Initial boundary options for Crown/Damascus study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought there maybe new 500 families coming in to zone to Crown HS in future years if approved. What do you all think?

https://mocoshow.com/2025/05/29/new-proposal-would-bring-500-residential-units-43k-sf-of-retail-across-four-buildings-to-rio-in-gaithersburg/

That housing project hasn’t been approved or even presented to the City of Gaithersburg. Even if the sketch plan gets approved, it doesn’t mean the developer will start building the housing - there are many examples in the county where the sketch plan gets approved but the housing isn’t started due to the economic factors, changes in interest rates, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just bought a new build in the Wootton cluster getting redistricted to crown. How f'ed is my property value going to be in 10 years?

20% down

[Anonymous]

Wayside families, I realize you are upset with the change, but as a homeowner in that area, I am just grateful they didn't redistrict us to some non W school. Wootton is a great school with high performing students...students I would be glad to have my child around. Be grateful you didn't end up at RM or Rockville. AND your home values will stay intact. My home is significantly closer to Churchill. Is it a perfect situation? No. But it could be a lot worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Wayside parent who is unhappy with the changes.

Wootton is a great school, but it’s an extra 20 minutes away from our house. Falls Road is already super congested, especially during rush hour.

My kids can walk and bike to Churchill, but definitely can’t to Wootton.

Hoover and Churchill are right next to each other. They literally share a field. It makes no sense to break Hoover up.

Under all four scenarios, I will have kids in middle school at Hoover and high school at Wooton at the same time. Coordinating pick ups from after school school programs is going to get harder, and will add to traffic on Falls Road.

And it sad that my kids will make a bunch of friends at Hoover and then have to leave them behind.

I have neighbors whose siblings are going to get split up. They’ll be waiting for different buses to take them to different schools in the mornings.

I know these aren’t huge problems in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a really disruptive change and doesn’t make geographic sense.

This is the problem. People on this board have talked for years about how bad split articulation is for Cabin John. Giving guidance to people asking about which school district to buy into to avoid CJ for this reason. Now it looks like they're just shifting the problem to Hoover. I guess this will inevitably happen in the capacity of Churchill is less than the capacity for CJ+Hoover. One of them will either have to split or will have to be severely undercapacity. Or I guess they could have only one MS flow into Churchill and then expand the special programs (either special ed or some smallish magnet program) to bring students in from other parts of the broader MCPS district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought there maybe new 500 families coming in to zone to Crown HS in future years if approved. What do you all think?

https://mocoshow.com/2025/05/29/new-proposal-would-bring-500-residential-units-43k-sf-of-retail-across-four-buildings-to-rio-in-gaithersburg/

Yeah banking on new housing is not very smart right now.

Also, regarding MCPS enrollment projections - Every year, they claim in future years, schools will see influx of students. Then, as you move closer towards those projections, they don't happen. This has been happening forever, and they are either too stupid to realize it or they don't care. Crown's construction is being done on the basis of such projections.

[Anonymous]

Someone should dump their CIP documents going back 15 years into AI ask it to assess the accuracy of its 5 year projections every year - how their projections lined up with reality. This seems like a no-brainer thing to analyze and reflect on, and yet they've never done so, because it would show they are incompetent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wayside families, I realize you are upset with the change, but as a homeowner in that area, I am just grateful they didn't redistrict us to some non W school. Wootton is a great school with high performing students...students I would be glad to have my child around. Be grateful you didn't end up at RM or Rockville. AND your home values will stay intact. My home is significantly closer to Churchill. Is it a perfect situation? No. But it could be a lot worse.

+1

Although I don’t love it, I feel the same. The kids will still be at a W school and my property value remains the same.

It’s a win for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Wayside parent who is unhappy with the changes.

Wootton is a great school, but it’s an extra 20 minutes away from our house. Falls Road is already super congested, especially during rush hour.

My kids can walk and bike to Churchill, but definitely can’t to Wootton.

Hoover and Churchill are right next to each other. They literally share a field. It makes no sense to break Hoover up.

Under all four scenarios, I will have kids in middle school at Hoover and high school at Wooton at the same time. Coordinating pick ups from after school school programs is going to get harder, and will add to traffic on Falls Road.

And it sad that my kids will make a bunch of friends at Hoover and then have to leave them behind.

I have neighbors whose siblings are going to get split up. They’ll be waiting for different buses to take them to different schools in the mornings.

I know these aren’t huge problems in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a really disruptive change and doesn’t make geographic sense.

This is the problem. People on this board have talked for years about how bad split articulation is for Cabin John. Giving guidance to people asking about which school district to buy into to avoid CJ for this reason. Now it looks like they're just shifting the problem to Hoover. I guess this will inevitably happen in the capacity of Churchill is less than the capacity for CJ+Hoover. One of them will either have to split or will have to be severely undercapacity. Or I guess they could have only one MS flow into Churchill and then expand the special programs (either special ed or some smallish magnet program) to bring students in from other parts of the broader MCPS district.

Actually, the split articulation could be gotten rid of at both schools if they made one of them (Hoover or CJ) a special magnet (for instance, an honors magnet like Eastern and Takoma Park). That would be popular in this part of the county, where people are annoyed to have to send their kid so far away for a magnet. The magnet kids would go back to their home HS at the end of MS (which their parents would be opting into voluntarily.) One of the ESs currently zoned for Hoover/CJ could be reallocated to a different MS (for instance, Wayside to Frost). Those kids would benefit because they'd be away from split articulation. So all of Hoover and CJ (minus the magnet kids) would fit into Churchill.

Of course, there are cascading effects down the line (some other ES would be moved from Frost to another MS, and so on). I don't know enough about what the rest of the district looks like to know if that causes problems down the line or not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Wayside parent who is unhappy with the changes.

Wootton is a great school, but it’s an extra 20 minutes away from our house. Falls Road is already super congested, especially during rush hour.

My kids can walk and bike to Churchill, but definitely can’t to Wootton.

Hoover and Churchill are right next to each other. They literally share a field. It makes no sense to break Hoover up.

Under all four scenarios, I will have kids in middle school at Hoover and high school at Wooton at the same time. Coordinating pick ups from after school school programs is going to get harder, and will add to traffic on Falls Road.

And it sad that my kids will make a bunch of friends at Hoover and then have to leave them behind.

I have neighbors whose siblings are going to get split up. They’ll be waiting for different buses to take them to different schools in the mornings.

I know these aren’t huge problems in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a really disruptive change and doesn’t make geographic sense.

This is the problem. People on this board have talked for years about how bad split articulation is for Cabin John. Giving guidance to people asking about which school district to buy into to avoid CJ for this reason. Now it looks like they're just shifting the problem to Hoover. I guess this will inevitably happen in the capacity of Churchill is less than the capacity for CJ+Hoover. One of them will either have to split or will have to be severely undercapacity. Or I guess they could have only one MS flow into Churchill and then expand the special programs (either special ed or some smallish magnet program) to bring students in from other parts of the broader MCPS district.

Actually, the split articulation could be gotten rid of at both schools if they made one of them (Hoover or CJ) a special magnet (for instance, an honors magnet like Eastern and Takoma Park). That would be popular in this part of the county, where people are annoyed to have to send their kid so far away for a magnet. The magnet kids would go back to their home HS at the end of MS (which their parents would be opting into voluntarily.) One of the ESs currently zoned for Hoover/CJ could be reallocated to a different MS (for instance, Wayside to Frost). Those kids would benefit because they'd be away from split articulation. So all of Hoover and CJ (minus the magnet kids) would fit into Churchill.

Of course, there are cascading effects down the line (some other ES would be moved from Frost to another MS, and so on). I don't know enough about what the rest of the district looks like to know if that causes problems down the line or not

A magnet school in a wealthy area is a non-starter in MCPS in 2025.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wayside families, I realize you are upset with the change, but as a homeowner in that area, I am just grateful they didn't redistrict us to some non W school. Wootton is a great school with high performing students...students I would be glad to have my child around. Be grateful you didn't end up at RM or Rockville. AND your home values will stay intact. My home is significantly closer to Churchill. Is it a perfect situation? No. But it could be a lot worse.

You don’t need to be so scared. Wayside isn’t adjacent to any non-W school and there is no legitimate justification to bus wayside to so far

[Anonymous]

Why can’t they just put some of QO, Gaithersburg and RM to Crown hs, then call it a day. Maybe they can add some new development townhouses on key west.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought there maybe new 500 families coming in to zone to Crown HS in future years if approved. What do you all think?

https://mocoshow.com/2025/05/29/new-proposal-would-bring-500-residential-units-43k-sf-of-retail-across-four-buildings-to-rio-in-gaithersburg/

Yeah banking on new housing is not very smart right now.

Also, regarding MCPS enrollment projections - Every year, they claim in future years, schools will see influx of students. Then, as you move closer towards those projections, they don't happen. This has been happening forever, and they are either too stupid to realize it or they don't care. Crown's construction is being done on the basis of such projections.

Fake projections are done on purpose to secure funding in excess of what is actually needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just bought a new build in the Wootton cluster getting redistricted to crown. How f'ed is my property value going to be in 10 years?

20% down

Yep. That sounds right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Wayside parent who is unhappy with the changes.

Wootton is a great school, but it’s an extra 20 minutes away from our house. Falls Road is already super congested, especially during rush hour.

My kids can walk and bike to Churchill, but definitely can’t to Wootton.

Hoover and Churchill are right next to each other. They literally share a field. It makes no sense to break Hoover up.

Under all four scenarios, I will have kids in middle school at Hoover and high school at Wooton at the same time. Coordinating pick ups from after school school programs is going to get harder, and will add to traffic on Falls Road.

And it sad that my kids will make a bunch of friends at Hoover and then have to leave them behind.

I have neighbors whose siblings are going to get split up. They’ll be waiting for different buses to take them to different schools in the mornings.

I know these aren’t huge problems in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a really disruptive change and doesn’t make geographic sense.

This is the problem. People on this board have talked for years about how bad split articulation is for Cabin John. Giving guidance to people asking about which school district to buy into to avoid CJ for this reason. Now it looks like they're just shifting the problem to Hoover. I guess this will inevitably happen in the capacity of Churchill is less than the capacity for CJ+Hoover. One of them will either have to split or will have to be severely undercapacity. Or I guess they could have only one MS flow into Churchill and then expand the special programs (either special ed or some smallish magnet program) to bring students in from other parts of the broader MCPS district.

Actually, the split articulation could be gotten rid of at both schools if they made one of them (Hoover or CJ) a special magnet (for instance, an honors magnet like Eastern and Takoma Park). That would be popular in this part of the county, where people are annoyed to have to send their kid so far away for a magnet. The magnet kids would go back to their home HS at the end of MS (which their parents would be opting into voluntarily.) One of the ESs currently zoned for Hoover/CJ could be reallocated to a different MS (for instance, Wayside to Frost). Those kids would benefit because they'd be away from split articulation. So all of Hoover and CJ (minus the magnet kids) would fit into Churchill.

Of course, there are cascading effects down the line (some other ES would be moved from Frost to another MS, and so on). I don't know enough about what the rest of the district looks like to know if that causes problems down the line or not

A magnet school in a wealthy area is a non-starter in MCPS in 2025.

We're all just looking at our piece of the county. But it seems like this could be a solution in whatever other schools need split articulation, in either boundary study. Doesn't need to be honors. Could be foreign language magnet, special ed programs, more trade-related programs; whatever would draw people from the region and fill capacity where they would otherwise be looking at split articulation. I'm not sure how expensive such programs are to run (they would have the same # of teachers as any other program but it's possible administrative costs are much higher and those magnet bus routes are complicated). In the case of the political sensitivity of putting magnets in the wealthy areas, then the boundaries for pulling kids into the magnet could be drawn in a way to provide students in lower performing schools an opportunity for admission (which could also improve income diversity, which is one of their goals).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Wayside parent who is unhappy with the changes.

Wootton is a great school, but it’s an extra 20 minutes away from our house. Falls Road is already super congested, especially during rush hour.

My kids can walk and bike to Churchill, but definitely can’t to Wootton.

Hoover and Churchill are right next to each other. They literally share a field. It makes no sense to break Hoover up.

Under all four scenarios, I will have kids in middle school at Hoover and high school at Wooton at the same time. Coordinating pick ups from after school school programs is going to get harder, and will add to traffic on Falls Road.

And it sad that my kids will make a bunch of friends at Hoover and then have to leave them behind.

I have neighbors whose siblings are going to get split up. They’ll be waiting for different buses to take them to different schools in the mornings.

I know these aren’t huge problems in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a really disruptive change and doesn’t make geographic sense.

I’m a Frost parent with very similar concerns. The connection between Frost and Wootton is extremely close. You walk down the hill behind Frost, and you’re at Wootton. The schools have shared events - for example, my Frost kid’s chorus concerts have been at Wootton and have included performances from both Frost groups and Wootton groups. These connections are how you build a community.

As it stands, all Frost kids are assigned to Wootton. And their transition to high school is made so much easier by already having familiarity with Wootton staff, kids, and facilities. It would be a shame to break up Frost and destroy this community, particularly when Frost and Wootton don’t suffer from the overcrowding issues that we are trying to solve with all this. I really hope they try to minimize disruption and keep communities together.