MCPS to end areawide Blair Magnet and countywide Richard Montgomery's IB program

[Anonymous]

How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about each school has advanced (gifted, whatever you want to call it, but truly advanced) classes so kids at all schools can access rigorous courses if they are ready for the material? Beginning in elementary school so there’s no more of this lottery nonsense where some people get a golden ticket to go to special snowflake magnet programs and other equally eligible students get nothing. I hate all the gate keeping this county does. If anyone is so convinced that their kid needs to go to Blair or Richard Montgomery to access the most advanced classes, and that the only way their kid’s advanced educational abilities and needs can be adequately served is by the county making so few spots available that those few people can feel so special that they got in, those people are delusional.

The delusional ones are those that claim that “gifted” programs at every school can truly be advanced. Or that there are enough specialized teachers to provide the breadth of advanced classes available at Blair at every school.

Whatever you say. All I know is that MCPS has started identifying elementary and middle school students for magnet programs and then placing those kids in lotteries. How is it fair to identify kids for programs and then not provide it to them? And then how does that not trickle up to application programs at the high school level? If kids in a math magnet in middle school get extra exposure to classes and content, and equally eligible students who didn’t lottery in didn’t get that same benefit, who has the better shot at the math program at Blair? And how is that fair? This is public school. I’ll take a baseline gifted program in every single school over some arbitrary lottery that picks winners and losers among equally eligible kids. People like you who want to gatekeep must not have ever been on the losing side of MCPS’s arbitrariness, but I can tell you it’s frustrating. I also find it hard to believe that a school system as big as MCPS can’t find enough good teachers to teach the classes Blair offers and do it well. But I guess let’s never try so you can continue to believe that this is the only way.

Its not just the teachers...the kids do summer internships. There are only so many organizations that host. If you triple the number of kids, the competition for spots will be enormous. They may come up with an alternative to the research projects..and then the research will end all together... And will they all get an extra class period as Blair does now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about each school has advanced (gifted, whatever you want to call it, but truly advanced) classes so kids at all schools can access rigorous courses if they are ready for the material? Beginning in elementary school so there’s no more of this lottery nonsense where some people get a golden ticket to go to special snowflake magnet programs and other equally eligible students get nothing. I hate all the gate keeping this county does. If anyone is so convinced that their kid needs to go to Blair or Richard Montgomery to access the most advanced classes, and that the only way their kid’s advanced educational abilities and needs can be adequately served is by the county making so few spots available that those few people can feel so special that they got in, those people are delusional.

The delusional ones are those that claim that “gifted” programs at every school can truly be advanced. Or that there are enough specialized teachers to provide the breadth of advanced classes available at Blair at every school.

Whatever you say. All I know is that MCPS has started identifying elementary and middle school students for magnet programs and then placing those kids in lotteries. How is it fair to identify kids for programs and then not provide it to them? And then how does that not trickle up to application programs at the high school level? If kids in a math magnet in middle school get extra exposure to classes and content, and equally eligible students who didn’t lottery in didn’t get that same benefit, who has the better shot at the math program at Blair? And how is that fair? This is public school. I’ll take a baseline gifted program in every single school over some arbitrary lottery that picks winners and losers among equally eligible kids. People like you who want to gatekeep must not have ever been on the losing side of MCPS’s arbitrariness, but I can tell you it’s frustrating. I also find it hard to believe that a school system as big as MCPS can’t find enough good teachers to teach the classes Blair offers and do it well. But I guess let’s never try so you can continue to believe that this is the only way.

+1

My oldest is 7, so what do I know, but I’d rather not gamble that my kids win all the lotteries and make the cut for the very top high school magnets. And not just them, but all their friends.

I have a kid in the Blair magnet and it’s not for everyone. It’s an extremely advanced, intense program. It’s tough. It’s only suitable for the most motivated, most organized students who are extremely hard working and grasp concepts very quickly. The selection process is good, but some of the kids selected are probably not in the right place. This assumption that thousands of kids could benefit from such a pace is misplaced. Not everyone needs to be accelerated to that extent and, by the time your 7 year old is getting ready for high school, you likely will also know whether that would be the right place for then. It’s not the right place for the vast majority of kids. Most kids are not ready for calculus in sophomore year.

I get this, and I have no specific interest in the Blair program, but I am broadly interested in access to advanced programming and it seems clear that MCPS is not currently meeting the needs of all who qualify.

[Anonymous]

What people need to realize is that when MCPS started the Blair magnet, it was to not only provide programming to gifted kids, but to boost up the test scores and profile of a lagging Blair school. Same with the RM IB program. The Poolesville program was to boost up enrollment at the school.

Now that many of the high schools in MCPS are performing poorly, this not only provides specialized programming to a larger group of students, but addresses the low performance of more schools by adding special programs (and keeping gifted students home).

It's the same reason they started adding regional IB programs to low performing schools.

This is about access for the masses, equity and also boosting up the 15+ schools that continue to underperform.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about each school has advanced (gifted, whatever you want to call it, but truly advanced) classes so kids at all schools can access rigorous courses if they are ready for the material? Beginning in elementary school so there’s no more of this lottery nonsense where some people get a golden ticket to go to special snowflake magnet programs and other equally eligible students get nothing. I hate all the gate keeping this county does. If anyone is so convinced that their kid needs to go to Blair or Richard Montgomery to access the most advanced classes, and that the only way their kid’s advanced educational abilities and needs can be adequately served is by the county making so few spots available that those few people can feel so special that they got in, those people are delusional.

The delusional ones are those that claim that “gifted” programs at every school can truly be advanced. Or that there are enough specialized teachers to provide the breadth of advanced classes available at Blair at every school.

Whatever you say. All I know is that MCPS has started identifying elementary and middle school students for magnet programs and then placing those kids in lotteries. How is it fair to identify kids for programs and then not provide it to them? And then how does that not trickle up to application programs at the high school level? If kids in a math magnet in middle school get extra exposure to classes and content, and equally eligible students who didn’t lottery in didn’t get that same benefit, who has the better shot at the math program at Blair? And how is that fair? This is public school. I’ll take a baseline gifted program in every single school over some arbitrary lottery that picks winners and losers among equally eligible kids. People like you who want to gatekeep must not have ever been on the losing side of MCPS’s arbitrariness, but I can tell you it’s frustrating. I also find it hard to believe that a school system as big as MCPS can’t find enough good teachers to teach the classes Blair offers and do it well. But I guess let’s never try so you can continue to believe that this is the only way.

+1

My oldest is 7, so what do I know, but I’d rather not gamble that my kids win all the lotteries and make the cut for the very top high school magnets. And not just them, but all their friends.

I have a kid in the Blair magnet and it’s not for everyone. It’s an extremely advanced, intense program. It’s tough. It’s only suitable for the most motivated, most organized students who are extremely hard working and grasp concepts very quickly. The selection process is good, but some of the kids selected are probably not in the right place. This assumption that thousands of kids could benefit from such a pace is misplaced. Not everyone needs to be accelerated to that extent and, by the time your 7 year old is getting ready for high school, you likely will also know whether that would be the right place for then. It’s not the right place for the vast majority of kids. Most kids are not ready for calculus in sophomore year.

I get this, and I have no specific interest in the Blair program, but I am broadly interested in access to advanced programming and it seems clear that MCPS is not currently meeting the needs of all who qualify.

All who apply

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about each school has advanced (gifted, whatever you want to call it, but truly advanced) classes so kids at all schools can access rigorous courses if they are ready for the material? Beginning in elementary school so there’s no more of this lottery nonsense where some people get a golden ticket to go to special snowflake magnet programs and other equally eligible students get nothing. I hate all the gate keeping this county does. If anyone is so convinced that their kid needs to go to Blair or Richard Montgomery to access the most advanced classes, and that the only way their kid’s advanced educational abilities and needs can be adequately served is by the county making so few spots available that those few people can feel so special that they got in, those people are delusional.

The delusional ones are those that claim that “gifted” programs at every school can truly be advanced. Or that there are enough specialized teachers to provide the breadth of advanced classes available at Blair at every school.

Whatever you say. All I know is that MCPS has started identifying elementary and middle school students for magnet programs and then placing those kids in lotteries. How is it fair to identify kids for programs and then not provide it to them? And then how does that not trickle up to application programs at the high school level? If kids in a math magnet in middle school get extra exposure to classes and content, and equally eligible students who didn’t lottery in didn’t get that same benefit, who has the better shot at the math program at Blair? And how is that fair? This is public school. I’ll take a baseline gifted program in every single school over some arbitrary lottery that picks winners and losers among equally eligible kids. People like you who want to gatekeep must not have ever been on the losing side of MCPS’s arbitrariness, but I can tell you it’s frustrating. I also find it hard to believe that a school system as big as MCPS can’t find enough good teachers to teach the classes Blair offers and do it well. But I guess let’s never try so you can continue to believe that this is the only way.

+1

My oldest is 7, so what do I know, but I’d rather not gamble that my kids win all the lotteries and make the cut for the very top high school magnets. And not just them, but all their friends.

I have a kid in the Blair magnet and it’s not for everyone. It’s an extremely advanced, intense program. It’s tough. It’s only suitable for the most motivated, most organized students who are extremely hard working and grasp concepts very quickly. The selection process is good, but some of the kids selected are probably not in the right place. This assumption that thousands of kids could benefit from such a pace is misplaced. Not everyone needs to be accelerated to that extent and, by the time your 7 year old is getting ready for high school, you likely will also know whether that would be the right place for then. It’s not the right place for the vast majority of kids. Most kids are not ready for calculus in sophomore year.

I get this, and I have no specific interest in the Blair program, but I am broadly interested in access to advanced programming and it seems clear that MCPS is not currently meeting the needs of all who qualify.

All who apply

Standing by what I said; my comment was about advanced programming throughout not just high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

But my question is what if BCC is over crowded? Will they still take an additional 100 kids (x,4) or will spots for nonbBCC kids be limited due to space.. Whitman was purely a hypothetical example

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

But my question is what if BCC is over crowded? Will they still take an additional 100 kids (x,4) or will spots for nonbBCC kids be limited due to space.. Whitman was purely a hypothetical example

That’s what the boundary study is for. They’re trying to get every school at 80-100% capacity. So hopefully it will all shake out. Also, within a certain region they can move around which programs are at which schools. These programs won’t have an infinite number of spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

But my question is what if BCC is over crowded? Will they still take an additional 100 kids (x,4) or will spots for nonbBCC kids be limited due to space.. Whitman was purely a hypothetical example

That’s what the boundary study is for. They’re trying to get every school at 80-100% capacity. So hopefully it will all shake out. Also, within a certain region they can move around which programs are at which schools. These programs won’t have an infinite number of spaces.

The boundary study only involves certain schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

I doubt that many kids from DCC would choose Whitman, which is why they did it due to distance. I doubt Whitman students would go to DCC schools other than Blair as they don't have the same course offerings and Whitman has almost everything a student would need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

But my question is what if BCC is over crowded? Will they still take an additional 100 kids (x,4) or will spots for nonbBCC kids be limited due to space.. Whitman was purely a hypothetical example

The idea is that kids who are supposed to go to BCC would go to Whitman or a DCC school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

But my question is what if BCC is over crowded? Will they still take an additional 100 kids (x,4) or will spots for nonbBCC kids be limited due to space.. Whitman was purely a hypothetical example

That’s what the boundary study is for. They’re trying to get every school at 80-100% capacity. So hopefully it will all shake out. Also, within a certain region they can move around which programs are at which schools. These programs won’t have an infinite number of spaces.

The boundary study only involves certain schools

Between the Woodward and Crown studies, there are only something like 3 high schools not under discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This exemplifies the naive approach of dismantling successful systems in an attempt to address equity concerns.

Rather than eliminating high-performing elite programs that demonstrate excellent outcomes, MCPS should have expanded access by creating additional regional programs while preserving the existing successful ones as elite programs sitting on top of the reginal ones.
The decision to completely eliminate effective programs instead of building upon them reflects poor strategic thinking or a push of known agenda. A more sensible approach would have been to grow and diversify the program offerings rather than destroy what was already working well.

Agreed. Why is MCPS making this a divisive situation? Keep our successes and build more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this work in terms of over crowding? Lets say (all hypothetical) Whitman becomes a new regional IB school. But Whitman is overcrowded and almost no one applies to the other schools in their region. Does that mean only Whitman students can get a spot for IB? (sort of like no one in the DCC can get a spot at Blair from other consortium schools) Or does the admissions committee just accept who they want and figure out the space later?

First of all, the IB program will almost certainly be at B-CC, which is already an IBDP school. I assume that the IB magnet would take something like 100 kids per year, selected from across the region based on merit. Then, other B-CC kids could choose to take the classes starting in 11th.

This is an established model at RMIB but also existing regional IB programs.

But my question is what if BCC is over crowded? Will they still take an additional 100 kids (x,4) or will spots for nonbBCC kids be limited due to space.. Whitman was purely a hypothetical example

As a PP said, the boundary study is trying to get most schools within 90% capacity, and some kids will take the offer to do other programs.

So, let's say B-CC sends some kids to Whitman for the leadership program, and some kids to Einstein for performing arts, or to Blair for STEM. That frees up some room at B-CC that, together with the aforementioned boundary study, will preserve the status quo in terms of capacity.