Reply to MCPS planning very limited regional program transportation (HS pickups only)

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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]Help me understand the issue. If you live far enough away from your home high school (the one you’re zoned for) to get bus service from your neighborhood to your home school, will that bus get you to your home school in time for you to catch a bus from your home school to your regional special program? Or is the issue that the buses to regional special programs leave home schools early enough that your neighborhood bus won’t get you to your home school in time?

If you live too close to your home school to qualify for busing from your neighborhood to your home school, then the burden was already on you to come up with your own transportation to your home school, so there’s no difference between getting yourself there to attend that home school versus getting yourself there to catch a bus to your regional special program.

Currently, how many locations do high school magnet buses depart from besides home high schools?[/quote]

Unless the buses to the local schools get there super early, there is no way a kid can take the bus to their local high school and then transfer to another bus to another high school. Are they going to make all the kids taking a bus to their local high school get there super early so that the magnet kids can hop on another bus to get to their program on time? That would feel incredibly unfair to the local kids.[/quote]
So this is an issue for kids who qualify for buses to their home schools, but won’t get to use those buses as part of their commute to their regional special programs?[/quote]

You make it sound like some niche issue... less than 30% of high schoolers are in the walk zone, the majority are too far away.  [/quote]
I’m not saying it’s a niche issue; I’m trying to ascertain the scope of the issue. Are those the only students affected or is the problem even bigger than that?[/quote]

I mean, on top of the 70% of students who can't walk to their local HS, a sizable share of the 30% in the walk zones still have a pretty long walk to school, 30+ minutes in many cases.  If they then have to catch a bus from there to another high school, many will be looking at over an hour in travel time.  [b]Lots of kids just won't bother with that[/b], leaving the program spots to kids.whose families can drive them. Is that what you mean by the scope of the issue? [/quote]

So how is this different than current programs.  If the high school "kid" doesn't make an effort, they don't receive extra services.  That does not make it "inequitable."  And you are forgetting that under the regional model, EVERY high school will have a special program, so the ones who "don't want to bother" with transportation can apply to their own school's program.[/quote]

So the kid with interest in STEM should apply for fashion design at the home school? [/quote]

What do you think is happening now?   This really isn’t much of a change.  My kids want stem.  They max out the 1-2 stem classes they want at their school and then fill in with other stuff.  They promised Mc as an option but Mc refused acceptance for classes as they claim things like math you need to take calc with them to go to mvc and linear algebra so one ended up going backward in math taking lower classes as they’d have to start all over that MC and transportation and timing was an issue.  The virtual class was after school and it conflicted with sports.

The issue with going cross town to another school is in high school you go in some days late, no bus provided, and back and forth for sports and activities.  Uber regularly is too costly. [/quote]

Yes, this sucks. I can understand you PP. But how do you picture the new model can improve the situation? It sounds like you are bounded to a mediocre or poor-performing HS right now which is already severely lacking resources. The new model will let the top ones with resource to escape faster, and leaving your current HS with even less peers and less resource, because all STEM programs locate in the good HSs while poor ones get those unpopular CTE-oriented ones. I think this is what some Einstein HS families concern about.[/quote]

The school is not a bad school and what you are saying is offensive.  It has a bad principal who refuses to balance the needs and wants of the students and fight for them.  This is going to harm these schools and its going to force some of us to go private or move, which is what we will do for the younger kids.  We cannot drive kids cross town nor do we want them at the schools offered as we moved to our area to avoid them.  If we move, we'd target Wheaton.[/quote]

Well, in this scenario, I'd think your best choice is to fight together with our families to file complaints to CO and see if you can get a new principal. Or move or send kids to private as you suggested. Regional program won't help your case at all. Rather, with such kind of principal, your assigned HS cannot even build up programs that they are supposed to host, and meanwhile, the principal might use that as an excuse to further dilute or remove the existing opportunities (e.g., existing high-level courses). [/quote]

The school is already diluted.  There is little to cut sadly. [/quote]

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