Option B Alternate - Adding extra ES to WJ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:VM family and we have no interest in joining the snobby rich folks at WJ. We are pleased with the prospect of Woodward, which I assume will be a step up academically and otherwise from Wheaton. And accounting for traffic on Old Georgetown, WJ is also an additional ~10 minute drive from our house than Woodward. Stop trying to use my family (and our ES cluster) as a pawn in your social engineering project.

I can see not wanting to join snobby folks at WJ. But you lose credibility with the traffic argument. One can walk from Woodward to WJ in less than 10 minutes. Additional drive is 2 minutes max. You should try it.

I drive this exact route every day as my commute is along Old Georgetown. Sure it can be just a few minutes in the middle of the day but at 7:30 am it's 10 minutes (it's a 22-25 minute walk according to Google maps). Whatever extra time it takes is just an additional item I mentioned and not really the main point. While my kids are not FARMS students, we are Latina and we would likely be considered lower middle class. The families in our cluster would stick out like a sore thumb at WJ. HS is not all about academics. While I don't speak for all VM families, socially and emotionally, I do not believe WJ would be a positive experience for my kids. The traffic piece was just an aside and not my main argument.

I think you have wrong perception of current WJ. It is currently almost 20% Hispanics. With addition of VM this will be even higher. It is one thing to be in strong minority (sore thumb) and another just not to be top majority. Income distribution is also not that high end at WJ as maybe perceived.

[Anonymous]

Having a high proportion of students experiencing financial constraint (as might be represented by ever-FARMS) is more impactful to the learning environment in one respect than having a high proportion of students in rather well off situations in the other. Lower percentages of high need are more important than higher percentages of great wealth. It doesn't matter as much that WJ isn't as uniformly wealthy as Whitman or Churchill. It matters more that Woodward will have a substantially greater challenge to manage.

That is, unless the system differentially resources schools enough to effectively meet the needs on an equivalent basis (i.e., such that any individual student, with whichever levels of individual/family resource and academic ability, might expect a similar experience for themselves -- not the school population as a whole -- whether they might attend one school or another).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a high proportion of students experiencing financial constraint (as might be represented by ever-FARMS) is more impactful to the learning environment in one respect than having a high proportion of students in rather well off situations in the other. Lower percentages of high need are more important than higher percentages of great wealth. It doesn't matter as much that WJ isn't as uniformly wealthy as Whitman or Churchill. It matters more that Woodward will have a substantially greater challenge to manage.

That is, unless the system differentially resources schools enough to effectively meet the needs on an equivalent basis (i.e., such that any individual student, with whichever levels of individual/family resource and academic ability, might expect a similar experience for themselves -- not the school population as a whole -- whether they might attend one school or another).

There Woodward folks don’t see the Wheaton and Kennedy families saying the same thing about them. Maybe Woodward should take on some more FARMS to improve Wheaton and Kennedy. That would be equitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a high proportion of students experiencing financial constraint (as might be represented by ever-FARMS) is more impactful to the learning environment in one respect than having a high proportion of students in rather well off situations in the other. Lower percentages of high need are more important than higher percentages of great wealth. It doesn't matter as much that WJ isn't as uniformly wealthy as Whitman or Churchill. It matters more that Woodward will have a substantially greater challenge to manage.

That is, unless the system differentially resources schools enough to effectively meet the needs on an equivalent basis (i.e., such that any individual student, with whichever levels of individual/family resource and academic ability, might expect a similar experience for themselves -- not the school population as a whole -- whether they might attend one school or another).

35% FARMS is very low. Woodward makes it seem like this is the worst in the county. 35% will be one of the wealthiest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:VM family and we have no interest in joining the snobby rich folks at WJ. We are pleased with the prospect of Woodward, which I assume will be a step up academically and otherwise from Wheaton. And accounting for traffic on Old Georgetown, WJ is also an additional ~10 minute drive from our house than Woodward. Stop trying to use my family (and our ES cluster) as a pawn in your social engineering project.

I can see not wanting to join snobby folks at WJ. But you lose credibility with the traffic argument. One can walk from Woodward to WJ in less than 10 minutes. Additional drive is 2 minutes max. You should try it.

I drive this exact route every day as my commute is along Old Georgetown. Sure it can be just a few minutes in the middle of the day but at 7:30 am it's 10 minutes (it's a 22-25 minute walk according to Google maps). Whatever extra time it takes is just an additional item I mentioned and not really the main point. While my kids are not FARMS students, we are Latina and we would likely be considered lower middle class. The families in our cluster would stick out like a sore thumb at WJ. HS is not all about academics. While I don't speak for all VM families, socially and emotionally, I do not believe WJ would be a positive experience for my kids. The traffic piece was just an aside and not my main argument.

I think you have wrong perception of current WJ. It is currently almost 20% Hispanics. With addition of VM this will be even higher. It is one thing to be in strong minority (sore thumb) and another just not to be top majority. Income distribution is also not that high end at WJ as maybe perceived.

I think it is good that Woodward will have the majority be from diverse populations. Doing as the Farmland people suggest would ruin that value

[Anonymous]

Only the Crown study got an alternate. The Woodward study did not. This talk is a fools errand. Let the farmland people waste their time so it can be more painful when they don’t get their way

[Anonymous]

I'm super confused by the whole debate as I haven't been tracking it very well.
One thing I saw on a listserve is that the proposal being pushed on the change petition would put WJ at over 90% capacity. That seems dumb when we've waited about 15 years for the new high school that was supposed to relieve the massive over-congestion -- it will just be oversubscribed again in a couple of years and then we'll wait another 20 for a fix to that?

My general feelings about HS are that --

they should be between 80-90% capacity;

the kids should not have to drive far to get there since the classes already start go-awful early and ideally there should be public bus lines to help them get there;

the specialized magnet idea is really dumb (my hometown went to a model where all the schools were specialty-focus charter-type schools and they are basically all just bad -- bad arts focus, bad tech focus, bad journalism focus, bad law/justice focus, etc. etc.) -- these gimmicks almost never add to the education plus most 13 year olds aren't in a position to be picking a focus area anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the specialized magnet idea is really dumb.

Agreed. Just put a few advanced math/science, IB, and specialized arts programs spread geographically around the county and call it a day. Any more specialized than that is too specialized for middle schoolers to decide on and stretches specialized resources thinner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm super confused by the whole debate as I haven't been tracking it very well.
One thing I saw on a listserve is that the proposal being pushed on the change petition would put WJ at over 90% capacity. That seems dumb when we've waited about 15 years for the new high school that was supposed to relieve the massive over-congestion -- it will just be oversubscribed again in a couple of years and then we'll wait another 20 for a fix to that?

My general feelings about HS are that --

they should be between 80-90% capacity;

the kids should not have to drive far to get there since the classes already start go-awful early and ideally there should be public bus lines to help them get there;

the specialized magnet idea is really dumb (my hometown went to a model where all the schools were specialty-focus charter-type schools and they are basically all just bad -- bad arts focus, bad tech focus, bad journalism focus, bad law/justice focus, etc. etc.) -- these gimmicks almost never add to the education plus most 13 year olds aren't in a position to be picking a focus area anyway.

It’s not dumb if TWENTY-FOUR extra busses of kids are choosing to go to RMIB. Or all the kids going to the Wheaton and Blair magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the specialized magnet idea is really dumb.

Agreed. Just put a few advanced math/science, IB, and specialized arts programs spread geographically around the county and call it a day. Any more specialized than that is too specialized for middle schoolers to decide on and stretches specialized resources thinner.

I can’t wait for these family surveys. I predict only 4 programs will generate enough interest: STEM, Humanities, Arts and Middle College.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re a VM family was clear in the original options that our neighborhood was a bargaining chip for MCPS, especially in the options that split the school in half along beach drive. We are happy that Taylor’s rev keeps VM together.

We support any elementary school that wants to avoid split articulation for HS. We don’t support well-off parents deciding and proposing which less well-off families get booted out of their school.

The irony of this whole argument is that I grew up a FARMS kid and now I’m teaching your children, but now my kids aren’t good enough to be in a school with yours?

This feels a lot like the podcast Nice White Parents.

I am not aware of any option that had VM with split articulation. That is a complete non-issue. Taylor's recommendation does introduce split articulations for other schools but I guess that is OK for you.

There were several options with split articulation for VM. One version had Holiday Park going to North Bethesda MS and Randolph Hills going somewhere else. Another split us between Tilden and somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not aware of any option that had VM with split articulation. That is a complete non-issue. Taylor's recommendation does introduce split articulations for other schools but I guess that is OK for you.

Either you’re a liar or ignorant. Let’s go with ignorant. Then take the time to examine the data and become aware before you sling mud.

At least option D did.

The fact remains that nobody here suggests that VM should go into split articulation. For VM families it is either Taylor recommendation which moves them to a new school that still segregates them or what is being proposed here - a more balanced approach where they end up with in a more diverse school with lower FARMS. So if you are VM or WW parent, you should support the proposed change from what Taylor is recommending since you will end up in academically stronger school and still be without split articulation and no significant change in distance.

You, I suspect is neither. Most posts here pretending to be VM or WW are actually from the same poster who is trying to cash in on projected property value increase for homes in the new WJ zone.

This makes NO sense. VM is fine with Woodward. We will not let the racist and classist parents drive us away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are not in the catchment area being discussed, but it does seem odd that there is a fairly simple way to have more even FARMs rates between the two schools, and Taylor went with the one that creates a bigger discrepancy. If there is a way to even it out, it should be done.

Farmland asked Taylor about the building capacity disparity and he gave his reasons why. Yet they are still unhappy. Until they try to call Taylor’s bluff with alternative data I will keep calling them classist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re a VM family was clear in the original options that our neighborhood was a bargaining chip for MCPS, especially in the options that split the school in half along beach drive. We are happy that Taylor’s rev keeps VM together.

We support any elementary school that wants to avoid split articulation for HS. We don’t support well-off parents deciding and proposing which less well-off families get booted out of their school.

The irony of this whole argument is that I grew up a FARMS kid and now I’m teaching your children, but now my kids aren’t good enough to be in a school with yours?

This feels a lot like the podcast Nice White Parents.

Thank you for explaining your thoughts. If parents want to advocate for their school not to be split, they do have to show an alternative and it places them in the position of needing to demonstrate a viable option. It adds credibility. It is not about keeping your kids out of their school, or at least not for the majority of interested parents.

I went to high and low FARMS schools as a kid. I do not want my kid going to a school that is very high FARMS or very low FARMS. I think balancing them, to the extent possible, is the best way. And I think it is valid to ask for the Board to consider it.

The schools creating this petition are not slated for split articulation in Taylor’s proposal. Only KP and GP are split in his proposal to Woodward. So if Farmland really cared about building utilization being equal, they would support the GP parents that have been advocating against split articulation. Anyone that drives on Knowles Ave sees green lawn signs everywhere that say “Keep GP together”. Because Farmland is not helping those school, it’s clear they are being classist, racist and xenophobic suggesting that WW and VM move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re a VM family was clear in the original options that our neighborhood was a bargaining chip for MCPS, especially in the options that split the school in half along beach drive. We are happy that Taylor’s rev keeps VM together.

We support any elementary school that wants to avoid split articulation for HS. We don’t support well-off parents deciding and proposing which less well-off families get booted out of their school.

The irony of this whole argument is that I grew up a FARMS kid and now I’m teaching your children, but now my kids aren’t good enough to be in a school with yours?

This feels a lot like the podcast Nice White Parents.

Thank you for explaining your thoughts. If parents want to advocate for their school not to be split, they do have to show an alternative and it places them in the position of needing to demonstrate a viable option. It adds credibility. It is not about keeping your kids out of their school, or at least not for the majority of interested parents.

I went to high and low FARMS schools as a kid. I do not want my kid going to a school that is very high FARMS or very low FARMS. I think balancing them, to the extent possible, is the best way. And I think it is valid to ask for the Board to consider it.

The schools creating this petition are not slated for split articulation in Taylor’s proposal. Only KP and GP are split in his proposal to Woodward. So if Farmland really cared about building utilization being equal, they would support the GP parents that have been advocating against split articulation. Anyone that drives on Knowles Ave sees green lawn signs everywhere that say “Keep GP together”. Because Farmland is not helping those school, it’s clear they are being classist, racist and xenophobic suggesting that WW and VM move.

The data illustrates what GP really wants based on the signs in neighborhood. They support the Superintendent recommendation. Also reflected in the various community member testimony.

Walter Johnson
Garrett Park
Selection Option B