Superintendent's Recommendation for Richard Montgomery ES #5 Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

You have a point, but I wonder if the RP parents are going to take this lightly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

Falls Grove goes to Beall, and the poor kids at Beall get bused across 270 to Ritchie Park?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

Falls Grove goes to Beall, and the poor kids at Beall get bused across 270 to Ritchie Park?

DP... I live in RP area. There is already a section of area near Beall that goes to RP. It's a small area near RMHS. That area will be going to #5ES.

There are pros/cons to busing kids to an ES further out. I think having a good community feel of an ES is important, and for lower income parents, having their ES further away can be a hardship. But, yes, having a lower FARMS rate is important, too. I am not sure which is more important for FARMs students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

Falls Grove goes to Beall, and the poor kids at Beall get bused across 270 to Ritchie Park?

Beall will still be over 100% capacity once the current changes take place. To move all of Fallsgrove to that school, more than half of the current Beall kids would have to move to RP which means many in walking distance to Beall since the bussed parts of Beall are moving to walkable RM#5. That is massive disruption and does nothing to change RM#5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

Falls Grove goes to Beall, and the poor kids at Beall get bused across 270 to Ritchie Park?

It makes no sense at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

CI kids won't be in class with regular kids. CI doesn't have many farm kids. Now you are left with regular kids with regular class. That will have 53% farm rate. It's listed in reports.

That is no different than RM saying their FARMS stats when actually they have the IB program in there and the stats are based on those. That rate would be be much higher without IB, correct? Those families are very involved in the school and do a lot for the school, participation, and boosters.

Are you saying the CI program will do nothing for the new school? I think it will add home value, increase PTA participation, add monetary value to the PTA donations, and bring in lunch and recess aids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

CI kids won't be in class with regular kids. CI doesn't have many farm kids. Now you are left with regular kids with regular class. That will have 53% farm rate. It's listed in reports.

That is no different than RM saying their FARMS stats when actually they have the IB program in there and the stats are based on those. That rate would be be much higher without IB, correct? Those families are very involved in the school and do a lot for the school, participation, and boosters.

Are you saying the CI program will do nothing for the new school? I think it will add home value, increase PTA participation, add monetary value to the PTA donations, and bring in lunch and recess aids.

RMIB out-of-bounds students represent about 16% of the student population. I am not sure what the CI program represents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

Falls Grove goes to Beall, and the poor kids at Beall get bused across 270 to Ritchie Park?

Not from Beall, but from RM#5 , who go to RP even right now. Those kids are closer to RP than Falls grove and Falls grove will have a bit shorter commute time going to Beall as well.

Main question should be - are we going to ignore SES totally in favor of geographic proximity? If we do that are we making the best decision here? Some RM#5 kids going a bit further to RP vs creating a school with 53% farm rate from day 1. I am just thinking aloud here and there could be other scenarios to to ensure that we don't start a school with 53% farm rate in RM cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

CI kids won't be in class with regular kids. CI doesn't have many farm kids. Now you are left with regular kids with regular class. That will have 53% farm rate. It's listed in reports.

That is no different than RM saying their FARMS stats when actually they have the IB program in there and the stats are based on those. That rate would be be much higher without IB, correct? Those families are very involved in the school and do a lot for the school, participation, and boosters.

Are you saying the CI program will do nothing for the new school? I think it will add home value, increase PTA participation, add monetary value to the PTA donations, and bring in lunch and recess aids.

RMIB out-of-bounds students represent about 16% of the student population. I am not sure what the CI program represents.

18-20%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Single biggest aim for any boundary study should be to provide the best environment for kids to suceed. We should try to set up kids for success as much as possible. Farm rate around 25% gives any school a good diversity and also not burden schools much.

Falls Grove can simply move to Beall and RP can take more farm kids from others side of 270. That way, Falls grove kids won't be commuting longer than their current travel time and we are not creating schools with 10% and 53% farm rates. We are robbing RP an opportunity of being a diverse school and at the same time not giving best possible chance to 100s of kids in Rm#5.

When you have 25% farm rate then farm kids benefit from non-farm students. If you start having 50-60% farm rate then Farm and non-Farm, both set of students are at disadvantage.

Why start with a situation which doesn't allow kids to succeed? 6 years in elementary and then the same students will join in middle and high school. JW and RM will have a long term impact here. It's hard to find a high performing middle school if two feeder schools are low performing.

Falls Grove goes to Beall, and the poor kids at Beall get bused across 270 to Ritchie Park?

Not from Beall, but from RM#5 , who go to RP even right now. Those kids are closer to RP than Falls grove and Falls grove will have a bit shorter commute time going to Beall as well.

Main question should be - are we going to ignore SES totally in favor of geographic proximity? If we do that are we making the best decision here? Some RM#5 kids going a bit further to RP vs creating a school with 53% farm rate from day 1. I am just thinking aloud here and there could be other scenarios to to ensure that we don't start a school with 53% farm rate in RM cluster.

Can we stop saying 53%

It is 42%

Magnets, IB's, other immersions, and HGC do not have two separate FARMS. They add these special programs to decrease FARMS.

I guess the county should have thought of a better location then what they did because the location they built is around all low to middle income families. It would be ridiculous to think it wasn't going to be a higher FARMS rate than some of the other schools that are in middle class single family home neighborhoods. They did move some areas to decrease it the FARMS but bussing kids all over to somehow level the playing field was never going to happen. They mentioned in every meeting that the least amount of disruptions to every school was something that was a priority. It is funny how some people think it is no big deal to just completely remove half a school and switch it with another. There are clubs, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, sports teams, community HOA's, and kids going in 5th grade and other kids in younger grades. Splitting neighborhoods and splitting neighborhoods is not smart. Families that have jobs based on when/where drop off and pick ups are. Some of the schools have different start times. RM#5 isn't nearly as high as Twinbrook with 68% They are almost 30% lower because the county did try and work as much as they could without a massive disruption or increased times in the already limited busses our cluster has.

If the priority is always to make FARMS the same and not conform to communities, neighborhoods, or location, why are schools like Darnestown ES (less than 5 FARMS) and Brown Station ES (74 FARMS) mixing up their communities to level it out? They all go to Lakelands Middle School and then to QO. What about Cold Spring? They are like 2.5% FARMS and only 70% capacity. Why aren't we bringing in highers numbers with FARMS to their school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone said where the 53% FARMS is coming from because they highest I saw was like 42% in all the options. What is making it go up another 10% I know if it is over 50% it turns into a FOCUS school.

I also thought that the fact they are going to build out the shell means they could add a potential pre-K program or a higher immersion program.

CI kids won't be in class with regular kids. CI doesn't have many farm kids. Now you are left with regular kids with regular class. That will have 53% farm rate. It's listed in reports.

That is no different than RM saying their FARMS stats when actually they have the IB program in there and the stats are based on those. That rate would be be much higher without IB, correct? Those families are very involved in the school and do a lot for the school, participation, and boosters.

Are you saying the CI program will do nothing for the new school? I think it will add home value, increase PTA participation, add monetary value to the PTA donations, and bring in lunch and recess aids.

It's a lot different than RM IB situation. With IB , farm rate in RM is below 20%. In RM#5 with CI, we will have farm rate of above 40%.

Without IB , farm rate in RM is around 24%. That's what RP and Beall have right now. Problem comes when we are taking most of the farm kids who currently go to Beall and RP then add a chunk of farm kids from Twinbrook to start a new school, we are starting with 53% farm rate. 53% is drastically higher farm rate than what RP, Beall and CG have right now. Mostly it's the students from Beall and RP are going to form RM#5. They were in 25% farm rate range and had a good chance to do well. Same kids are now will be in class with 53% farm rate. CI immersion is not going to help much here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There are clubs, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, sports teams, community HOA's, and kids going in 5th grade and other kids in younger grades. Splitting neighborhoods and splitting neighborhoods is not smart. Families that have jobs based on when/where drop off and pick ups are. Some of the schools have different start times. RM#5 isn't nearly as high as Twinbrook with 68% They are almost 30% lower because the county did try and work as much as they could without a massive disruption or increased times in the already limited busses our cluster has.

All these points have impact for sure, but what'the nature of impact and duration impact here.

We are talking about Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts etc and impact will be limited to few years. After 3-4 years, none of the families will face any impact if you split up neighborhoods.. Now, if we go with 53% farm rate then it will have impact on Rm#5, JW and RM for the next 20-30 years. it will be short sighted to think about convenience of couple of years for some parents when end result is decade worth impact on entire cluster.

Nope, everyone should stick with 53% farm rate because that's what kids in RM#5 will get in regular classroom. Mental arithmetic to bring it down is not changing the fact that we are going to have every second kid as farm kid in RM#5 with this proposed boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Are you saying the CI program will do nothing for the new school? I think it will add home value, increase PTA participation, add monetary value to the PTA donations, and bring in lunch and recess aids.

It will do everything you are stating, but it will be drop in bucket when it comes to making a difference. Case in point, look up magnet program located in schools with very high farm rate.

[Anonymous]

Talking about property value,
Personally, a house with a school rating:

elementary : 8, Middle school: 8/9, High school 8

is much more desirable than a house with a school rating:
elementary: 9/10; middle school: 7/8, high school: 5/6

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talking about property value,
Personally, a house with a school rating:

elementary : 8, Middle school: 8/9, High school 8

is much more desirable than a house with a school rating:
elementary: 9/10; middle school: 7/8, high school: 5/6

Why would we talk about property value? Property value is not, and should not be, a consideration when MCPS establishes school boundaries.