BOE Memer is proposing to study school boundary in MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Which W isn’t crowded?

Wootton, if you count Wootton, and maybe Churchill. There’s a lot of talk about Wootton, which shares a boundary with Gaithersburg, being chronically not overcrowded. But that is the outlier in the County. I don’t think there’s any other cluster in the same situation. And when the BOE proposed re districting between Gaithersburg and Wootton, the Gaithersburg families didn’t want it. But that doesn’t fit some people’s narrative.

Magruder cluster is very underutilized. Mostly smaller single family homes built in the 60s and 70s with a lot of retirees.

I could see a consortium of Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill, Magruder, and possibly Damascus with all of the schools offering different specialties. Expand Gaithersburg's PLTW more like Wheaton, Watkins Mill has IB, Magruder could have business or something similar or put another high school magnet there because this quadrant of the county can't get to Poolesville easily. There's plenty of middle area that would have similar bus rides to all three/four schools where letting people choose could even out utilization.

People are talking like changing fixed boundaries is the only solution. The purpose of hiring a consultant is not only to look at MCPS, but to look at practices of other districts and suggest other methods of populating schools. One possibility would be to give up the "cluster" model and just "zone" every neighborhood to its nearest 2 or 3 schools at each level (ES, MS, HS). When a kid enters a new level they participate in a choice lottery, which allocates on choice AND space available. That method would allow school utilization to remain balanced across the county over time, even as neighborhood demographics change.

I hope someone explained this to the BOE - because this doesn't sound like the same scope of work as hiring a consultant who would write a report to help BOE decide on a (same old) County-Wide Boundary Study. This sounds more like hire a consultant to provide information on how other large districts address school utilization and boundary issues, and potentially formulate a different method for addressing boundary issues for the future.

[Anonymous]

Sure, because the other consortium schools (DCC and NEC) are working out so well we should all do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BCC is also under capacity. It may not have a W in it, but it's still considered part of the W schools as it is wealthier and whiter than most clusters.

Churchill HS is over crowded, but the rest of the schools within the cluster are not.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_BCC.pdf

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_Churchill.pdf

Churchill and Wootton are surrounded by clusters that are over capacity by a lot - RM, QO, WJ

B-CC just got an addition and is projected to be overcapacity again within the 6 year CIP planning period (if MCPS projections turn out to be correct; MCPS has been significantly under predicting enrollment growth in this sector of the county for the last 15 years). B-CC is not an example of an underutilized cluster that could relieve overcrowding in nearby clusters.

[Anonymous]

My guess is some currently zoned for BCC will end up at Woodward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
? What is the topic of this thread... it's about school overcrowding, so yes, over development makes schools even more crowded. You really need a study to show this?

The topic of this thread is a proposed study of the possibility of doing a district-wide boundary study.

Also, nobody is in favor of [b]overdevelopment. [/b]But your "overdevelopment" might be my just plain "development", or even "underdevelopment".

Not true.

Developers want to develop as much as they can, as quickly as they can. That's been the case in MoCo for the last decade. Without any regard to school overcrowding.

Overdevelopment occurs when the schools/libraries/parks/facilities can't keep up with the number of people moving into the thousands of new units being built every year. If the schools weren't as overcrowded, then it would not be an issue.

Developers are also against overdevelopment, because then they can't sell what they build.

You would think that’s how it works, but not quite. Developers are fine keeping the units empty for a while because they leave them as a write off.

That’s what is happening at Rockville Town Center. Market forces would indicate that rents would be lower there. Instead, the retail landlords choose to keep the rent high, chase out tenants (like Mellow Mushroom and Dawson’s) and now the taxpayers are paying the grant to pay for Dawson’s to come back.

That's commercial development. Commercial development, by definition, does not generate students for the schools. The discussion here is about residential development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
? What is the topic of this thread... it's about school overcrowding, so yes, over development makes schools even more crowded. You really need a study to show this?

The topic of this thread is a proposed study of the possibility of doing a district-wide boundary study.

Also, nobody is in favor of [b]overdevelopment. [/b]But your "overdevelopment" might be my just plain "development", or even "underdevelopment".

Not true.

Developers want to develop as much as they can, as quickly as they can. That's been the case in MoCo for the last decade. Without any regard to school overcrowding.

Overdevelopment occurs when the schools/libraries/parks/facilities can't keep up with the number of people moving into the thousands of new units being built every year. If the schools weren't as overcrowded, then it would not be an issue.

Developers are also against overdevelopment, because then they can't sell what they build.

You would think that’s how it works, but not quite. Developers are fine keeping the units empty for a while because they leave them as a write off.

That’s what is happening at Rockville Town Center. Market forces would indicate that rents would be lower there. Instead, the retail landlords choose to keep the rent high, chase out tenants (like Mellow Mushroom and Dawson’s) and now the taxpayers are paying the grant to pay for Dawson’s to come back.

That's commercial development. Commercial development, by definition, does not generate students for the schools. The discussion here is about residential development.

Yes, but they affect each other, as evidenced by the current discussion about Rockville Town center.

The Council wants to support the ‘commercial’ development by building additional residential units. Which will lead to worse overcrowding at the schools in that cluster.

Much of the residential development in MoCo over the past decade has been ‘Mixed Use’ and high density. Commercial and residential development are intertwined when that happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BCC is also under capacity. It may not have a W in it, but it's still considered part of the W schools as it is wealthier and whiter than most clusters.

Churchill HS is over crowded, but the rest of the schools within the cluster are not.

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_BCC.pdf

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_Churchill.pdf

Churchill and Wootton are surrounded by clusters that are over capacity by a lot - RM, QO, WJ

B-CC just got an addition and is projected to be overcapacity again within the 6 year CIP planning period (if MCPS projections turn out to be correct; MCPS has been significantly under predicting enrollment growth in this sector of the county for the last 15 years). B-CC is not an example of an underutilized cluster that could relieve overcrowding in nearby clusters.

Then I guess the same would apply to any under capacity school. But as it is, BCC is under capacity while other HSs are waaaay over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, but they affect each other, as evidenced by the current discussion about Rockville Town center.

The Council wants to support the ‘commercial’ development by building additional residential units. Which will lead to worse overcrowding at the schools in that cluster.

Much of the residential development in MoCo over the past decade has been ‘Mixed Use’ and high density. Commercial and residential development are intertwined when that happens.

You're shifting the goalposts.

Commercial development does not generate students. Development of housing does generate students - when people live in the housing. Overdevelopment, from the point of view of developers, is when they build housing that stays vacant (i.e., nobody wants it). Plus vacant housing does not generate students.

[Anonymous]

"Then I guess the same would apply to any under capacity school. But as it is, BCC is under capacity while other HSs are waaaay over capacity."

You are being short-sighted. BCC is under capacity today, but is expected to be over capacity within the six-year CIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Then I guess the same would apply to any under capacity school. But as it is, BCC is under capacity while other HSs are waaaay over capacity."

You are being short-sighted. BCC is under capacity today, but is expected to be over capacity within the six-year CIP.

Not according to their projections. And sure, MCPS has been wrong in the past, but you yourself are using MCPS six year CIP projection so...

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_BCC.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Then I guess the same would apply to any under capacity school. But as it is, BCC is under capacity while other HSs are waaaay over capacity."

You are being short-sighted. BCC is under capacity today, but is expected to be over capacity within the six-year CIP.

Not according to their projections. And sure, MCPS has been wrong in the past, but you yourself are using MCPS six year CIP projection so...

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_BCC.pdf

Given B-CC's northern boundary proximity to Woodward, it seems likely many of its students from that area would end up at Woodard. B-CC is adjacent to the boundaries of other overcrowded schools which will likely be folded into it. I know parents hate change, but this needs to happen.

[Anonymous]

MCPS gains 2000-3000 new students in the past 5- 10 years. Many students show up after September.To accomendate the Spanish speaking new comers, MCPS developed dual language schools. If the school boundary changes all the time, how does MCPS move the special prgrams around?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Then I guess the same would apply to any under capacity school. But as it is, BCC is under capacity while other HSs are waaaay over capacity."

You are being short-sighted. BCC is under capacity today, but is expected to be over capacity within the six-year CIP.

Not according to their projections. And sure, MCPS has been wrong in the past, but you yourself are using MCPS six year CIP projection so...

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_BCC.pdf

Given B-CC's northern boundary proximity to Woodward, it seems likely many of its students from that area would end up at Woodard. B-CC is adjacent to the boundaries of other overcrowded schools which will likely be folded into it. I know parents hate change, but this needs to happen.

The new capacity at Woodward is for WJ and the DCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Then I guess the same would apply to any under capacity school. But as it is, BCC is under capacity while other HSs are waaaay over capacity."

You are being short-sighted. BCC is under capacity today, but is expected to be over capacity within the six-year CIP.

Not according to their projections. And sure, MCPS has been wrong in the past, but you yourself are using MCPS six year CIP projection so...

http://gis.mcpsmd.org/cipmasterpdfs/CIP20_Chap4_BCC.pdf

Given B-CC's northern boundary proximity to Woodward, it seems likely many of its students from that area would end up at Woodard. B-CC is adjacent to the boundaries of other overcrowded schools which will likely be folded into it. I know parents hate change, but this needs to happen.

The new capacity at Woodward is for WJ and the DCC.

That’s not accurate. Woodward will be populated by students living near it. That will be some combination is schools like WJ, Einstein, Wheaton and BCC. Since BCC is the only high-school inside the beltway it is by definition downcounty and it was originally part of the DCC so sure

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can MCPS not put a go$da$mned school on the SCHOOL PROPERTY on Brickyard road? That would alleviate a lot of crowding and busing kids everywhere. Do Lotomac kids HAVE to go to Pyle and Whitman in Bethesda? Can’t you name a new Potomac school Lil Whitman or Whitman II and just get on with life?
Talk about people being ready to spontaneously combust..

Because the schools near the Brickyard site are not the schools that are overcrowded....

That's what rezoning is for. Build a high school at Brickyard and call it West Potomac (so that it starts with a W). Rezone western Churchill to West Potomac. Rezone western Whitman to Churchill. Rezone southern Walter Johnson to Whitman. Everyone stays at a W school, everyone's happy.

You can’t call those people ‘West Potomac’ - they would spontaneously combust with rage after nuclear bombing the rest of us.
They can only be known as ‘Potomac’ aka ‘The REAL Potomac’ or ‘20854- the real part of it’.
Because Potomac used to be a ‘thing’.

West Potomac. Omg- watch out for nuclear warheads.