Initial boundary options for Crown/Damascus study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to be what MCPS is trying to do. They hate that they have "good schools" because that means they have "bad schools."

This effort is about carving out boundaries for new properties (great), alleviating overcrowding (wonderful), but a heaping helping of "let's use this opportunity to change perceptions because we are out of ideas."

Or, let’s change boundaries because now is the opportune time to do so as we haven’t had a massive review and realignment of them in multiple decades and they were gerrymandered then.

It isnt a "massive review" because there are entire schools (Sherwood, Paint Branch, Springbrook) with capacity that are not included in either study. Right off the bat, MCPS is violating policy FAA by not considering all its capacity.

And it is far from an opportune time because of the loss of jobs and contracts by MoCo residents has created a great deal of uncertainty that make it both inopportune and a bad look politically to raise taxes to pay for "massive realignment."

Sure add new boundaries for the new schools but don't waste my tax dollars on a boondoggle because maybe/hopefully/Inshallah it will improve test scores.

It's not a boondoggle when we have hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in building these two new schools and they need to be filled. When you take the kids from the closest schools, then they need to get more kids into those schools and it impacts the next group of schools and so on. The wootton parents crying about their boundaries are stupid - some of them are CLOSER to Crown than Wootton, Crown has been programmed for year- the land decision was made well over 10 years ago so any current school parent should have known this was going to happen at some point.

Spare me the tears and fears and stop with the BS that we need to leave them be because it's a hard time with federal government cuts. You know who is ACTUALLY having a hard time? The kids at Wheaton and Kennedy whose parents are being deported from their immigration check-in appointments. Your kid who has tutors and travel sports and Kumon will be fine whether they're at Churchill, Wootton, or Crown.

Stop whining.

Moving kids from Wootton to Crown will not help those kids who go to Wheaton and Kennedy, or their parents. These are two irrelevant things.

I never said it would. I am saying that when I think of whose traumas I care about more, the traumas of rich, entitled, whiny wootton and churchill parents are nowhere on my list. You all sound so ridiculously entitled and tone-deaf crying that your precious children might have to mix with kids from other neighborhoods? Give me a break. Other people have real problems. This is not a real problem.

Churchill parent here. Right now we would be moved to Wootton and I posted somewhere upthread that worse things could happen. Honestly I couldn't care less whether the kids are sent to Churchill or Wootton. I just want my home to be districted to a strong high school, and luckily it will be either Wootton or Churchill by the looks of it. My kids are grown and off to college, and I didn't even bother sending them to Churchill...too crowded and too much grade inflation. I just want to get a good profit when we sell our home in a few years.

Are you a fake wayside parent?

Fake? Not sure what you mean. Yes, we are zoned for Wayside, but my kids went to private high schools. We're done now though. I am only concerned about home values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know it's probably a budget issue and they won't be able to do so. But Crown should really be a holding school so that some of these older high schools can get renovated.

Looking at the 2023 Schools at a Glance (which might be outdated) the oldest schools and their most recent built/renovation/modernization dates are:
Magruder and Wootton 1970
Damascus and Poolesville 1978

The next one after that is Quince Orchard in 1988 but based on the outside of it, I would've guessed it was newer.

If they don't use Crown as a holding school, what building do they have to use as a holding school for these schools? (I know it'd be far for Damascus and Poolesville students)

And if there are no holding schools for them, will they ever get renovated?

Poolesville is completely new this year

Damascus is getting an addition

But yes Wootton, Magruder, and QO in that order should be in there 1 year each for renovations. But they won’t. Wootton will never get done

Wootton HS has been renovated. It had a massive renovation that opened in 2002

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to be what MCPS is trying to do. They hate that they have "good schools" because that means they have "bad schools."

This effort is about carving out boundaries for new properties (great), alleviating overcrowding (wonderful), but a heaping helping of "let's use this opportunity to change perceptions because we are out of ideas."

Or, let’s change boundaries because now is the opportune time to do so as we haven’t had a massive review and realignment of them in multiple decades and they were gerrymandered then.

It isnt a "massive review" because there are entire schools (Sherwood, Paint Branch, Springbrook) with capacity that are not included in either study. Right off the bat, MCPS is violating policy FAA by not considering all its capacity.

And it is far from an opportune time because of the loss of jobs and contracts by MoCo residents has created a great deal of uncertainty that make it both inopportune and a bad look politically to raise taxes to pay for "massive realignment."

Sure add new boundaries for the new schools but don't waste my tax dollars on a boondoggle because maybe/hopefully/Inshallah it will improve test scores.

It's not a boondoggle when we have hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in building these two new schools and they need to be filled. When you take the kids from the closest schools, then they need to get more kids into those schools and it impacts the next group of schools and so on. The wootton parents crying about their boundaries are stupid - some of them are CLOSER to Crown than Wootton, Crown has been programmed for year- the land decision was made well over 10 years ago so any current school parent should have known this was going to happen at some point.

Spare me the tears and fears and stop with the BS that we need to leave them be because it's a hard time with federal government cuts. You know who is ACTUALLY having a hard time? The kids at Wheaton and Kennedy whose parents are being deported from their immigration check-in appointments. Your kid who has tutors and travel sports and Kumon will be fine whether they're at Churchill, Wootton, or Crown.

Stop whining.

Part of the parents' choice, blame them. And meanwhile, these kids are receiving a much richer education than they would have gotten at home, on our dime. So, no, I'm not too worried about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MS are also over capacity. They are not going to build a new MS, so now is the time to redraw boundaries for the MS, too.

They are doing that. Each of the options includes new middle school boundaries.

Yes, but some people seem to be against moving ES clusters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

no, not gonna happen

Can you explain the reasonings behind it?

MCPS is trying to create smaller regional magnets. For example, they want to convert RMIB to a regional magnet rather than a whole county magnet, and look at creating additional magnets at other schools.

Creating a whole school magnet is counter to MCPS' desire to create more regional magnets.

It's not gonna happen.

That's the perfect way to avoid all split articulation! They can place those magnets in schools where the MS enrollments match the HS enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to be what MCPS is trying to do. They hate that they have "good schools" because that means they have "bad schools."

This effort is about carving out boundaries for new properties (great), alleviating overcrowding (wonderful), but a heaping helping of "let's use this opportunity to change perceptions because we are out of ideas."

Or, let’s change boundaries because now is the opportune time to do so as we haven’t had a massive review and realignment of them in multiple decades and they were gerrymandered then.

It isnt a "massive review" because there are entire schools (Sherwood, Paint Branch, Springbrook) with capacity that are not included in either study. Right off the bat, MCPS is violating policy FAA by not considering all its capacity.

And it is far from an opportune time because of the loss of jobs and contracts by MoCo residents has created a great deal of uncertainty that make it both inopportune and a bad look politically to raise taxes to pay for "massive realignment."

Sure add new boundaries for the new schools but don't waste my tax dollars on a boondoggle because maybe/hopefully/Inshallah it will improve test scores.

It's not a boondoggle when we have hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in building these two new schools and they need to be filled. When you take the kids from the closest schools, then they need to get more kids into those schools and it impacts the next group of schools and so on. The wootton parents crying about their boundaries are stupid - some of them are CLOSER to Crown than Wootton, Crown has been programmed for year- the land decision was made well over 10 years ago so any current school parent should have known this was going to happen at some point.

Spare me the tears and fears and stop with the BS that we need to leave them be because it's a hard time with federal government cuts. You know who is ACTUALLY having a hard time? The kids at Wheaton and Kennedy whose parents are being deported from their immigration check-in appointments. Your kid who has tutors and travel sports and Kumon will be fine whether they're at Churchill, Wootton, or Crown.

Stop whining.

Moving kids from Wootton to Crown will not help those kids who go to Wheaton and Kennedy, or their parents. These are two irrelevant things.

I never said it would. I am saying that when I think of whose traumas I care about more, the traumas of rich, entitled, whiny wootton and churchill parents are nowhere on my list. You all sound so ridiculously entitled and tone-deaf crying that your precious children might have to mix with kids from other neighborhoods? Give me a break. Other people have real problems. This is not a real problem.

Churchill parent here. Right now we would be moved to Wootton and I posted somewhere upthread that worse things could happen. Honestly I couldn't care less whether the kids are sent to Churchill or Wootton. I just want my home to be districted to a strong high school, and luckily it will be either Wootton or Churchill by the looks of it. My kids are grown and off to college, and I didn't even bother sending them to Churchill...too crowded and too much grade inflation. I just want to get a good profit when we sell our home in a few years.

Are you a fake wayside parent?

Fake? Not sure what you mean. Yes, we are zoned for Wayside, but my kids went to private high schools. We're done now though. I am only concerned about home values.

Troll for sure

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

no, not gonna happen

Can you explain the reasonings behind it?

MCPS is trying to create smaller regional magnets. For example, they want to convert RMIB to a regional magnet rather than a whole county magnet, and look at creating additional magnets at other schools.

Creating a whole school magnet is counter to MCPS' desire to create more regional magnets.

It's not gonna happen.

That's the perfect way to avoid all split articulation! They can place those magnets in schools where the MS enrollments match the HS enrollment.

I mean DON'T match.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know it's probably a budget issue and they won't be able to do so. But Crown should really be a holding school so that some of these older high schools can get renovated.

Looking at the 2023 Schools at a Glance (which might be outdated) the oldest schools and their most recent built/renovation/modernization dates are:
Magruder and Wootton 1970
Damascus and Poolesville 1978

The next one after that is Quince Orchard in 1988 but based on the outside of it, I would've guessed it was newer.

If they don't use Crown as a holding school, what building do they have to use as a holding school for these schools? (I know it'd be far for Damascus and Poolesville students)

And if there are no holding schools for them, will they ever get renovated?

Poolesville is completely new this year

Damascus is getting an addition

But yes Wootton, Magruder, and QO in that order should be in there 1 year each for renovations. But they won’t. Wootton will never get done

Wootton HS has been renovated. It had a massive renovation that opened in 2002

It didn’t get a massive renovation lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

Too controversial..

It’s really the best option. A good magnet program strengthens the crown high school. Why force people in Churchill and Wootton to leave and cause so much stress and disruption? Especially for Wootton, the parts get split in all options are really the relatively poorer ones in Wootton and many have been affected by federal Reduction in Force and lost jobs this year. Life has been hard for them and why add another burden? Let people who want to be at crown to attend crown.

Seriously! Prior boards made a huge costly mistake with Crown and now they and MCPS staff are pushing to try and salvage the situation. We didn’t need another school when an addition at 4 high schools would have addressed capacity which was the primary reason for building it in the first place. Now you force disruption when most people of all SES prefer to be local to home.

Having an incredible magnet school would naturally pull kids from all over including W schools and it could be made equitable to have a strong population from upcountry and east county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain why activities or sports might be affected due to school change? I have been the one picking up and dropping off my kid at school and sports/activities because kid is at ES. Do kids at MS or HS go to activities/sports by themselves with biking/walking/taking bus? I am expecting that they still need parents to drive them around until they have their own transportation.

I posted about it in this thread on 6/4/2025 at 15:43 and will copy and paste below at the end of my comment.

But basically for our neighborhood's case, our kids would go to elementary school in Rockville, originally slated to go to a high school in Rockville. But under some proposed changes, they will go to the elementary school and middle school in Rockville and be a small group of 5-10 students in their grade that they went to elementary school with to go to the new high school in Gaithersburg.

Gaithersburg and Rockvlle have two different set of groups and organizations that provide the same services. And most people pick one based on region. ie if you live in Gaithersburg/Germantown, chances are you'll do SAM soccer. Rockville and south will do MSI.

Part of the things I hoped my kids would get out of after school activities is to interact with their classmates outside of a school setting. For example I see one team of players that will go to Rockville High and see how they all basically will be together from grades K through 12 together and they do everything together. And you see it how they run from activity to activity together and how their families all know each other and are friends. I often look at them and wonder if they know how lucky they are to have this type of lifelong friendship.

But with these proposed split articulation proposals, my kid would potentially be split off from the rest of the classmates they knew since elementary school. So it's okay right, I'll just sign them up for groups in this new high school area. But no one will know him or vice versa, as well as us and other families. This is compared to the leagues they're currently in, where we've been in them long enough where we recognize and know the families on various teams. It's one of the reasons why I picked a more local organization compared to one run by the county.

Even for community service, I was going to have them volunteer for a food bank in the area that sponsors one of the activities they do. But there is a similar food bank in the other city that their high school is in. So should I have them volunteer for the organization that sponsored their activity to help with that community feel. Or to the food bank that serves the actual community that their school is in?

I'm kind of typing quickly but that's my basic issue with the matter. The copy and paste of my previous comment is below:

In regards to the previous commens about Wayside and Wootton, I think one of the things that doesn't look like is being taken into account these initial options is the community or neighborhood feel.

Parts of the area that go to Wayside are borderline Wootton.

But the school itself and likely the majority of the area is right around the corner from the Potomac Community Center. When my kids had activities at Wayside it took me less then five minutes, if even that, to get from Wayside ES to the community center where I hung around there while they were at the activity.

So it's likely that families in that area do activities more in the Potomac area and with most of the students going to Churchill.

One benefit of activities is that it does give my kids opportunities to interact with kids from other areas where they would likely never have.

But one of the things we hoped to get out of activities is for our kids to interact with their classmates and neighbors outside of school. That helps build the camaraderie and friendships in school.

It's likewise for the northwestern area of Wootton near the Gaithersburg/North Potomac/Rockville divide. Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own separate organizations. Such as for baseball UMAC (Uppper Montgomery Baseball Club) vs RBBA (Rockville Baseball Association), MSI (Montgomery Soccer Inc) vs SAM (Soccer Association of Maryland), Gaithersburg City rec sports and camps vs Rockville City rec sports and camps. For our family we're at the point where we recognize a lot of the other families in the leagues on other teams and makes the area seem a lot smaller because you see them around and helps with the community feel. And the leagues and organizations in the other city seems like a while another world to us.

So in some of the proposals, they have students attending a school in one city, where most of the students probably do activities in a particular area. But then move a subset of the students from that school into another area, where the majority of students from that area are involved in other organizations for the same type of activities.

They should at the very least keep students from the same elementary school together.

Well said overall and the bolded part is my biggest concern not just for me but looking at those proposed maps a lot of shifting communities. School is about more than school, kids who have safe places to spend time outside of school as well as in and out of school are more likely to have success in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to be what MCPS is trying to do. They hate that they have "good schools" because that means they have "bad schools."

This effort is about carving out boundaries for new properties (great), alleviating overcrowding (wonderful), but a heaping helping of "let's use this opportunity to change perceptions because we are out of ideas."

Or, let’s change boundaries because now is the opportune time to do so as we haven’t had a massive review and realignment of them in multiple decades and they were gerrymandered then.

It isnt a "massive review" because there are entire schools (Sherwood, Paint Branch, Springbrook) with capacity that are not included in either study. Right off the bat, MCPS is violating policy FAA by not considering all its capacity.

And it is far from an opportune time because of the loss of jobs and contracts by MoCo residents has created a great deal of uncertainty that make it both inopportune and a bad look politically to raise taxes to pay for "massive realignment."

Sure add new boundaries for the new schools but don't waste my tax dollars on a boondoggle because maybe/hopefully/Inshallah it will improve test scores.

It's not a boondoggle when we have hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in building these two new schools and they need to be filled. When you take the kids from the closest schools, then they need to get more kids into those schools and it impacts the next group of schools and so on. The wootton parents crying about their boundaries are stupid - some of them are CLOSER to Crown than Wootton, Crown has been programmed for year- the land decision was made well over 10 years ago so any current school parent should have known this was going to happen at some point.

Spare me the tears and fears and stop with the BS that we need to leave them be because it's a hard time with federal government cuts. You know who is ACTUALLY having a hard time? The kids at Wheaton and Kennedy whose parents are being deported from their immigration check-in appointments. Your kid who has tutors and travel sports and Kumon will be fine whether they're at Churchill, Wootton, or Crown.

Stop whining.

Moving kids from Wootton to Crown will not help those kids who go to Wheaton and Kennedy, or their parents. These are two irrelevant things.

I never said it would. I am saying that when I think of whose traumas I care about more, the traumas of rich, entitled, whiny wootton and churchill parents are nowhere on my list. You all sound so ridiculously entitled and tone-deaf crying that your precious children might have to mix with kids from other neighborhoods? Give me a break. Other people have real problems. This is not a real problem.

Conversely you sound like those people who are giddy about sticking it to Wootton / Churchill because the DCC sucks. You are playing into the MCPS game of it’s too difficult to do an actual good job and make everyone happy but we’re experts on making everyone miserable.

👏

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

no, not gonna happen

Can you explain the reasonings behind it?

MCPS is trying to create smaller regional magnets. For example, they want to convert RMIB to a regional magnet rather than a whole county magnet, and look at creating additional magnets at other schools.

Creating a whole school magnet is counter to MCPS' desire to create more regional magnets.

It's not gonna happen.

That's the perfect way to avoid all split articulation! They can place those magnets in schools where the MS enrollments match the HS enrollment.

This is the only way for MCPS to figure out the programs and boundaries at the same time. It’s going to have to super simple and obvious. Everyone should get behind this, teach them a thing or two about simplicity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

Too controversial..

It’s really the best option. A good magnet program strengthens the crown high school. Why force people in Churchill and Wootton to leave and cause so much stress and disruption? Especially for Wootton, the parts get split in all options are really the relatively poorer ones in Wootton and many have been affected by federal Reduction in Force and lost jobs this year. Life has been hard for them and why add another burden? Let people who want to be at crown to attend crown.

Seriously! Prior boards made a huge costly mistake with Crown and now they and MCPS staff are pushing to try and salvage the situation. We didn’t need another school when an addition at 4 high schools would have addressed capacity which was the primary reason for building it in the first place. Now you force disruption when most people of all SES prefer to be local to home.

Having an incredible magnet school would naturally pull kids from all over including W schools and it could be made equitable to have a strong population from upcountry and east county.

some of the HS don't have room for additions. But, even if they did, the cost of additions for 4 to 6 HS would be more than building one brand new HS. That's why building a home from scratch is often cheaper than renovating an existing.

Also, this would not address the MS capacity issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

no, not gonna happen

Can you explain the reasonings behind it?

MCPS is trying to create smaller regional magnets. For example, they want to convert RMIB to a regional magnet rather than a whole county magnet, and look at creating additional magnets at other schools.

Creating a whole school magnet is counter to MCPS' desire to create more regional magnets.

It's not gonna happen.

That's the perfect way to avoid all split articulation! They can place those magnets in schools where the MS enrollments match the HS enrollment.

This is the only way for MCPS to figure out the programs and boundaries at the same time. It’s going to have to super simple and obvious. Everyone should get behind this, teach them a thing or two about simplicity.

? how would that address capacity issues at QO, RM, Gaithersburg? Putting a regional magnet at, let's say Wootton which is slightly under capacity, would not draw enough students from each of those over capacity schools to alleviate over crowding. And they are not going to make Crown a whole magnet school, per what I stated above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering, is that possible to keep all current clusters and initiate a selective admissions program to Crown HS, like Thomas Jefferson?

Second this.

no, not gonna happen

Can you explain the reasonings behind it?

MCPS is trying to create smaller regional magnets. For example, they want to convert RMIB to a regional magnet rather than a whole county magnet, and look at creating additional magnets at other schools.

Creating a whole school magnet is counter to MCPS' desire to create more regional magnets.

It's not gonna happen.

That's the perfect way to avoid all split articulation! They can place those magnets in schools where the MS enrollments match the HS enrollment.

This is the only way for MCPS to figure out the programs and boundaries at the same time. It’s going to have to super simple and obvious. Everyone should get behind this, teach them a thing or two about simplicity.

? how would that address capacity issues at QO, RM, Gaithersburg? Putting a regional magnet at, let's say Wootton which is slightly under capacity, would not draw enough students from each of those over capacity schools to alleviate over crowding. And they are not going to make Crown a whole magnet school, per what I stated above.

People have made it abundantly clear these people don't care about overcapacity at QO, RM, Gaithersburg, or Northwest. Thankfully decisions aren't made by W cluster parents.