School Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not arguing that it is or isn't just that clearly, MCPS is putting more importance on diversity than anything else. And it's not "barely".

People should also keep in mind that for low income families, not living within walking distance to schools would be a hardship for them.

Are you speaking as a low-income person yourself?

In school boundary debates, when affluent people say, "It's a hardship for low-income families to not live within walking distance to schools," that very often means, "I want the poor kids to go to the school over there that my kid doesn't go to." Just something to be aware of.

In last year's RMES#5 boundary study, low income families who lived near Twinbrook literally said it would be a hardship for them to get to College Gardens or Ritchie Park. They wanted to walk and keep their community support.

So you can stop playing the racist card now.

This was also true a couple years ago when they were talking about moving some kids from Gaithersburg Elementary to under-enrolled Wootton cluster elementary schools. The Gaithersburg parents fought for an addition to Gaithersburg instead of being bussed to Wootton cluster elementary schools arguing that it would be a hardship for them to get themselves and their children to the further away schools and that they wanted to continue to have access to the Gaithersburg Wellness Center and other resources at Gaithersburg ES. It has been a remarkably consistent position across multiple communities in the last few years of boundary studies/issues.

No one likes change -- yet school boundaries have been and will continue to be changed from time to time. Its important to listen to the community but ultimately someone is probably not going to like the outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not arguing that it is or isn't just that clearly, MCPS is putting more importance on diversity than anything else. And it's not "barely".

People should also keep in mind that for low income families, not living within walking distance to schools would be a hardship for them.

Are you speaking as a low-income person yourself?

In school boundary debates, when affluent people say, "It's a hardship for low-income families to not live within walking distance to schools," that very often means, "I want the poor kids to go to the school over there that my kid doesn't go to." Just something to be aware of.

In last year's RMES#5 boundary study, low income families who lived near Twinbrook literally said it would be a hardship for them to get to College Gardens or Ritchie Park. They wanted to walk and keep their community support.

So you can stop playing the racist card now.

This was also true a couple years ago when they were talking about moving some kids from Gaithersburg Elementary to under-enrolled Wootton cluster elementary schools. The Gaithersburg parents fought for an addition to Gaithersburg instead of being bussed to Wootton cluster elementary schools arguing that it would be a hardship for them to get themselves and their children to the further away schools and that they wanted to continue to have access to the Gaithersburg Wellness Center and other resources at Gaithersburg ES. It has been a remarkably consistent position across multiple communities in the last few years of boundary studies/issues.

No one likes change -- yet school boundaries have been and will continue to be changed from time to time. Its important to listen to the community but ultimately someone is probably not going to like the outcome.

This is very true, however, forcing low income people to commute further away in the name of diversity can hurt the very people mcps is trying to help.

[Anonymous]

No one likes change -- yet school boundaries have been and will continue to be changed from time to time. Its important to listen to the community but ultimately someone is probably not going to like the outcome.

This is very true, however, forcing low income people to commute further away in the name of diversity can hurt the very people mcps is trying to help.

MCPS is not trying to help the low income people anymore than the high income people. MCPS is always looking out for itself. Diversity bussing when the FARMS rate is already so high would not improve performance for the low income kids. It won't change the achievement gap either. They know it. It will make it appear that some schools are improving and they don't have the stark divide between very low performing schools and high performing schools. It doesn't make a difference to the kids other than the inconvenience of being bussed away from home.

I think the previous poster who said that their community would try to fight and is preparing to move if they lose hit the nail on the head when she said "we might not win but neither will the BOE. " People will not just play along with this crap.

[Anonymous]

Diversity bussing when the FARMS rate is already so high would not improve performance for the low income kids. It won't change the achievement gap either.

- especially not at the High School level when most highly performing students, the ones who presumably solve the achievement gap at the elementary level by setting a strong example to less well prepared students, are self-segregated into AP and honors classes. High School is where diversity buses has the highest potential cost to highly achieving students, and the least potential benefit to the lowest achieving students. They simply don't intersect outside the gym class anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For years we have been hearing rumors that Laytonsville, Brinklow, Sunshine, and up to the Howard County line were to be redisctured out of the Gaithersburg cluster and into Magruder or Sherwood.

Anyone have any firm info on this?

Greenwood ES, & Rosa Parks MS received some families from Laytonsville last year, MCPS kept it on the downlow , families found out the 1st day of school. I felt for the new families because people were not so receptive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For years we have been hearing rumors that Laytonsville, Brinklow, Sunshine, and up to the Howard County line were to be redisctured out of the Gaithersburg cluster and into Magruder or Sherwood.

Anyone have any firm info on this?

Greenwood ES, & Rosa Parks MS received some families from Laytonsville last year, MCPS kept it on the downlow , families found out the 1st day of school. I felt for the new families because people were not so receptive.

They kept it on the downlow? That's what you call three community meetings and public discussion at the BOE?
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/unityarea.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For years we have been hearing rumors that Laytonsville, Brinklow, Sunshine, and up to the Howard County line were to be redisctured out of the Gaithersburg cluster and into Magruder or Sherwood.

Anyone have any firm info on this?

Greenwood ES, & Rosa Parks MS received some families from Laytonsville last year, MCPS kept it on the downlow , families found out the 1st day of school. I felt for the new families because people were not so receptive.

They kept it on the downlow? That's what you call three community meetings and public discussion at the BOE?
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/unityarea.aspx

i know.. My kids go to Laytonsville and trust me, this was not on the down low. Where has the PP been??

[Anonymous]

"Diversity bussing" is not a thing.

[Anonymous]

How about 'diversity gerrymandering'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about 'diversity gerrymandering'.

gerrymandering: to divide or arrange (a territorial unit) into election districts to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the voting strength of the opposition in as few districts as possible

So no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about 'diversity gerrymandering'.

That would be great! We need more of these cool social experiments. One is bound to work out eventually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about 'diversity gerrymandering'.

That would be great! We need more of these cool social experiments. One is bound to work out eventually.

What out on what? Closing achievement gap?

[Anonymous]

Change happens slowly in MCPS. Relax people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not arguing that it is or isn't just that clearly, MCPS is putting more importance on diversity than anything else. And it's not "barely".

People should also keep in mind that for low income families, not living within walking distance to schools would be a hardship for them.

Are you speaking as a low-income person yourself?

In school boundary debates, when affluent people say, "It's a hardship for low-income families to not live within walking distance to schools," that very often means, "I want the poor kids to go to the school over there that my kid doesn't go to." Just something to be aware of.

In last year's RMES#5 boundary study, low income families who lived near Twinbrook literally said it would be a hardship for them to get to College Gardens or Ritchie Park. They wanted to walk and keep their community support.

So you can stop playing the racist card now.

This was also true a couple years ago when they were talking about moving some kids from Gaithersburg Elementary to under-enrolled Wootton cluster elementary schools. The Gaithersburg parents fought for an addition to Gaithersburg instead of being bussed to Wootton cluster elementary schools arguing that it would be a hardship for them to get themselves and their children to the further away schools and that they wanted to continue to have access to the Gaithersburg Wellness Center and other resources at Gaithersburg ES. It has been a remarkably consistent position across multiple communities in the last few years of boundary studies/issues.

No one likes change -- yet school boundaries have been and will continue to be changed from time to time. Its important to listen to the community but ultimately someone is probably not going to like the outcome.

It's not just a boundary change if you move away from neighborhoood schools to try to counteract housing segregation. It's a whole new experiment, and has some real challenges from where it has been tried:
neighborhood socioeconomics are constantly shifting, so how many times are you willing to make kids change schools to hit target numbers?
Special programs like free breakfast/aftercare can't be realistically implemented in every school, so at risk kids would lose out and/or face greater stigma.
At risk kids would be 'left behind' when placed in a school full of more advanced peers.
Loss of cohesive parent/neighborhood involvement in schools due to random distribution of parents.

The current situation of low performance for low ses schools is not great either, obviously. Failing schools should not be tolerated or rewarded. But we know school choice/incentive programs (like magnets) can turn around struggling schools. Instead of effectively demolishing the low ses schools and just shipping these kids off to be a minority in a wealthy school, it lures and serves gifted kids and gives the school (and neighborhood) a chance to slowly build up a stronger reputation. The fact that mcps isnt focusing on that solution and instead moving towards 'forced ses bussing' is short sighted and Seems like it will be yet another failed top-down theoretical social experiment performed on these kids and parents.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting that everyone only thinks the poor kids will be bused into low farm school. As scholl officials and experts haved mentioned again and again the busing low income students generates huge inequity to the students, parents, and communites, the only solution is to bus MC students using programs as magnet. However, MCPS is not happy that the magnet programs lack URM, regardless income level. The only solution would be redistrict the W school boundary so more MC kids will be send to the east part of the county.