Reply to New "W" High School

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "New "W" High School"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]/ [b]Overwhelming [/b] majority of kids in Woodward are going to come from WJ[b], with a smattering from[/b] DCC / [/quote]

Fixed it for ya.[/quote]

That wouldn't make sense. Woodward's capacity will be 2150. WJ will be overcapacity by 800, Wheaton by 400, and Einstein by 500. [/quote]

Look at current overcapacities and projections.  Notice how DCC schools are rather overrepresented at the top and that W schools tend to be just under?  And that the one W with a capacity problem is, poof, getting relief a half mile away?  When borders could have been shifted to some currently undercapacity?  [b]When a new high school in the eastern part of the county inside the beltway[/b] that would more directly address the bulk of the need was eschewed for that new W school and a not-so-great expansion of a run-down Northwood that will still leave overcrowding in the DCC where the county has shoved higher density rezonings?

Think that is happenstance?

Just because it makes sense doesn't mean DCC will see relief.[/quote]

Which site are you referring to? It seems to me that MCPS opted to reopen Woodward because it was a high-school sized plot of land that they already owned, and it had several overcrowded schools reasonably nearby.

By the way, Northwood's run-down building will be razed and replaced with a brand new one. But I agree it will not be enough space to relieve Blair's overcrowding.[/quote]

They had several candidate sites, both on and off the record.  None were overwhelmingly appealing, but nobody was willing to kill sacred cows to think outside the box.  Two that got publicized with all their deficiencies were the Washington Adventist property and the Discovery Communications building (not the main building, but, yes, a truly urban campus without fields, etc.).  That made them easy straw men, and they could then point to Woodward & Northwood as being far easier & cheaper.

But not more effective for lower-SES eastern down county.  Not providing reasonably similar facility service as that seen in other areas from a school system that pays high lip service to equity.  There's no reason we should expect that to change, either the rhetoric or the on-the-ground differential.[/quote]

I remember those presentations about the hospital and Discovery buildings, but they were in the context of seeking a temporary holding facility for Northwood students during their construction. They ultimately decided to delay Woodward's already-approved reopening and use its partially finished building as a holding school for Northwood first. I do not think there was a proposal to open a permanent new high school at the hospital or Discovery sites (though I agree that would have been worthwhile to consider). I still don't know why they don't go ahead with an addition to Einstein. They have room to expand.[/quote]

I wonder why the Einstein addition was scuttled as well. The performing arts spaces in the school need a major overhaul (the auditorium especially is horrible). Maybe it was decided that Northwood needed an overhaul first. They have added portable after portable to Einstein. I don't mind using portables to manage classroom space, but, adding portables doesn't address overcrowding in other spaces like the cafeteria and auditorium.[/quote]

My guess is that it fell to the philosophy and political reality of spreading the wealth for capital projects across communities.  The problem with this is that any area with a greater deficit, like eastern down county, never is brought up to the standard of those inheriting a lesser deficit.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics