Initial boundary options for Woodward study area are up

[Anonymous]

Agree most are not leaving or cannot afford to leave or move. The ones who can are already in private so just a big scare tactic.. that MCPS won’t care about or listen to.

[Anonymous]

I sincerely hope that once everyone is done complaining here and reading other people's complaints, we are each taking ACTION. Here are some ideas to ensure everyone impacted, which goes far beyond people with kids obviously, is aware and can advocate:
- post on your neighborhood list serve
- Post in your Facebook and WhatsApp groups
- knock on doors in your neighborhood
- call, email, or text neighbors you are close with and ask personally that they remain involved
- contact whatever representatives make sense, whether you live in a town that has a council, you believe it makes sense too bring in statewide folks even, etc.
- contact your PTA
- follow up with the people you have contacted to ensure they have filled out the survey

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree most are not leaving or cannot afford to leave or move. The ones who can are already in private so just a big scare tactic.. that MCPS won’t care about or listen to.

I would 100% consider leaving. I can't afford private for my kids. We stretched our budget to buy a house here. Why would I not just move to DC and have a better commute, if my kids are going to have the same schooling experience here or there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sincerely hope that once everyone is done complaining here and reading other people's complaints, we are each taking ACTION. Here are some ideas to ensure everyone impacted, which goes far beyond people with kids obviously, is aware and can advocate:
- post on your neighborhood list serve
- Post in your Facebook and WhatsApp groups
- knock on doors in your neighborhood
- call, email, or text neighbors you are close with and ask personally that they remain involved
- contact whatever representatives make sense, whether you live in a town that has a council, you believe it makes sense too bring in statewide folks even, etc.
- contact your PTA
- follow up with the people you have contacted to ensure they have filled out the survey

+1. texting some friends now. thanks for the nudge

[Anonymous]

I think this county really needs to think hard about who we are and want to be. People are kind here in general, charitable, and inclusive. The schools are welcoming and all of them are at least pretty good. MCPS already bends over backwards providing programs and services in lower SES schools.

But when it comes to busing long distances away from your home school, who are the winners and losers going to be here?

I really hope that hardworking, middle class or UMC aren’t always the losers. That just can’t always be the answer.

We know the rich always win, of course and they don’t go to public school usually. And we know long bus rides are hard on the poor - but they are hard on our families too. Why is that so hard to get?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worth noting that when MCPS added a new MS in the BCC district, the options included prioritizing diversity versus prioritizing commuting distance. I was surprised that they opted for the latter. Part of the argument at the time was that long/complex commutes to school disproportionately disadvantage lower income families because they may have less flexible work schedules and/or greater reliance on time-consuming/costly public transportation. It meant that the two MS in the BCC catchment have very disparate populations - Silver Creek has much more racial/ethnic/SES diversity whereas Westland became even whiter and higher SES.

Two points from this experience:

1) MCPS doesn't always put diversity above all other critiera.

AND

2) Personally as a white, higher SES famliy living close to Silver Creek, I initially hoped that they would strive for a reasonable balance among the school populations. But our DC's actual experience at SC was very very positive (much better than when an older kid attended Westland) and I'm glad MCPS leaned into avoiding long commutes even if it meant leaving demographic disparities in place. Long bus rides are a terrible outcome for all students and families.

I hope that lesson is remembered when they decide how to redistrict in this case!

Different SCMS family who is also happy there. I don’t get why they are now roosting the break up the 3 schools that feed to SCMS in the new boundary study. Very upsetting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Rosemary Hills/Chevy Chase Elementary schools already have a mix of students from affluent and less affluent homes and a mix of races from Chevy Chase and Silver Springs. Under option 3, instead of these kids attending the same middle school (Silver Creek) and high school (BCC) they will divide this
cohort of students, who have been together for 6 years, so that they can increase diversity rates at Whitman and Blair. The BCC cluster schools already has diversity. Option 3 has Silver Spring kids being bussed past BCC to get to Whitman and Chevy Chase kids who live within 1-2 miles from BCC bussed 6 miles to Blair.

Rosemary Hills students split into two elementary schools (North Bethesda and Chevy. Chase), and option 3 ends up splitting students again.

Agree for this particular group of Rosemary Hills kids, it is completely unfair and their cluster needs to be taken off the table. They were the first and only bussed students for years and deserve stability. The diversity by bussing is already there and has been for decades. Pick on someone else.

This has been happening for many years to other families.

Rosemary Hills among was the very first (in the country) to do cross county bussing. Those familes have been dealing with this since 1983. Kingergartners in Chevy Chase have been bussed miles away from home to Silver Spring and then split away from their friends in 2nd grade for diversity purposes. Then the opposite happens for the Silver Spring kids when they are bussed out of theiir neighborhoods to CCES in third grade. My kids bus ride was 45 minutes each way every day. They’d get off the bus with motion sickness. The bus driver also lost my kindergartener and other kids when they all got off on the wrong stop in Silver Spring. They were found walking down the road. You all think MCPS isn’t serious about option 3? Think again! Rosemary Hills is their model.

I live in Rosemary Hills. There's no part of the CCES area that takes 45 minutes to get to RHPS. Maybe on a very rare occasion if there was an accident somewhere on the way, but not as the norm. And it's a very small slice of the Silver Spring kids who get bused to CCES, the poorest kids from a particular apartment complex, who are bused just to make wealthy CCES families feel better that there's diversity at their school. The rest go to NCC like my kids did. Stop being such a martyr.

The buses stop multiple times at multiple bus stops along the way. It isn’t a straight shot. You aren’t taking that into account. By the time they get they get to the last stop in Chevy Chase, it’s been 45 minutes! Obviously you didn’t live this but I DID!!!!

And you are right it’s only a small slice of the poorest kids sent to CCES, the rest go to NCC which is much closer. It’s like one school bus of kids leaving CCES for Rosemary Hills/Silver Spring to one location (the apartments) so one stop whereas there are multiple buses leaving RHPS for Chevy Chase every day with multiple stops. Your experience was cushy and as you sit on your progressive throne looking down, good for you!

The demographics of the two schools are virtually identical. Check out the school profiles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was expecting a range of options on the demographics/equalizing FARMS dimension. But options 1, 2 and 4 do basically nothing to improve on that front, or in some cases make things worse. And option 3 is only a moderate improvement, the kind of thing I would have expected as a middle-ground option between "no improvement on demographics/diversity" and "significant improvement on demographics/diversity."

I feel like all the options other than #3 are non-starters. #3 has plenty of flaws but it feels like we need to focus on iterating off of it to make it better. It's ridiculous to have some schools with 6% FARMS rates and some schools with over 60% FARMS rates (or up to 75% at some middle schools!) and have 3 of the 4 options not do a thing to try to address that.

Disasgree. Option 3 will be off the table quickly. Look at how many HS have noncontiguous boundaries. You just can't level the FARMs rates in schools in a county that has so much housing segregation.

Yeah. If kids in summit hills (which is going to be expanded in the next 10 years) go to Whitman then kids from Whitman can be bussed to Wheaton. They have to commit to something based on geographies and then level the resources based on FARMS rates to balance more.

I don't understand busing kids from Summit Hills to Whitman - those kids go to BCC now and BCC needs the diversity they provide. Even BCC is a long way for the Summit Hills kids, but at least they get to go to a neighborhood school from K-2 (Rosemary Hills) and they can take 1 bus ride along East West Highway to get back and forth to school when they can't use a school bus. I can't imagine how they are going to get home from afterschool activities from Whitman.

Summit Hills doesn't go to B-CC. The kids who get bused to CCES live in the Barringtons. That's the dividing line between B-CC and, I believe, Einstein. Summit Hills is a bit farther east on East-West Highway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So they can get public feedback. We may not get as much time to provide feedback later on other options. This may be it.

but then these options have to be at least possible. You don't put out completely fake and unrealistic options. If you did, then all feedback would be useless.

+1 They should be putting out options that they are proposing in good faith, which then will get tweaked as needed. They are just wasting everyone’s time with this. That’s not an opportunity to provide meaningful input.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So they can get public feedback. We may not get as much time to provide feedback later on other options. This may be it.

but then these options have to be at least possible. You don't put out completely fake and unrealistic options. If you did, then all feedback would be useless.

+1 They should be putting out options that they are proposing in good faith, which then will get tweaked as needed. They are just wasting everyone’s time with this. That’s not an opportunity to provide meaningful input.

I agree, especially since the next round isn't until September. It's going to be a long summer with no additional information to look at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was expecting a range of options on the demographics/equalizing FARMS dimension. But options 1, 2 and 4 do basically nothing to improve on that front, or in some cases make things worse. And option 3 is only a moderate improvement, the kind of thing I would have expected as a middle-ground option between "no improvement on demographics/diversity" and "significant improvement on demographics/diversity."

I feel like all the options other than #3 are non-starters. #3 has plenty of flaws but it feels like we need to focus on iterating off of it to make it better. It's ridiculous to have some schools with 6% FARMS rates and some schools with over 60% FARMS rates (or up to 75% at some middle schools!) and have 3 of the 4 options not do a thing to try to address that.

Disasgree. Option 3 will be off the table quickly. Look at how many HS have noncontiguous boundaries. You just can't level the FARMs rates in schools in a county that has so much housing segregation.

Yeah. If kids in summit hills (which is going to be expanded in the next 10 years) go to Whitman then kids from Whitman can be bussed to Wheaton. They have to commit to something based on geographies and then level the resources based on FARMS rates to balance more.

I don't understand busing kids from Summit Hills to Whitman - those kids go to BCC now and BCC needs the diversity they provide. Even BCC is a long way for the Summit Hills kids, but at least they get to go to a neighborhood school from K-2 (Rosemary Hills) and they can take 1 bus ride along East West Highway to get back and forth to school when they can't use a school bus. I can't imagine how they are going to get home from afterschool activities from Whitman.

Summit Hills doesn't go to B-CC. The kids who get bused to CCES live in the Barringtons. That's the dividing line between B-CC and, I believe, Einstein. Summit Hills is a bit farther east on East-West Highway.

Summit Hills has nine buildings. The four westernmost go to B-CC, same as the Barrington, and the five easternmost go to Einstein.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was expecting a range of options on the demographics/equalizing FARMS dimension. But options 1, 2 and 4 do basically nothing to improve on that front, or in some cases make things worse. And option 3 is only a moderate improvement, the kind of thing I would have expected as a middle-ground option between "no improvement on demographics/diversity" and "significant improvement on demographics/diversity."

I feel like all the options other than #3 are non-starters. #3 has plenty of flaws but it feels like we need to focus on iterating off of it to make it better. It's ridiculous to have some schools with 6% FARMS rates and some schools with over 60% FARMS rates (or up to 75% at some middle schools!) and have 3 of the 4 options not do a thing to try to address that.

Disasgree. Option 3 will be off the table quickly. Look at how many HS have noncontiguous boundaries. You just can't level the FARMs rates in schools in a county that has so much housing segregation.

Yeah. If kids in summit hills (which is going to be expanded in the next 10 years) go to Whitman then kids from Whitman can be bussed to Wheaton. They have to commit to something based on geographies and then level the resources based on FARMS rates to balance more.

I don't understand busing kids from Summit Hills to Whitman - those kids go to BCC now and BCC needs the diversity they provide. Even BCC is a long way for the Summit Hills kids, but at least they get to go to a neighborhood school from K-2 (Rosemary Hills) and they can take 1 bus ride along East West Highway to get back and forth to school when they can't use a school bus. I can't imagine how they are going to get home from afterschool activities from Whitman.

Summit Hills doesn't go to B-CC. The kids who get bused to CCES live in the Barringtons. That's the dividing line between B-CC and, I believe, Einstein. Summit Hills is a bit farther east on East-West Highway.

Summit Hills goes to RHES and CCES for ES. Currently, it is zoned to SCMS and B-CC. You can put it into the school assignment tool to see.

The proposal is to rezone Summit Hills to Whitman under option 3.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone tell me why MoCo has split articulation? I can see a definition on MCPS but it seems like a practice that leads to a pretty awkward middle school experience. Kids do not bother making friends with other kids who they know are going off to a different high school. It was difficult recruiting parents to invest their time in PTA and volunteer efforts because no one was invested in the school. It cast a shadow over the whole experience for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone tell me why MoCo has split articulation? I can see a definition on MCPS but it seems like a practice that leads to a pretty awkward middle school experience. Kids do not bother making friends with other kids who they know are going off to a different high school. It was difficult recruiting parents to invest their time in PTA and volunteer efforts because no one was invested in the school. It cast a shadow over the whole experience for us.

It is done to maximize utilization of school buildings. That way, they don't have to build new schools/additions with limited tax dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So they can get public feedback. We may not get as much time to provide feedback later on other options. This may be it.

but then these options have to be at least possible. You don't put out completely fake and unrealistic options. If you did, then all feedback would be useless.

+1 They should be putting out options that they are proposing in good faith, which then will get tweaked as needed. They are just wasting everyone’s time with this. That’s not an opportunity to provide meaningful input.

I agree, especially since the next round isn't until September. It's going to be a long summer with no additional information to look at.

And tanking real estate prices, now that these options are public on the internet.