Superintendent's Recommendation for Richard Montgomery ES #5 Boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option E has a 17% FARMS for a school in a low income neighborhood that is closest to another school, also in a low income neighborhood that has 70%

Why are kids being moved around from TB to RM5.

Why are TB only options being bussed out to RP and CG - the furthest schools away?

Because the same TB kids will go to your middle and high school and you REALLY don't want them to fail. Your house value is determined by your high school performance an you want the cluster as a hole to succeed.

Give them the best possible start in life and you will benefit from it yourself.

So instead you isolate them further away from their friends? Sorry but no. The traffic is a nightmare. FARMS kids are always left out. They don't have the TB community center anymore for after school and if their parents work and they can somehow afford CG aftercare, they have to find a way to pick them up miles away and bring them back home another few miles - on 355 during rush hour. You think that is compassionate? I think it is cruel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how else to say it that hasn't been said already.

If you argue proximity vs FARMS you are opening yourself to the "bigotry" argument forcing other communities and the board to unite against you.

Instead call for socioeconomic diversity , capacity and balance . Stand for proximity , lower FARMs and such and it will backfire against you.

Interesting, my preference is proximity even though those options increase the FARMs at my school. Some of us actually prefer a community/neighborhood feel to our schools.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In the board's eyes the proximity / neighborhood argument has no merit since all these schools are so close together. The only real outliers are RP5 and CG2

That's not true. That's why they were going to take a bus tour to gauge community boundaries and distances. And at least one board member raised the hardships of lower-income parents being able to be involved in a school that far away, kids not being able to play on the same sports teams, etc. as their classmates, general feeling of not being part of the community.

They are definitely grappling with the diversity vs. proximity argument. They need to hear specifically from those parents that would be affected by those tradeoffs, i.e. residents of RP2, RP5, RP6, and Twinbrook.

Hope the board is doing the bus tour during rush hour!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option E has a 17% FARMS for a school in a low income neighborhood that is closest to another school, also in a low income neighborhood that has 70%

Why are kids being moved around from TB to RM5.

Why are TB only options being bussed out to RP and CG - the furthest schools away?

Because the same TB kids will go to your middle and high school and you REALLY don't want them to fail. Your house value is determined by your high school performance an you want the cluster as a hole to succeed.

Give them the best possible start in life and you will benefit from it yourself.

So instead you isolate them further away from their friends? Sorry but no. The traffic is a nightmare. FARMS kids are always left out. They don't have the TB community center anymore for after school and if their parents work and they can somehow afford CG aftercare, they have to find a way to pick them up miles away and bring them back home another few miles - on 355 during rush hour. You think that is compassionate? I think it is cruel.

Who is the before- and aftercare provider at Twinbrook ES?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does RP2, RP6 and all of TB want?

Can't speak for the RP zones but in the BOE Meeting yesterday, they said they can't get in touch with TB people. The head of the TB PTA had evidently had to go talk to parents at bus stops because there was no way to reach them. Many don't speak English, they aren't part of the PTA, aren't part of listserv, etc. In the BOE Meeting they said that the TB PTA President said that most of the parents at TB he spoke to "didn't care".

I interpreted the "didn't care" to mean they didn't want to leave Twinbrook and didn't mind if Twinbrook remained over capacity, not that they didn't care if they got sent all over Rockville for schools.

That is how I interpreted as well. How will you move the majority Spanish speaking families away from their comfort zone. That area wasn't high Hispanic 15yrs ago. They chose to live there. It is a haven for them. They said yesterday there are no issues there and any changes lowers the FARMS, increases bus rides, and removes their Title 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option E has a 17% FARMS for a school in a low income neighborhood that is closest to another school, also in a low income neighborhood that has 70%

Why are kids being moved around from TB to RM5.

Why are TB only options being bussed out to RP and CG - the furthest schools away?

Because the same TB kids will go to your middle and high school and you REALLY don't want them to fail. Your house value is determined by your high school performance an you want the cluster as a hole to succeed.

Give them the best possible start in life and you will benefit from it yourself.

So instead you isolate them further away from their friends? Sorry but no. The traffic is a nightmare. FARMS kids are always left out. They don't have the TB community center anymore for after school and if their parents work and they can somehow afford CG aftercare, they have to find a way to pick them up miles away and bring them back home another few miles - on 355 during rush hour. You think that is compassionate? I think it is cruel.

Who is the before- and aftercare provider at Twinbrook ES?

Most get bussed to Twinbrook Community Center for a year round discounted aftercare price. The city also works with FARMS for deeper discounts since it is city controlled and not privately controlled.

[Anonymous]

Which schools in our cluster are currently tier 1 and tier 2? Won't this moving all around severely affect busses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option E has a 17% FARMS for a school in a low income neighborhood that is closest to another school, also in a low income neighborhood that has 70%

Why are kids being moved around from TB to RM5.

Why are TB only options being bussed out to RP and CG - the furthest schools away?

Because the same TB kids will go to your middle and high school and you REALLY don't want them to fail. Your house value is determined by your high school performance an you want the cluster as a hole to succeed.

Give them the best possible start in life and you will benefit from it yourself.

So instead you isolate them further away from their friends? Sorry but no. The traffic is a nightmare. FARMS kids are always left out. They don't have the TB community center anymore for after school and if their parents work and they can somehow afford CG aftercare, they have to find a way to pick them up miles away and bring them back home another few miles - on 355 during rush hour. You think that is compassionate? I think it is cruel.

Who is the before- and aftercare provider at Twinbrook ES?

Most get bussed to Twinbrook Community Center for a year round discounted aftercare price. The city also works with FARMS for deeper discounts since it is city controlled and not privately controlled.

I live in RP4. My child is enrolled in both beforecare and aftercare at Ritchie Park. If they bused us to Twinbrook, I would need the same services. It sounds like they don't have beforecare services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does RP2, RP6 and all of TB want?

Can't speak for the RP zones but in the BOE Meeting yesterday, they said they can't get in touch with TB people. The head of the TB PTA had evidently had to go talk to parents at bus stops because there was no way to reach them. Many don't speak English, they aren't part of the PTA, aren't part of listserv, etc. In the BOE Meeting they said that the TB PTA President said that most of the parents at TB he spoke to "didn't care".

The BOE hasn't done their job. Have they talked to staff or the principal? Have they gone to the school in the morning with translators to get feedback? No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am not the PP, but I have not seen much support for the scenario you are suggesting here. I see mostly support for option E and that won't increase travel time for anyone by too much. Only RP5 kids will take a bit longer to reach. Breaking up TB is not just about RP, it's more harder on TB. Those are crazy options.

I am the PP, and Option E is on the acceptable list for me. I don't live in RP5 though, but I understand that it would involve an extra 5-7 minutes for them each way--on top of an already long commute.

If it's acceptable then people should put their voice behind it and also talk about how it will add 5 minutes extra for RP5.

It's better to take some position which is acceptable and likely to gather wider support. BOE can then judge if it's worth adding extra 5 minutes for RP5 to avoid having 7% FARMs in RP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which schools in our cluster are currently tier 1 and tier 2? Won't this moving all around severely affect busses?

Right! Please testify tomorrow (as I will) that the more drastic plans change too many variable without even examining their impact. Trowing away a year of work and then plucking new options out of thin air without any metrics to go along with it is reckless. Doing that and asking for feedback from the community is idiocy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does RP2, RP6 and all of TB want?

Can't speak for the RP zones but in the BOE Meeting yesterday, they said they can't get in touch with TB people. The head of the TB PTA had evidently had to go talk to parents at bus stops because there was no way to reach them. Many don't speak English, they aren't part of the PTA, aren't part of listserv, etc. In the BOE Meeting they said that the TB PTA President said that most of the parents at TB he spoke to "didn't care".

I interpreted the "didn't care" to mean they didn't want to leave Twinbrook and didn't mind if Twinbrook remained over capacity, not that they didn't care if they got sent all over Rockville for schools.

That is how I interpreted as well. How will you move the majority Spanish speaking families away from their comfort zone. That area wasn't high Hispanic 15yrs ago. They chose to live there. It is a haven for them. They said yesterday there are no issues there and any changes lowers the FARMS, increases bus rides, and removes their Title 1.

Haven't you figured it out? They are FARMS families so they are too stupid to make that decision for themselves. The BOE knows what is best for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which schools in our cluster are currently tier 1 and tier 2? Won't this moving all around severely affect busses?

Right! Please testify tomorrow (as I will) that the more drastic plans change too many variable without even examining their impact. Trowing away a year of work and then plucking new options out of thin air without any metrics to go along with it is reckless. Doing that and asking for feedback from the community is idiocy.

The board will pay attention to a unified and rational community voice. Take a cue from Hungerford , they organized , collected signatures crafted a balanced and reasonable proposal that spoke to addressed all of the board's points.

Can we do the same at RP ? Instead of emotionally exhale hot air that gets un nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The RP PTA isn't taking the position that a FARMS rate above 7% is objectionable. They are pointing out that the reason the FARMS rate comes in at that percentage when you organize the cluster by geography is that the FARMS students are disproportionately coming from the areas near 355. Their point is that nearby ES schools zones are actually lower FARMS than 7%.

In other words, there's no intent here to construct a school with a low FARMS rate; they're just explaining why it naturally falls that way.

From this, they're arguing that's its unfair to bus kids even further, when kids in nearby ES zones assigned to Wootton and Churchill don't have to endure any type of travel, and nobody objects when their schools come in at 0-5%.

Again, the objection is the travel time. The point about 7% FARMS is just to explain that there's no intent to gerrymander RP to be low FARMS; rather, it's a consequence of the geography.

I see the point here, but giving examples of Wootton or Churchill elementary schools having low FARMs rate to justify anything is missing one big point here.

RP is a part of RM. RM is a diverse community. Elementary in Churchill or Wootton can't be made diverse without changing high school boundary, but RP even now is at 20% FARMs. Supporting an option for 7% FARMs rate and then talking about some other Potomac elementary is going to give a certain message to other communities in RM cluster.

Not many RM parents supported putting RP at 40% because it's just a bad one to do due to all criss crossing. But RM cluster is seeing a huge push back from RP to not even have 20% FARMs( current level). That's how it is coming across.

If point is just about RP5 travel time then it should be pointed and any sane person will listen. Using examples of other Potomac Elementary is a crazy idea in this situation. RP PTA circulation was shared in all RM communities and it feels a bit bad from outside even if intention was different. I am not sure if BOE also has that circulation, but it's better to not circulate something like that. I didn't even pay attention to that earlier. I just read it.

I would say , all of us should highlight the biggest problem we will face collectively from all options and then we have to pick one which creates least problem for vast majority of students.

- CG parent( kids in high school)

I think the point was RP was indeed Wootton cluster. They moved them to the RM cluster. They have increased their FARMS multiple times with new boundaries. That has all been fine. But now original and close by RP residents should not now have to move away FURTHER to appease this FARMS need. A walkable section to RM5 (which used to be in Beall boundaries and moved to RP) should not be continued to bus to RP instead to appease the FARMS needs. If you keep proximity the priority, it just happens that the FARMS gets low and it does not drastically increase it anywhere else. The new RM5 is in the mid 20's which is very accurate for that neighborhood they built it in. So we are not sure why there is so much pushback just because they see this 7%. That is how it worked when the walkable/closer areas go to RM5 and the rest stay put. Bussing kids further to increase RP to 25% and decrease RM5 to 17% is too much time, money and hassle for a small change in FARMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which schools in our cluster are currently tier 1 and tier 2? Won't this moving all around severely affect busses?

Right! Please testify tomorrow (as I will) that the more drastic plans change too many variable without even examining their impact. Trowing away a year of work and then plucking new options out of thin air without any metrics to go along with it is reckless. Doing that and asking for feedback from the community is idiocy.

The board will pay attention to a unified and rational community voice. Take a cue from Hungerford , they organized , collected signatures crafted a balanced and reasonable proposal that spoke to addressed all of the board's points.

Can we do the same at RP ? Instead of emotionally exhale hot air that gets un nowhere.

We certainly could, and I would be willing to help collect those signatures with a few ground rules:

(1) We state what high-level goals we want and which plan(s) support that
(2) We have zero references to the 1987 change.
(3) We have zero references to any other school cluster
(4) We indicate that our community is united in the action