Superintendent's Recommendation for Richard Montgomery ES #5 Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you know what happens when you put FARMS kids whose parents are just trying to survive day to day and put food on the table in schools where you have kids who have private tutors and parents that work with them on their homework daily?

they fall further and further behind.

Actually, no, what happens is that they do better academically than low-income kids in high-poverty schools.

That has not happened in MCPS and was mentioned in the meeting. There are more hardships for parents to get public transportation to make a school event and lessens the kids feeling part of the community. They can't be part of sports because the practices are too far away. They can't have play dates because the parents do not have transportation to go get them. All these issues were brought up by two board members yesterday who said balancing the FARMS would be a hardship for those isolated neighborhoods getting bussed.

[Anonymous]

I feel very bad for RM cluster. No matter what I think proximity is the most important things for ES. The criss corssing thing is just crazy, complete waste of tax payers' money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:alt B is by far the best option. so what if ritchie park has a 7 percent farms rate? its located in potomac essentially.

the fact of the matter is that forcing low income FARMS kids to go to a high performing school further away for the sake of balancing FARMS rates is not beneficial to them whatsoever.

Remember "practically Potomac" RP families if you ask for 7% FARMS you will get 40%. Ask for a balance and you shall have a good and cohesive school. Don't let the real estate trolls distract you from what's best for your children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you know what happens when you put FARMS kids whose parents are just trying to survive day to day and put food on the table in schools where you have kids who have private tutors and parents that work with them on their homework daily?

they fall further and further behind.

Actually, no, what happens is that they do better academically than low-income kids in high-poverty schools.

lets say you have two twins that grow up in a low income, immigrant household with no home support

one goes to twinbrook which is still a decent school and gets additional support because of their title 1 status
and one goes to ritchie park

who do you think is going to do better?

Statistically, the one that goes to Ritchie Park.

Here's something for you to read: https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

Housing Policy Is School Policy:
Economically Integrative Housing
Promotes Academic Success in
Montgomery County, Maryland
Heather Schwartz
A Century Foundation Report
2010

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel very bad for RM cluster. No matter what I think proximity is the most important things for ES. The criss corssing thing is just crazy, complete waste of tax payers' money.

Why is proximity the most important thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you know what happens when you put FARMS kids whose parents are just trying to survive day to day and put food on the table in schools where you have kids who have private tutors and parents that work with them on their homework daily?

they fall further and further behind.

Actually, no, what happens is that they do better academically than low-income kids in high-poverty schools.

That has not happened in MCPS and was mentioned in the meeting. There are more hardships for parents to get public transportation to make a school event and lessens the kids feeling part of the community. They can't be part of sports because the practices are too far away. They can't have play dates because the parents do not have transportation to go get them. All these issues were brought up by two board members yesterday who said balancing the FARMS would be a hardship for those isolated neighborhoods getting bussed.

It has happened in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:alt B is by far the best option. so what if ritchie park has a 7 percent farms rate? its located in potomac essentially.

the fact of the matter is that forcing low income FARMS kids to go to a high performing school further away for the sake of balancing FARMS rates is not beneficial to them whatsoever.

Agree. Do you think those little sections of TB will be a part of ANYTHING being bussed to a new school? They won't. Their families will feel so left out and isolated. They want to stay together. Most speak Spanish. They communicate. They are close to each other. They like their Title 1. Why do you think they all moved there? Now you are going to butcher them up to prove some FARMS point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel very bad for RM cluster. No matter what I think proximity is the most important things for ES. The criss corssing thing is just crazy, complete waste of tax payers' money.

Why is proximity the most important thing?

Why is it not? Stop asking questions. You are annoying AF

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you know what happens when you put FARMS kids whose parents are just trying to survive day to day and put food on the table in schools where you have kids who have private tutors and parents that work with them on their homework daily?

they fall further and further behind.

Actually, no, what happens is that they do better academically than low-income kids in high-poverty schools.

lets say you have two twins that grow up in a low income, immigrant household with no home support


one goes to twinbrook which is still a decent school and gets additional support because of their title 1 status
and one goes to ritchie park


who do you think is going to do better?

This is not about who you "think" is going to do better. There are actual studies in Maryland and Montgomery County posted early in this thread that show that lower-income students perform better at schools with a FARMS rate no higher than ~25%.

Greatschools.org, for all its flaws , actually did recently reformulate the way they score schools to include factoring in how well they are supporting their lower-performing students.

Twinbrook: https://www.greatschools.org/maryland/rockville/968-Twinbrook-Elementary-School/.
Gets a 3/10 for Equity and a 3/10 for support of Low Income Students, whose percent of school population is cited as 67%.

Ritchie Park: https://www.greatschools.org/maryland/rockville/945-Ritchie-Park-Elementary-School/
Gets a 6/10 for Equity and 5/10 for support of Low Income Students, whose percent of school population is cited as 20%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel very bad for RM cluster. No matter what I think proximity is the most important things for ES. The criss corssing thing is just crazy, complete waste of tax payers' money.

Why is proximity the most important thing?

When people are shopping for a house do they look at a school stats or proximity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel very bad for RM cluster. No matter what I think proximity is the most important things for ES. The criss corssing thing is just crazy, complete waste of tax payers' money.

Why is proximity the most important thing?

When people are shopping for a house do they look at a school stats or proximity?

?

1. Not everybody lives in a house.
2. Not everybody lives in a residence they own.
3. Probably the first thing people look at, when they are in the market for a residence to own, is price. (Or, for that matter, when they are in the market for a residence to rent.)

[Anonymous]

Since this thread has already gone on so long, can we at least come to a consensus that we're debating Alt B vs Alt E and that Alt's A,C,D are non-starters? I think we should really narrow down the discussion so that people can come in strong at the BOE meeting to give as unified an opinion as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel very bad for RM cluster. No matter what I think proximity is the most important things for ES. The criss corssing thing is just crazy, complete waste of tax payers' money.

Why is proximity the most important thing?

Why is it not? Stop asking questions. You are annoying AF

That is a funny thing to post on a forum about schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Out of curiosity, to RPs who are not advocating Superintendent's Recommendation #3(SR3), would you be advocating for BOE #2? If so, will you be advocating for it as is or provide a suggestion to make FARMS around 20%. I understand the angst from the RP5, but right now, these 2 are the only ones that seem to make sense from most of the communities, and 7% FARMS does not seem right, nor is 40%.

As an RP parent, and from my discussions with a couple of others, we are fine with any option that doesn't make kids criss cross the cluster over the Pike. So yes, we are fine with either of the options that makes RP with a FARMS rate of 25% or 7%. However, if they were to present an option that doesn't make kids criss cross the cluster but have RP and TB at 40%+ FARMS, while the others have less than 25%, no, we wouldn't be in favor of that either.

I totally understand how 7% FARMS at RP is unfair in terms of FARMS rate, but no one can seriously think that making RP and TB 40%+ FARMS is fair, right? For those who don't live in the RP/TB cluster but advocate for equitable FARMs across the cluster, I do hope you are as much against that proposal as you would be for the 7% FARMs option.

Everyone needs to get behind the Superintendent #3.

Why are RP2 and RP6 always together? Why can't RP2 walk to the new school that they are zoned for and RP6 get bussed to RP.

I will not support any measure that sends walkable kids to bus to another school just to increase FARMS in one.

I agree with you about RP2. Those kids have been crisscrossing for YEARS, and now they could go to a school even closer than Beall, but instead would stay at RP. The super is aware that this is not ideal, which is why he highlights it in his report. His only justification is "continuity" which is only a very temporary benefit, if a benefit at all.

RE RP6 I think is just lumped with RP2 based on which side of 270 it is. And RP6, I believe, is negligible because it doesn't have much housing, so not many kids not matter where you put it, and a negligible FARMs rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you know what happens when you put FARMS kids whose parents are just trying to survive day to day and put food on the table in schools where you have kids who have private tutors and parents that work with them on their homework daily?

they fall further and further behind.

Actually, no, what happens is that they do better academically than low-income kids in high-poverty schools.

lets say you have two twins that grow up in a low income, immigrant household with no home support

one goes to twinbrook which is still a decent school and gets additional support because of their title 1 status
and one goes to ritchie park

who do you think is going to do better?

Statistically, the one that goes to Ritchie Park.

Here's something for you to read: https://tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-Schwartz.pdf

Housing Policy Is School Policy:
Economically Integrative Housing
Promotes Academic Success in
Montgomery County, Maryland
Heather Schwartz
A Century Foundation Report
2010

I have a close relative that is a teacher in a high performing school with very few FARMS kids. They spend a lot of resources and time on those FARMS kids because its the right thing to do, but most of these kids are SO behind that the disparity between them and their classmates just grows larger and larger.

imagine being a kid that barely knows how to count in a class where other kids know how to add and subtract?

imagine being a kid that doesnt know their alphabet in a class where kids are reading books?