Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

Maybe some of the $$ needed to rebuild Magruder can come from knocking down wasteful spendin on the current CIP? Like, why is Cold Spring still on it? Now that those neighborhoods are being redistricted to Churchill, couldn't that small school just be closed with kids sent to nearby Churchill feeders like Beverly Farms and Wayside?

Expediting the closure of these wasteful ESs could help expedite the process of constructing a new Magruder facility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

Maybe some of the $$ needed to rebuild Magruder can come from knocking down wasteful spendin on the current CIP? Like, why is Cold Spring still on it? Now that those neighborhoods are being redistricted to Churchill, couldn't that small school just be closed with kids sent to nearby Churchill feeders like Beverly Farms and Wayside?

Expediting the closure of these wasteful ESs could help expedite the process of constructing a new Magruder facility.

The schools on it also need repairs. You are being obnoxious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

The redistricting is supposed to fix overcrowding at all schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

Maybe some of the $$ needed to rebuild Magruder can come from knocking down wasteful spendin on the current CIP? Like, why is Cold Spring still on it? Now that those neighborhoods are being redistricted to Churchill, couldn't that small school just be closed with kids sent to nearby Churchill feeders like Beverly Farms and Wayside?

Expediting the closure of these wasteful ESs could help expedite the process of constructing a new Magruder facility.

The schools on it also need repairs. You are being obnoxious.

Needing emergency repairs will cost less than the current CIP. Agree, remove es/ms CIP, do the es/ms study in the meantime, prioritize Magruder. Revisit crown/Wootton afterwards

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

The redistricting is supposed to fix overcrowding at all schools.

Not anymore. That was the initial purpose. MCPS when it rolled out options E-H said enrollment is down, and overcrowding isn’t an issue. That’s how Churchill went from being overcrowding and now okay to take in a whole another elementary school.

If overcrowding was a real issue, Crown would open as a new 27th school without needing to fill it with Wootton kids and close Wootton on Wootton Parkway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

The redistricting is supposed to fix overcrowding at all schools.

Not anymore. That was the initial purpose. MCPS when it rolled out options E-H said enrollment is down, and overcrowding isn’t an issue. That’s how Churchill went from being overcrowding and now okay to take in a whole another elementary school.

If overcrowding was a real issue, Crown would open as a new 27th school without needing to fill it with Wootton kids and close Wootton on Wootton Parkway.

If Crown were to open as a 27th school it would be opening with kids from some combination of DuFief/Stone Mill/Lakewood or at least the areas of those schools closest to Crown as was seen in options 1-4 and A-D

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

The redistricting is supposed to fix overcrowding at all schools.

Not anymore. That was the initial purpose. MCPS when it rolled out options E-H said enrollment is down, and overcrowding isn’t an issue. That’s how Churchill went from being overcrowding and now okay to take in a whole another elementary school.

If overcrowding was a real issue, Crown would open as a new 27th school without needing to fill it with Wootton kids and close Wootton on Wootton Parkway.

If Crown were to open as a 27th school it would be opening with kids from some combination of DuFief/Stone Mill/Lakewood or at least the areas of those schools closest to Crown as was seen in options 1-4 and A-D

So either do that because overcrowding is a real issue or don’t do that because the numbers aren’t there and in that case let Magruder use crown.

What doesn’t make sense is moving wootton to crown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

The redistricting is supposed to fix overcrowding at all schools.

Not anymore. That was the initial purpose. MCPS when it rolled out options E-H said enrollment is down, and overcrowding isn’t an issue. That’s how Churchill went from being overcrowding and now okay to take in a whole another elementary school.

If overcrowding was a real issue, Crown would open as a new 27th school without needing to fill it with Wootton kids and close Wootton on Wootton Parkway.

If Crown were to open as a 27th school it would be opening with kids from some combination of DuFief/Stone Mill/Lakewood or at least the areas of those schools closest to Crown as was seen in options 1-4 and A-D

So either do that because overcrowding is a real issue or don’t do that because the numbers aren’t there and in that case let Magruder use crown.

What doesn’t make sense is moving wootton to crown

You’re so worried that Wootton may move to Crown that you’d be willing to sell the entire future of the Wootton student community to ensure that the precious school stays on the Parkway. I’m sure you don’t have kids that are going to be impacted by the facility conditions and environment.

“Oh please let Magruder use Crown, they deserve it!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

In addition to these super valid concerns, there are also real costs associated with this plan. Assuming the cost of Magruder is the same in all options, the superintendent’s recommendation carries a cost of $600 million to get to the point of having an operational holding school and both high schools up and running in safe spaces ($200 million for Crown and $100 million to get Wootton in shape as a holding school). This alternate plan would require between $400-500 million ($200 million for the Crown and $100-200 million for Wootton), a different of $100-200 million depending on the Wootton costs (and anyone who has tracked school renovations knows they rarely come in at the lower estimate). There are dozens of schools across the county that are in desperate need of repair that would have access to considerably fewer resources if the county goes with the Crown holding school approach. Which is another clear reason why the district cannot just reduce this argument to Wootton vs. Magruder, and it can’t be seen as a win-win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

Maybe some of the $$ needed to rebuild Magruder can come from knocking down wasteful spendin on the current CIP? Like, why is Cold Spring still on it? Now that those neighborhoods are being redistricted to Churchill, couldn't that small school just be closed with kids sent to nearby Churchill feeders like Beverly Farms and Wayside?

Expediting the closure of these wasteful ESs could help expedite the process of constructing a new Magruder facility.

The schools on it also need repairs. You are being obnoxious.

How is it obnoxious to propose taking Cold Spring off the CIP if it is more fiscally responsible and will close anyways? Seems like mentioning Cold Spring touched a nerve because no other schools were even mentioned. The truth is there are so many other schools that really need the money too - 60M freed up is nothing to sneeze at here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years. If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay. But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer.

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home?

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.

Maybe some of the $$ needed to rebuild Magruder can come from knocking down wasteful spendin on the current CIP? Like, why is Cold Spring still on it? Now that those neighborhoods are being redistricted to Churchill, couldn't that small school just be closed with kids sent to nearby Churchill feeders like Beverly Farms and Wayside?

Expediting the closure of these wasteful ESs could help expedite the process of constructing a new Magruder facility.

The schools on it also need repairs. You are being obnoxious.

How is it obnoxious to propose taking Cold Spring off the CIP if it is more fiscally responsible and will close anyways? Seems like mentioning Cold Spring touched a nerve because no other schools were even mentioned. The truth is there are so many other schools that really need the money too - 60M freed up is nothing to sneeze at here.

As far as I understand it, Cold Spring will only be redistricted to Churchill IF modified H actually passes. So if Crown as a holding school is what actually happens I don’t think the change actually applies. Someone correct me if i’m wrong on this. So if Cold Spring closes what happens then? What ES would Cold Spring be sent to if they are not actually in the Churchill district?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Not PP but Wootton cluster is the only reason why Magruder is getting any attention to begin with.

And yet, paradoxically, it's also the reason why others in the county take them less seriously.

This is why people are concerned with Wootton. Think about your actions. I'd pick Magruder any day over Wootton and the kids I know at Magruder are happy there. Its a decent school, just like other schools, lacking opportunities.

We lived in that area and knew people that have worked at the local schools, including the high school. They were there when the kid got shot and some guy was beating up a girl in the cafeteria.

We were semi willing to consider having our kids go to the schools in that area. Our neighbors at the time used to rave about the local schools. But in the end we decided to move when it was time for our kids to go to public schools.

There's a reason why some of the people that work(ed) at those schools decided to move to a W school area as well and some other teachers that do live in the Magruder area have COSAs for their kids to go to other schools outside of the Magruder area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

In addition to these super valid concerns, there are also real costs associated with this plan. Assuming the cost of Magruder is the same in all options, the superintendent’s recommendation carries a cost of $600 million to get to the point of having an operational holding school and both high schools up and running in safe spaces ($200 million for Crown and $100 million to get Wootton in shape as a holding school). This alternate plan would require between $400-500 million ($200 million for the Crown and $100-200 million for Wootton), a different of $100-200 million depending on the Wootton costs (and anyone who has tracked school renovations knows they rarely come in at the lower estimate). There are dozens of schools across the county that are in desperate need of repair that would have access to considerably fewer resources if the county goes with the Crown holding school approach. Which is another clear reason why the district cannot just reduce this argument to Wootton vs. Magruder, and it can’t be seen as a win-win.

Check your math or your description of the factors -- $200+$100 <= $200+between $100 & $200. I do not quibble with the thoughts that followed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.


Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain. Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years. For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does). They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own. It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster. If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school. This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily). What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years.

Not PP but Wootton cluster is the only reason why Magruder is getting any attention to begin with.

And yet, paradoxically, it's also the reason why others in the county take them less seriously.

This is why people are concerned with Wootton. Think about your actions. I'd pick Magruder any day over Wootton and the kids I know at Magruder are happy there. Its a decent school, just like other schools, lacking opportunities.

We lived in that area and knew people that have worked at the local schools, including the high school. They were there when the kid got shot and some guy was beating up a girl in the cafeteria.

We were semi willing to consider having our kids go to the schools in that area. Our neighbors at the time used to rave about the local schools. But in the end we decided to move when it was time for our kids to go to public schools.

There's a reason why some of the people that work(ed) at those schools decided to move to a W school area as well and some other teachers that do live in the Magruder area have COSAs for their kids to go to other schools outside of the Magruder area.

Also I'm not saying Magruder shouldn't be renovated and not use the Crown HS as a holding school.

We're familiar with the area and the issues that the Magruder HS building has had over the years.

And I've been posting since the beginning how it doesn't make sense to bus people to the current Wootton site if the current Wootton building is determined not worth to be fixed/maintained.

But just saying I'm familiar with the schools and areas when you're trying to compare the two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids? Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building? Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins.

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want. But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD". I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is. So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own? It's a completely ridiculous suggestion. You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid. Again, if that is what you want to do for your community. By all means, go ahead. But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

In addition to these super valid concerns, there are also real costs associated with this plan. Assuming the cost of Magruder is the same in all options, the superintendent’s recommendation carries a cost of $600 million to get to the point of having an operational holding school and both high schools up and running in safe spaces ($200 million for Crown and $100 million to get Wootton in shape as a holding school). This alternate plan would require between $400-500 million ($200 million for the Crown and $100-200 million for Wootton), a different of $100-200 million depending on the Wootton costs (and anyone who has tracked school renovations knows they rarely come in at the lower estimate). There are dozens of schools across the county that are in desperate need of repair that would have access to considerably fewer resources if the county goes with the Crown holding school approach. Which is another clear reason why the district cannot just reduce this argument to Wootton vs. Magruder, and it can’t be seen as a win-win.

Check your math or your description of the factors -- $200+$100 <= $200+between $100 & $200. I do not quibble with the thoughts that followed.

That post must have been made by central office because it made absolutely zero sense