality, the TPMS zone (and the elementary feeders) are genuinely diverse from an economic standpoint, with a mix of poor/working class families, and middle class/upper middle class families. I don't know why you find that offensive, but it's actually a pretty nice place to raise a family.

The poorest kids in Takoma Park outside of the Maple Ave apts go to a completely different HS cluster Northwood and you call that "logical boundaries"? My god white liberals don't even realize they are the biggest hypocrites and the biggest hoarders of diverse areas resources.