Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

That's a cruel thing to wish on children who receive free/reduced meals.

Then us Potomac kids to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

why they live in Silver Spring. Why shouldn't they get to go to neighborhood schools like everyone else? Because you moved to silver spring and wish it looked more like Potomac and now you care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

That's a cruel thing to wish on children who receive free/reduced meals.

Then us Potomac kids to them.

You can't bus rich kids against their will. Their parents would tear down the system or leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s about 20 years too late. Of course they should have. We are now at the point it should be at least 6. I mean NJ, PA, DE, NY, MA, etc... all have regions and districts. I have no clue why this county continues this BS. The budget is so poorly run too. There is no personalization. No accountability. The board meetings, boundaries, open forums, etc.. never resolve anything because it is too much. Don’t even get me started on snow days when there is one patch of ice up by Damascus.

You are welcome to move to any of those other states if that is your preference.

So you believe the budget, the upper administration, the board and everything are the best here, right?

You are satisfied with being the second largest suburban county school district in the country in number of students (Fairfax now has more due to MoCo white flight)

And MCPS is THE largest suburban school district based on square mile size? Meaning no other school district without a major city (NY, LA, Chicago, etc...) is bigger.

A handful of board members for 160,000+ students? No thanks.

Citation needed.

Also, LOL on measuring school district size in square miles - although I infer that you actually meant number of students per square mile, and I would love to read an explanation of why that's a relevant measure.

Why are you LOL. I am not even the PP and it is very easy why square miles is a big deal in a highly populated county.

Weather is vastly different
Too many magnets schools all over and buses and cars driving to and from them increasing the worsening traffic
Not enough ability for people who don't have cars to attend county board meetings quickly and safely
Bus depots and systems are overwhelmed and cost too much money.

It's not that hard, but yet you can not figure it out. No school district should have 160+K students and be over 500 square miles. Especially one without a compact major city where most walk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fully support this provided 90% of the FARMS recipients end up being bussed to Potomac.

That's a cruel thing to wish on children who receive free/reduced meals.

Then us Potomac kids to them.

You can't bus rich kids against their will. Their parents would tear down the system or leave.

I am not even rich and can obviously see this happening. Changing boundaries will never work. Rich families always have the ability to move, send to private, and decide their kid's fates.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I mean, I just moved to Maryland two years ago but why not totally upend the entire structure of the state government because it would be more
convenient for me at the moment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo? This pandemic has me questioning how the school system is setup in the county. It’s gotten to big to manage. Is it time to break it up to smaller manageable school districts within the county? This is done in Texas, California etc.

I agree 100%. MCPS is too large and varied to be a single school district. MCPS has no ability to differentiate between schools when there is a dusting of snow, so schools in Bethesda and Silver Spring have to close because there are flurries in Germantown or Poolesville, and schools in zip codes with very few COVID-19 cases have to close because there is a concentration of cases in Silver Spring and Wheaton. I hate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo? This pandemic has me questioning how the school system is setup in the county. It’s gotten to big to manage. Is it time to break it up to smaller manageable school districts within the county? This is done in Texas, California etc.

I agree 100%. MCPS is too large and varied to be a single school district. MCPS has no ability to differentiate between schools when there is a dusting of snow, so schools in Bethesda and Silver Spring have to close because there are flurries in Germantown or Poolesville, and schools in zip codes with very few COVID-19 cases have to close because there is a concentration of cases in Silver Spring and Wheaton. I hate it.

Arguments about snow days no longer hold water. There will be no more snow days in MCPS. If it snows anywhere in the county, there will be distance learning that day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo? This pandemic has me questioning how the school system is setup in the county. It’s gotten to big to manage. Is it time to break it up to smaller manageable school districts within the county? This is done in Texas, California etc.

I agree 100%. MCPS is too large and varied to be a single school district. MCPS has no ability to differentiate between schools when there is a dusting of snow, so schools in Bethesda and Silver Spring have to close because there are flurries in Germantown or Poolesville, and schools in zip codes with very few COVID-19 cases have to close because there is a concentration of cases in Silver Spring and Wheaton. I hate it.

Arguments about snow days no longer hold water. There will be no more snow days in MCPS. If it snows anywhere in the county, there will be distance learning that day.

No there won't be. Give me a break. I can't even believe that Jack Smith moron is bringing that crap up when he doesn't even have a reopening plan on the state's desk. His priorities are idiotic.

Also, 40% are on FARM. "Snow" days equal hunger, cold, and loneliness for them. Most of the FARM students are down, mid and east county where there is less snow. No need to keep 160K students home for 1/2 inch of snow in Poolesville.

[Anonymous]

Sure, pandemic killing close to 200K, raging wildfires, economic downturn, forced sterilization allegations---but let's use all of our limited energey on this!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it time to break into smaller school districts in MoCo? This pandemic has me questioning how the school system is setup in the county. It’s gotten to big to manage. Is it time to break it up to smaller manageable school districts within the county? This is done in Texas, California etc.

I agree 100%. MCPS is too large and varied to be a single school district. MCPS has no ability to differentiate between schools when there is a dusting of snow, so schools in Bethesda and Silver Spring have to close because there are flurries in Germantown or Poolesville, and schools in zip codes with very few COVID-19 cases have to close because there is a concentration of cases in Silver Spring and Wheaton. I hate it.

Oh, it's the "How come MY kid can't go to school just because there's ice and/or deadly infectious disease elsewhere in the county?!?!" argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm really struggling to see how splitting into two districts would really help, particularly when the county would still be responsible for allocating money for schools and making related housing development decisions.

The current argument about even thinking about reopning schools is "MCPS is too big. We can't do it. All the districts that have plans to reopen are smaller." So apparently a smaller district would make them nimble enough to consider reopening. As it stands, they have not even published a plan for how to reopen (the phases), nor provided metrics for entering each stage.

Meanwhile, Washington County, MD, just an hour away, has a board-approved plan published on 9/1, and their first group of students (pre-k and special ed) started in-person schooling yesterday:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

Apparently MPCS is unable to even publish a _plan_ because they are too big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm really struggling to see how splitting into two districts would really help, particularly when the county would still be responsible for allocating money for schools and making related housing development decisions.

The current argument about even thinking about reopning schools is "MCPS is too big. We can't do it. All the districts that have plans to reopen are smaller." So apparently a smaller district would make them nimble enough to consider reopening. As it stands, they have not even published a plan for how to reopen (the phases), nor provided metrics for entering each stage.

Meanwhile, Washington County, MD, just an hour away, has a board-approved plan published on 9/1, and their first group of students (pre-k and special ed) started in-person schooling yesterday:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

Apparently MPCS is unable to even publish a _plan_ because they are too big.

DP. To clarify: that's the straw man argument that some posters on DCUM have set up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm really struggling to see how splitting into two districts would really help, particularly when the county would still be responsible for allocating money for schools and making related housing development decisions.

The current argument about even thinking about reopning schools is "MCPS is too big. We can't do it. All the districts that have plans to reopen are smaller." So apparently a smaller district would make them nimble enough to consider reopening. As it stands, they have not even published a plan for how to reopen (the phases), nor provided metrics for entering each stage.

Meanwhile, Washington County, MD, just an hour away, has a board-approved plan published on 9/1, and their first group of students (pre-k and special ed) started in-person schooling yesterday:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

Apparently MPCS is unable to even publish a _plan_ because they are too big.

I'm a PP who has stated on here that it is not fair to compare MCPS to smaller districts as far as re-opening plans, BUT I do also think splitting the district north/south would be helpful, and yes, it would be much easier to plan for re-opening if the size of the population that needs to be dealt with is smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm really struggling to see how splitting into two districts would really help, particularly when the county would still be responsible for allocating money for schools and making related housing development decisions.

The current argument about even thinking about reopning schools is "MCPS is too big. We can't do it. All the districts that have plans to reopen are smaller." So apparently a smaller district would make them nimble enough to consider reopening. As it stands, they have not even published a plan for how to reopen (the phases), nor provided metrics for entering each stage.

Meanwhile, Washington County, MD, just an hour away, has a board-approved plan published on 9/1, and their first group of students (pre-k and special ed) started in-person schooling yesterday:
http://wcpsmd.com/news/wcboe-approves-superintendents-plan-return-person-instruction

Apparently MPCS is unable to even publish a _plan_ because they are too big.

DP. To clarify: that's the straw man argument that some posters on DCUM have set up.

IMO, it's not impossible, but it sure is more difficult. That said, it does not mean that MCPS should not plan for it.