Reply to Option H is permanent and the old Wootton HS campus will be closed for good?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wootton is the affordable W school[/quote]

Which is why it's the easier target and the one always beat up on.

As previous poster mentioned, once can choose to settle for a little bit less for the money in choosing Wootton vs some other areas.

And the same can be said for choosing Wootton over some of the other richer areas.

But this whole process shows what areas are more protected and in hindsight it is apparent, where some of the schools there don't have to deal with some of the nonsense that some of the Wootton cluster schools did.  Those Wayside parents sure didn't want to get zoned to Wootton.

So it may very well be worth it to move to an even older/smaller home in these richer areas but also have more protection against these kinds of things.[/quote]

No one is targeting or beating up on Wootton.  Wootton is just being unrealistic about the boundary situation and crying about it.

First it was unfair that Dufief has to leave the cluster
Second was it is unfair that the school is falling apart
Third is that it is unfair that Wootton needs to move to a new building
Fourth is that it is unfair that Gaithersburg students will be at the new building with Wootton.

Wootton boundaries are right along where the area with Crown.  There will be [b]changes to Wootton[/b].  You all need to be realistic about the situation.  [/quote]
Changes like:
being moved to a new building miles from the original
a new name
new student cohort
[b]new teachers
new admin
new programs[/b]
leveling the old Wootton

Apart from those things it'll be EXACTLY THE SAME.[/quote]

The bolded has no basis in fact.
If Wootton were moved to a holding school for a year while the current building was leveled and a new building in its place, would you have an issue?  No.  So that is not a thing.
There may be an additional student cohort, not splitting up the current one.

So yes, there will be changes- many students very much inconvenienced by traveling to a new location.  That is real.  Yes, there will be a new name, but I can't see the meaningful argument for why that matters much.  And...tell me why additional students is a bad thing?[/quote]
Of course there will be teacher and admin turnover.   That's what happens when a school closes and another opens.  As for students, they're proposing to add a couple extra ES and they'll probably remove an ES or two which changes the cohort.  Change is bad when things are working well and Wooton is one of the state's best high schools.  Just admit that you hate the W schools and want to see them eliminated.[/quote]

That's not why there would be turnover.  There is turnover yearly at every school.  Usually, teachers want closer to home, better admin, teaching their actual classes they were train for, etc.

Your kids will be ok if they add another ES.  Its a good learning lesson for them to be in the real world with actual low income and not just rich pretending they are low income.[/quote]
I'm glad we agree that when a school closes and a new one opens there are reasons new teachers might to want to teach there or existing teachers might find it too far and this will cause more turnover than usual.  And you outed yourself as an anti-W school, pro-busser with "Its a good learning lesson for them to be in the real world with actual low income." [/quote]

Yeah I'm not a fan of them and is a reason why we purposely avoided some of the richer areas... Yes we're one of the ones that could've afforded to live somewhere more expensive but didn't want our kids in that environment.

But some people honestly can live in a segregated world and that's their world.  And it's fine.  It's just different worlds and classes.

But some of these "anti-W school" people think that their point of view or world is the right way and how everyone should do and see things.

It goes back to the debate about county wide magnet programs.  Some of these students are coming out and benefiting society and leading change.  Whereas a lot of posters on here are saying that enrichment isn't needed for these types of students and the focus should be for the greater population who are struggling.

It's the same point of view when it comes to wanting to tear down W schools or forcing mixed demographics or integration.  If they do that, can they guarantee the same level of academic rigor and standards that some of these families were looking for in choosing an area to live in and send their kids to?[/quote]

The W schools have advanced classes for these students.  Its the kids in the other schools that are lacking in course offerings that need the magnets to achieve to the same level.[/quote]

This is kind of the mentality out there, where people want things for free.

Maybe five or ten years ago on this forum people would post, "It's all one school district.  It's all the same curriculum"  And that was a very naive way of thinking.  And people that knew, knew which schools to look for and why some areas were more desirable and expensive than others.  In the Wootton school district there are rentals available, both homes and townhomes.  And they have the apartments over by the Traville Shopping Center.  And there were some homes with multiple families living there. The specific cases I'm thinking of are African immigrants.  So yeah believe it or not there are URM minorities in the Wootton school district.

So people were willing to sacrifice to give their kids a chance for a better education.

Fast forward to now, people are realizing there really is an inequality between schools.  Such as in the different levels of rigor in the same class in different schools, leading to limited advanced offerings at some schools because supposedly there weren't enough students interested and qualified for it.

And instead of looking at the root of the problem and trying to improve it to make more students qualified for the classes, they're saying it's not fair so we should make it equal for everyone.  So those people who decided to take the "grasshopper" route by buying a really nice house on a nice plot of land say that no one should take the really advanced classes or be in the advanced programs because not everyone qualifies for it.  Or trying to mix the W students in with some other populations so there would be enough students for the advanced classes.  But some of these students come from different elementary schools with the same different levels of preparation.  So what happens if some of them can't perform or keep up with the material?  Well MCPS doesn't fail anyone, so they'll slow down the curriculum for everyone in the class and school.

If people say they purposely avoid Wootton because they didn't want their kids in a pressure cooker environment, well don't complain that Wootton and other W schools have more advanced classes than other schools.  Because that pressure cooker environment is what pushed kids to be able to take those courses and eligible for the countywide programs.[/quote]

No one is asking for anything for free.  We all all paying taxes to support the schools and all our kids should get equal opportunities.  There are enough kids to take the advanced classes but there ae also more average kids than advanced and the prinicipals choose to use their allocations on the average kids vs. doing a mix good for all.[/quote]

By free, I mean putting the time, work and effort.  Not necessarily just the money you pay.

Yeah maybe you and a number of other families at your school do put in the work for your kids to succeed and make it possible for them to take these advanced classes.

[b]But not enough families at your school are either willing or able to do so.  So resulting in there not being enough students for the principal to justify the advanced class at your school.[/b]

So your choice is stay in the home where you bought as much home as you could.  Or make it a priority that your kids would be surrounded by high performing students and it would be less likely a question if they'd have access to these classes.

A lot of families that are in the Wootton area, and other similar schools, chose the latter, where schools were the number one priority and criteria in choosing where to live.

Obviously there's a different popular line of thought on this forum.  Where it used to be commonly posted, "It's all one district with one curriculum"  Maybe not as recent but in the more recent past it was, "Buying a home does not guarantee what school you go to" or something like that.

But again for a lot of families in these areas, schools were the major criteria and the reason why they were willing to pay what they did for where they live.[/quote]

Not DP, but thank you for the thoughtful reply.  A couple reactions:

1. On the bolded, the issue is that this is not a current day phenomena.  It may be true that there was a point when the students at Wootton had appreciably more parents putting in the "work and effort" to prepare their kids for advanced classes.  But in the current day, it is entrenched reality that the opportunities are not available at other schools.  This then becomes a circular self-reinforcing disparity.  Students in 2025 zoned for Wootton benefit from more opportunity REGARDLESS of whether their parents put in "work and effort."  It just comes to them.

2. Second, you know it is a HUGE overgeneralization, and likely not the reality for the majority of the GHS population, that the students are there because their parents made the choice to buy a big house on a large piece of land.  Yes, they got "as much house as they could" but that was a result of simply finding an affordable house (or rental).

I do have empathy for families that choose the Wootton area because they believed their children would go to  particular school in a particular place with a particular set of benefits and amenities, and now that might change.  They can feel that they are not getting what they "purchased" or planned.  I get that.

But that feeling is not different from somebody objecting to homes being built on a vacant lot because they expected the wide-open view from their backyard, or objecting to a new roadway or transit going in because it brings "traffic."  People should know that change is always possible, and often GOOD for the overall public, even though it impacts what they thought they were entitled to.
[/quote]

You kind of missed my point though.  Also when I originally posted listings I was just looking at homes close to Wootton, if you look at the Stone Mill neighbhorhood, townhomes are/were listed for about around $475k:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/North-Potomac/10602-Chisholm-Landing-Ter-20878/home/10623205

Which coincidentally in the first round of options, this was the section that MCPS was proposing to send to Crown while the million dollar SFH section of the neighborhood stayed in Wootton.  (Great job MCPS!)

So even if the imbalance between schools is there now, there are affordable homes in the Wootton area for families to choose if that's what they want.

The price of entry is less than $500k if someone is willing to settle for a townhouse, instead of getting a little bit more elsewhere.  But again, don't complain if it turns out that the academic rigors and opportunities aren't there in the location that had more house for the money.

The school ratings and rankings are easily accessible.   Not everyone digs into school data like what's on mdreportcard.  But the superficial ratings are always there.  US News, Great Schools and Niche and they're often posted in blurbs on the news.  And it's commonly stated that these ratings are just a reflection of test scores (and SES) and not the total picture of the school that parents need to take into account when choosing where to live.  Which is somewhat true.  But look what people are saying now, our students are struggling to meet proficiency standards and it is an issue.  So test scores do matter somewhat.

So if parents really did care about academics and wanted their kids to have access to the more advanced classes, the cost of entry into the Wootton school district isn't that high relative to costs in other areas of Montgomery County.  They might've had to choose a $475k townhouse instead of a single family home somewhere else.  But the families in these areas chose the smaller homes because the fact is even Wootton does have these issues, it is one of the highest performing schools and it does give access to these classes.  If families say they don't want their kids in the schools due to the pressure cooker environment, rich kid discipline and drug problems, etc, etc.  It just means they value other things over academics and is fine.  But again, don't complain if the school in the area they chose isn't the same or have the same offerings due to the overall student performance.

And granted $475k and $2k/month may still be out of reach for some families.  But honestly in Montgomery County as a whole, this is on the cheaper end.  And it's a big issue with how MCPS is segregated by income levels.  And the solution is not to mix up the demographics just so the low performing numbers are not as apparent.  But a lot of posters on here attacking Wootton parents are also saying that they make the same income as Wootton families but choose to live elsewhere.  If they chose not to prioritize academics and picked somewhere else, don't complain saying how they don't have the same access to the classes because they did have the opportunity.

My points are:
-Wootton isn't necessarily this rich exclusive area that some posters on here are making it out to be

-families in the Wootton area made the sacrifice they did to put their kids in "good" schools.  They didn't ask to exclude anyone.  Other people want the same access?  Great come on over.  If they can't afford to buy for now, they can rent.  There are a lot of rentals available and the rentals in those areas with $500k townhomes are a bit more affordable.  $2500/month for a 3 bedroom townhome:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/North-Potomac/14603-Devereaux-Ter-20878/home/10622862

That's cheaper than some two bedroom apartments in Montgomery County.

So try to have some understanding on why Wootton families as resistant to the change.[/quote]

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