Boundary study - BCC

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Woodward will primarily pull from WJ, but they are using this opportunity to look holistically at all the clusters to help balance utilization and diversity. I suspect in doing so some kids from BCC may move to Whitman and some kids in Whitman may move to WJ or Woodward. BCC kids are not going to end up at Woodward -- it's too far away. That said, walkers are almost always exempt from boundary studies, so buy a house walking distance to the high school (i.e., in East Bethesda) and you'll be fine.

...and the DCC high schools (Wheaton and Einstein in particular)

Do you think some BCC families will end up at Einstein? Some neighborhoods are in fact very close to Einstein. And the school has a good reputation, just not the cachet.

It's possible the northern part of BCC's boundary is much closer to Einstein.

But that north part of the boundary is right where the county just built Silver Creek Middle school, which is part of the BCC cluster. The county was all about making sure the kids in that neighborhood got to walk to middle school. I would find it bizarre if they pulled SCMS out of the BCC cluster only a few years after bringing it online. And pulling just the Kensington kids over to Einstein while the CCES/NCC/RCF kids go to BCC would be highly unusual.

I have to disagree. I think neighborhood school should take priority and busting kids to meet some artificial requirement when there are perfectly serviceable schools nearby makes more sense. Split articulation is also fine when it makes sense
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I would not call Einstein the neighborhood school for the part of Kensington currently zoned for BCC. That part of Kensington is not in the walk zone for Einstein. Maybe you’re thinking of the part of Kensington zoned for WJ that would be in the Einstein walk zone and is in fact closer to Einstein than other Kensington neighborhoods that are zoned for Einstein.

But Einstein is the nearby neighborhood school even if you wish it were different.

The "neighborhood school" is the school your neighborhood goes to.

The "neighborhood school" is the school in your neighborhood that people should go to.

Not every neighborhood has a school in it. Especially not a high school.

Not exactly whichever high-school is closest is the neighborhood high-school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Woodward will primarily pull from WJ, but they are using this opportunity to look holistically at all the clusters to help balance utilization and diversity. I suspect in doing so some kids from BCC may move to Whitman and some kids in Whitman may move to WJ or Woodward. BCC kids are not going to end up at Woodward -- it's too far away. That said, walkers are almost always exempt from boundary studies, so buy a house walking distance to the high school (i.e., in East Bethesda) and you'll be fine.

...and the DCC high schools (Wheaton and Einstein in particular)

Do you think some BCC families will end up at Einstein? Some neighborhoods are in fact very close to Einstein. And the school has a good reputation, just not the cachet.

It's possible the northern part of BCC's boundary is much closer to Einstein.

But that north part of the boundary is right where the county just built Silver Creek Middle school, which is part of the BCC cluster. The county was all about making sure the kids in that neighborhood got to walk to middle school. I would find it bizarre if they pulled SCMS out of the BCC cluster only a few years after bringing it online. And pulling just the Kensington kids over to Einstein while the CCES/NCC/RCF kids go to BCC would be highly unusual.

I have to disagree. I think neighborhood school should take priority and busting kids to meet some artificial requirement when there are perfectly serviceable schools nearby makes more sense. Split articulation is also fine when it makes sense
.

I would not call Einstein the neighborhood school for the part of Kensington currently zoned for BCC. That part of Kensington is not in the walk zone for Einstein. Maybe you’re thinking of the part of Kensington zoned for WJ that would be in the Einstein walk zone and is in fact closer to Einstein than other Kensington neighborhoods that are zoned for Einstein.

But Einstein is the nearby neighborhood school even if you wish it were different.

The "neighborhood school" is the school your neighborhood goes to.

The "neighborhood school" is the school in your neighborhood that people should go to.

I think these odd boundaries around Einstein HS date back to when Montgomery Blair HS moved out of its old building on Wayne Ave and into its new campus in 4 Corners around 25 years ago. All the high schools needed new boundaries. There’s been intertia ever since and the DCC solidified the boundaries. It would take a lot of political willpower to make any substantive changes.

The boundaries didn't change when Blair moved. They changed a few years later when Northwood reopened, but that mainly affected the eastern edge of Einstein's boundary, not the area in Kensington.

Oh wow. These boundaries probably date to the era when schools were closing left and right in the 70s and 80s, if not before. I hardly see MCPS moving them. BCC and WJ would likely need those neighborhoods in the eastern part of their boundaries to avoid becoming under-enrolled.

So I don’t see a chance for transformational change re demographics and tweaking the Einstein boundary right now. But maybe if Peary HS reopened, then opportunities for balancing demographics with the boundaries of BCC, WJ, and Einstein would be more feasible.

I can definitely see it. People here are always going on about neighborhood schools so we should give em what they want and ensure everyone goes to their nearby neighborhood school. It's not that hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woodward will primarily pull from WJ, but they are using this opportunity to look holistically at all the clusters to help balance utilization and diversity. I suspect in doing so some kids from BCC may move to Whitman and some kids in Whitman may move to WJ or Woodward. BCC kids are not going to end up at Woodward -- it's too far away. That said, walkers are almost always exempt from boundary studies, so buy a house walking distance to the high school (i.e., in East Bethesda) and you'll be fine.

...and the DCC high schools (Wheaton and Einstein in particular)

Do you think some BCC families will end up at Einstein? Some neighborhoods are in fact very close to Einstein. And the school has a good reputation, just not the cachet.

It's possible the northern part of BCC's boundary is much closer to Einstein.

But that north part of the boundary is right where the county just built Silver Creek Middle school, which is part of the BCC cluster. The county was all about making sure the kids in that neighborhood got to walk to middle school. I would find it bizarre if they pulled SCMS out of the BCC cluster only a few years after bringing it online. And pulling just the Kensington kids over to Einstein while the CCES/NCC/RCF kids go to BCC would be highly unusual.

I have to disagree. I think neighborhood school should take priority and busting kids to meet some artificial requirement when there are perfectly serviceable schools nearby makes more sense. Split articulation is also fine when it makes sense
.

I would not call Einstein the neighborhood school for the part of Kensington currently zoned for BCC. That part of Kensington is not in the walk zone for Einstein. Maybe you’re thinking of the part of Kensington zoned for WJ that would be in the Einstein walk zone and is in fact closer to Einstein than other Kensington neighborhoods that are zoned for Einstein.

But Einstein is the nearby neighborhood school even if you wish it were different.

The "neighborhood school" is the school your neighborhood goes to.

The "neighborhood school" is the school in your neighborhood that people should go to.

Not every neighborhood has a school in it. Especially not a high school.

Not exactly whichever high-school is closest is the neighborhood high-school.

That's not true in many, many neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Overcrowding does not seem to impact testing or school outcomes in MC PS. So what’s the big deal.

The big deal is there is more to HS than testing and school outcomes. A 1600 person school, Poolesville, accepts what percent of students on their soccer team, in their orchestra, and in their school play? Same percentage for Blair, at 3200, is a lot less. Kids get scholarships and attract attention from colleges for participating in those activities.

Larger schools are more likely to have kids fall through the cracks, because the counselors are too busy with the crisis kids, and don't have time for the merely troubled kids.

And so much more. You clearly don't have a child in an overcrowded school, because the tension and anxiety is palpable, just from walking in at the start of the day, because there are so many kids in such a small space.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Woodward will primarily pull from WJ, but they are using this opportunity to look holistically at all the clusters to help balance utilization and diversity. I suspect in doing so some kids from BCC may move to Whitman and some kids in Whitman may move to WJ or Woodward. BCC kids are not going to end up at Woodward -- it's too far away. That said, walkers are almost always exempt from boundary studies, so buy a house walking distance to the high school (i.e., in East Bethesda) and you'll be fine.

...and the DCC high schools (Wheaton and Einstein in particular)

Do you think some BCC families will end up at Einstein? Some neighborhoods are in fact very close to Einstein. And the school has a good reputation, just not the cachet.

It's possible the northern part of BCC's boundary is much closer to Einstein.

But that north part of the boundary is right where the county just built Silver Creek Middle school, which is part of the BCC cluster. The county was all about making sure the kids in that neighborhood got to walk to middle school. I would find it bizarre if they pulled SCMS out of the BCC cluster only a few years after bringing it online. And pulling just the Kensington kids over to Einstein while the CCES/NCC/RCF kids go to BCC would be highly unusual.

I have to disagree. I think neighborhood school should take priority and busting kids to meet some artificial requirement when there are perfectly serviceable schools nearby makes more sense. Split articulation is also fine when it makes sense
.

I would not call Einstein the neighborhood school for the part of Kensington currently zoned for BCC. That part of Kensington is not in the walk zone for Einstein. Maybe you’re thinking of the part of Kensington zoned for WJ that would be in the Einstein walk zone and is in fact closer to Einstein than other Kensington neighborhoods that are zoned for Einstein.

But Einstein is the nearby neighborhood school even if you wish it were different.

The "neighborhood school" is the school your neighborhood goes to.

The "neighborhood school" is the school in your neighborhood that people should go to.

I think these odd boundaries around Einstein HS date back to when Montgomery Blair HS moved out of its old building on Wayne Ave and into its new campus in 4 Corners around 25 years ago. All the high schools needed new boundaries. There’s been intertia ever since and the DCC solidified the boundaries. It would take a lot of political willpower to make any substantive changes.

The boundaries didn't change when Blair moved. They changed a few years later when Northwood reopened, but that mainly affected the eastern edge of Einstein's boundary, not the area in Kensington.

Oh wow. These boundaries probably date to the era when schools were closing left and right in the 70s and 80s, if not before. I hardly see MCPS moving them. BCC and WJ would likely need those neighborhoods in the eastern part of their boundaries to avoid becoming under-enrolled.

So I don’t see a chance for transformational change re demographics and tweaking the Einstein boundary right now. But maybe if Peary HS reopened, then opportunities for balancing demographics with the boundaries of BCC, WJ, and Einstein would be more feasible.

I can definitely see it. People here are always going on about neighborhood schools so we should give em what they want and ensure everyone goes to their nearby neighborhood school. It's not that hard.

Yes it is that hard. The schools are not located such that everyone could go to their closest school. The boundary analysis looked into this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just saw online that MCPS sold the Peary HS building and land in 2010. So it can’t reopen. Einstein’s catchment area includes the former Peary HS zone in Rockville. So it’s appears to be very unlikely that BCC and WJ neighborhoods would be rezoned to Einstein.

This explains why the Einstein boundaries are so strange.

I don't think that's true; no one in Rockville is zoned for Einstein. The former Peary areas probably go to Rockville or Wheaton HS now.

The former Peary HS itself (located on Arctic Ave) and the surrounding neighborhoods are currently zoned to Einstein. Thus, if Einstein didn’t serve those former Peary neighborhoods, then it would have room to serve Kensington and Chevy Chase View. Surely someone on this forum grew up in Kensington in the 80s. That’s when these crazy boundaries were created.

It’s all a moot point though since MCPS sold the land over a decade ago. So the BCC and WJ neighborhoods won’t likely ever be redistricted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just saw online that MCPS sold the Peary HS building and land in 2010. So it can’t reopen. Einstein’s catchment area includes the former Peary HS zone in Rockville. So it’s appears to be very unlikely that BCC and WJ neighborhoods would be rezoned to Einstein.

This explains why the Einstein boundaries are so strange.

I don't think that's true; no one in Rockville is zoned for Einstein. The former Peary areas probably go to Rockville or Wheaton HS now.

The former Peary HS itself (located on Arctic Ave) and the surrounding neighborhoods are currently zoned to Einstein. Thus, if Einstein didn’t serve those former Peary neighborhoods, then it would have room to serve Kensington and Chevy Chase View. Surely someone on this forum grew up in Kensington in the 80s. That’s when these crazy boundaries were created.

It’s all a moot point though since MCPS sold the land over a decade ago. So the BCC and WJ neighborhoods won’t likely ever be redistricted.

No--they aren't. They are zoned to Rockville HS:
https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/RockvilleHS.pdf

[Anonymous]

These are Einstein's boundaries. Note how the northernmost point is still south of Randolph Road:

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/EinsteinHS.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just saw online that MCPS sold the Peary HS building and land in 2010. So it can’t reopen. Einstein’s catchment area includes the former Peary HS zone in Rockville. So it’s appears to be very unlikely that BCC and WJ neighborhoods would be rezoned to Einstein.

This explains why the Einstein boundaries are so strange.

I don't think that's true; no one in Rockville is zoned for Einstein. The former Peary areas probably go to Rockville or Wheaton HS now.

The former Peary HS itself (located on Arctic Ave) and the surrounding neighborhoods are currently zoned to Einstein. Thus, if Einstein didn’t serve those former Peary neighborhoods, then it would have room to serve Kensington and Chevy Chase View. Surely someone on this forum grew up in Kensington in the 80s. That’s when these crazy boundaries were created.

It’s all a moot point though since MCPS sold the land over a decade ago. So the BCC and WJ neighborhoods won’t likely ever be redistricted.

That makes no sense. Obviously a bunch of WJ neighborhoods are going to be redistricted when Woodward opens, and possibly some BCC neighborhoods too. We don't know which ones or which schools they'll be districted to yet, but clearly there will be redistricting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just saw online that MCPS sold the Peary HS building and land in 2010. So it can’t reopen. Einstein’s catchment area includes the former Peary HS zone in Rockville. So it’s appears to be very unlikely that BCC and WJ neighborhoods would be rezoned to Einstein.

This explains why the Einstein boundaries are so strange.

I don't think that's true; no one in Rockville is zoned for Einstein. The former Peary areas probably go to Rockville or Wheaton HS now.

The former Peary HS itself (located on Arctic Ave) and the surrounding neighborhoods are currently zoned to Einstein. Thus, if Einstein didn’t serve those former Peary neighborhoods, then it would have room to serve Kensington and Chevy Chase View. Surely someone on this forum grew up in Kensington in the 80s. That’s when these crazy boundaries were created.

It’s all a moot point though since MCPS sold the land over a decade ago. So the BCC and WJ neighborhoods won’t likely ever be redistricted.

That makes no sense. Obviously a bunch of WJ neighborhoods are going to be redistricted when Woodward opens, and possibly some BCC neighborhoods too. We don't know which ones or which schools they'll be districted to yet, but clearly there will be redistricting.

There definitely will be boundary changes. Whether or not the boundaries change in Kensington is probably anyone’s guess. The process should be interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are Einstein's boundaries. Note how the northernmost point is still south of Randolph Road:

https://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/EinsteinHS.pdf

Thanks for posting.

[Anonymous]

Do you think the Martins Addition / Rollingwood neighborhoods in Chevy Chase will remain with BCC? All the other high school options are a hike from there, but a lot of Martins Addition/Rollingwood area isn't in the walk zone for BCC, so we are a bit nervous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you think the Martins Addition / Rollingwood neighborhoods in Chevy Chase will remain with BCC? All the other high school options are a hike from there, but a lot of Martins Addition/Rollingwood area isn't in the walk zone for BCC, so we are a bit nervous.

There will be buses to take your kids to Kennedy

[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:Woodward will primarily pull from WJ, but they are using this opportunity to look holistically at all the clusters to help balance utilization and diversity. I suspect in doing so some kids from BCC may move to Whitman and some kids in Whitman may move to WJ or Woodward. BCC kids are not going to end up at Woodward -- it's too far away. That said, walkers are almost always exempt from boundary studies, so buy a house walking distance to the high school (i.e., in East Bethesda) and you'll be fine.

...and the DCC high schools (Wheaton and Einstein in particular)

Do you think some BCC families will end up at Einstein? Some neighborhoods are in fact very close to Einstein. And the school has a good reputation, just not the cachet.

It's possible the northern part of BCC's boundary is much closer to Einstein.

But that north part of the boundary is right where the county just built Silver Creek Middle school, which is part of the BCC cluster. The county was all about making sure the kids in that neighborhood got to walk to middle school. I would find it bizarre if they pulled SCMS out of the BCC cluster only a few years after bringing it online. And pulling just the Kensington kids over to Einstein while the CCES/NCC/RCF kids go to BCC would be highly unusual.

I have to disagree. I think neighborhood school should take priority and busting kids to meet some artificial requirement when there are perfectly serviceable schools nearby makes more sense. Split articulation is also fine when it makes sense
.

I would not call Einstein the neighborhood school for the part of Kensington currently zoned for BCC. That part of Kensington is not in the walk zone for Einstein. Maybe you’re thinking of the part of Kensington zoned for WJ that would be in the Einstein walk zone and is in fact closer to Einstein than other Kensington neighborhoods that are zoned for Einstein.

But Einstein is the nearby neighborhood school even if you wish it were different.

The "neighborhood school" is the school your neighborhood goes to.

The "neighborhood school" is the school in your neighborhood that people should go to.

Not every neighborhood has a school in it. Especially not a high school.

Not exactly whichever high-school is closest is the neighborhood high-school.

When part of your neighborhood is closer to one high school, and another part of your neighborhood is closer to a different high school, then which one is your neighborhood high school? Or what if your neighborhood has been going to one high school since forever, but a different high school is closer? Or what if there's no safe walking route to the closest high school, but there is a safe walking route to a high school that isn't the closest? Or what if one high school is closest as the crow flies, but a different high school is closest by road?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you think the Martins Addition / Rollingwood neighborhoods in Chevy Chase will remain with BCC? All the other high school options are a hike from there, but a lot of Martins Addition/Rollingwood area isn't in the walk zone for BCC, so we are a bit nervous.

As far as I can tell, all of Martin's Additions is within the walking distance (<2.0 miles) of BCC. Your best best for staying at BCC is to get MCPS to remove bus service and reassign you to the BCC walk zone.