Reply to Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study

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Reply to "Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Happy Saturday y’all. Dufief mom here.  I heard my name was dropped last night. No hard feelings about whomever did that - I just want to say having read this very long thread that kids should be 1000000% off limits, period. We keep our heads held high and stick to facts and our various POV. Make our kids proud for advocating for what we think is best for them and our community. Reading these vitriolic petty attacks makes me feel like I’m in a mean girls movie. Yuck. 
Anyway, regardless of what the vote is, I am looking forward to the next phase of building bridges with whomever will be at the new Wootton at either location. Even though I support the rec, this process could have been much more thoughtful and solicitous of affected communities. I respect others pursuing in good faith paths they think might give them clarity even if I don’t agree as to the legal merit. Anything we learn that can improve this process for the ES study will be helpful. [/quote]

Just saying thanks for this post, that’s all!

Especially appreciate the “Even though I support the rec, this process could have been much more thoughtful and solicitous of affected communities. I respect others pursuing in good faith paths they think might give them clarity even if I don’t agree as to the legal merit. Anything we learn that can improve this process for the ES study will be helpful.”

I’ve long said, if this process was done the right way, starting first with the superintendent coming to the cluster before the option came out to explain it first to us OR coming to visit us within the first week or 2, perhaps we wouldn’t be feeling this frustrated. Personally, I could have been convinced to stay out of the way of it even if I don’t agree with it.

But not like this. This was a sham of a process. I do hope the lawsuit will make MCPS tighten up especially for the ES boundary coming up. 
[/quote]

You were never guaranteed a specific school when you bought your house.  We are all going through redistricting and changes.  You make it sound like Wootton is the only one.  The difference is we are dealing with it and if we don't like the changes will move or go private.  You all brought this upon yourself by saying the building is immediately unsafe.  MCPS is giving you a new school.  Be grateful.  Many of us would jump at the chance for a new school.[/quote]

DP.

It’s true that nobody is “guaranteed” a specific school assignment. But people absolutely make major life decisions based on stable public infrastructure. When families buy homes near a high school that has been in the same place for decades, it’s reasonable to expect that the school itself isn’t going to be moved miles away. That’s not about entitlement—it’s about relying on long-standing public planning when making the biggest financial investment most people will ever make.

And while a new building sounds great in theory, a new building in a different location isn’t automatically an upgrade. A school isn’t just the physical structure; it’s the role it plays in the surrounding community. A brand-new building in a high-traffic urban area doesn’t replace the value of a neighborhood school that students can reach easily and that families feel connected to.

Finally, saying “just move or go private if you don’t like it” really isn’t a serious answer. Public schools are supposed to serve the communities that already exist around them. If there were planning mistakes, enrollment projection errors, or maintenance decisions that created this situation, those should be addressed directly rather than solved by asking one community to absorb the full impact of losing its neighborhood school.[/quote]

1. Crown is in a neighborhood, including the beighborhood of current Fallsmead students. It is walkable by current Fallsmead students.

2. Rio and Crown are not urban areas. If is bot downtown DC or even Bethesda (like BCC) Crown is a residential neighborhood wirh retail, like the Kentlands.

3. The majority of kids who currently attend Wootton are not walkers and the school is not in their neighborhood. In fact, the majority of students who go to Wootton live farther away from Wootton than kids who are zoned to other high schools.

4. Yes you can move. Everyone can move if they really want to you are not stuck in your house in Fallsmead.

5. Change is part of life. This is a good lesson for you and to teach your children. And also that things we catastrophize can turn out okay. Because the chances are that once this settles everyone will be just fine and happy at Crown and Crown will be a great school.[/quote]

I think some of what you’re saying is fair, but it still misses the core issue people are raising.

First, no one is saying Crown isn’t in a neighborhood. Of course it is. The point people are making is that Wootton has been the neighborhood high school for the communities around it for decades, and the proposal would remove that school entirely from those communities and place it several miles away. Saying that it happens to be walkable for Fallsmead students actually illustrates the concern: [b]it would make the school walkable for a completely different set of neighborhoods while taking it away from the ones it has historically served.[/b] That’s not just a boundary adjustment—it’s shifting the geographic center of the school and fundamentally changing which communities the school is anchored in.

Second, while Crown may not be downtown DC, it’s still a very different environment from where Wootton currently sits. The area around Crown is built around major roads, major retail, and significantly higher traffic volumes. Whether someone calls that “urban” or “mixed-use,” it’s simply not the same type of setting as the current Wootton campus. For families thinking about daily drop-off traffic, student drivers, after-school activities, and pedestrian safety, that difference matters.

Third, many Wootton students don’t currently walk—true, but that doesn’t mean proximity doesn’t matter. There’s a big difference between being a short drive away versus being several miles farther in a completely different corridor. Even if most students are bused or driven, the school’s location still affects commute times, traffic patterns, after-school participation, [b]and how connected the school feels to the surrounding community.[/b]

Forth, as for “you can move,” that’s technically true for anyone, but it’s not a realistic public policy answer. People choose homes partly based on long-standing public infrastructure like schools. Expecting families to move because the district decides to relocate a high school is very different from asking people to accept a normal boundary adjustment. Public systems are supposed to serve existing communities, not tell those communities they should relocate if the planning changes.

The other thing is how rushed this entire process feels. The proposal to move Wootton is happening on an accelerated timeline, and it’s hard not to see it in the context of larger planning mistakes that the district has made over the past several years—especially around enrollment projections and capital planning. When a major structural change like relocating a long-standing high school is pushed through quickly, it raises the question of whether the goal is thoughtful long-term planning or simply trying to patch over earlier errors. Many residents feel that the district leadership, including Taylor and the Board of Education, is trying to move quickly to create political cover for decisions that didn’t age well.

And yes, change is part of life. Most people accept that. But acknowledging that change happens doesn’t mean every proposed change is automatically the right one. Communities are allowed to ask whether a decision makes sense, whether alternatives were fully considered, [b]and whether the impacts are being distributed fairly.[/b] Wanting those questions answered isn’t catastrophizing—it’s participating in the public process that shapes decisions affecting thousands of families.[/quote]

I totally understand that moving the location makes logistics harder for the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the current location.  That is not a change I would personally want if I lived in that small area.

That being said, the impact on those relatively small number of people should not be determinative of the outcome here. And your own post acknowledges that there are distributed impacts- some families that could not walk under the current boundaries COULD walk under the new one.   It is still a walkable school. Possibly even more walkable to a higher number of students.

And I still have no idea what it means to "feel connected" to a building.

Also, I agree that the process could be better.  But a process can ALWAYS be better- longer, more engagement, more opportunities for feedback, etc.  And arguing process is what people ALWAYS do when they don't like an outcome.  We see the same thing happen for every single zoning or development decision.[/quote]

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