Reply to Split articulation (bussing) for the new BCC Middle School?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Why do I always get the feeling that when people plant their flag in the busing camp it is code for " I spent my money so I didn't have to live around the blacks, and I object you using busing to mix them into my kid's life". [/quote]

I used to think that too, and I'm sure that's some of it, but don't overlook the real hassles that the busing and split articulation causes for parents of kids from Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase whose kids are sent to RHES for K-2 and then back to neighborhood schools for 3-6. RHES is a lovely environment and very well-run, but it's a PITA to have the split. My friend with 2 kids at Woodacres can do a single dropoff and pickup; she can be there for the Halloween parade and other activities where she sees both kids; she's only got to try to be a volunteer or active PTA member at 1 school. And yes, her kids don't have to deal w/ a bus ride that ranges from 15 mins to an hour (and is rarely the same each day.)

Whereas I have same-aged kids at RHES and one of the CCs. I can't pick up the younger one from school by car ever because no one would be home to let the older one into the house. I have to choose which school I visit for various holidays and activities. I only volunteer episodically at one school and I make a passing effort at doing some PTA stuff at the other (I work FT, so this is the best I got.) And while my younger kid loves the bus, the fact that it's been in several accidents this year alone is not a huge plus in my book nor is the fact that it takes me forever to get to RHES for afterschool activity pickups. And it sucks when the kids have to separate at 3rd grade; it so happened that most of my older kid's friends were zoned for the other CC. None of those things would be an issue if Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase were permitted K-5 neighborhood schools like almost all the other elementaries in MCPS.

So after this experience I'd much prefer a neighborhood school for K-5 and it has nothing to do with skin color or socioeconomic status. But please, go ahead, assume that I must be a racist snob. And btw no one in SS or "middle class" Chevy Chase (where is that exactly?) is responsible for preventing the PP's radical reengineering of MCPS from moving forward. The reason MCPS will never implement a plan that opens all schools up to lotteries is that it's totally unworkable in a system of this size.[/quote]

Thank you so much for this post!. You are dead on.  Another RHPS parent here and this is our experience exactly.   From the heartbreak of having to choose which Halloween/Valentine party to attend and crushing your one of your children's feelings to the multiple accidents my child's bus has been in this year.   We parents are at the point where we suck in our breath with worry now when the bus is late.

Or the 45 minute to hour long bus ride that gave my son motion sickness every day so I started driving to a different stop further from my house so he would spend less time on the bus to RHPS.  No one else in the Bethesda area deals with this split elementary school headache.  If you are going to do it to the NCC/CCES kids then split up all those lily white schools elsewhere in Bethesda and bus everyone.   The diversity burden shouldn't fall disproportionately on two schools.

I like RHPS for the most part.  My kids have made wonderful diverse friends but I would not say the school is even that diverse. It is actually disappointing it isn'tmore so for all the trouble we go through.   Which makes it even more unfair that RHPS kids are bussed away from their neighborhoods during the K-2 years.  Then the kids make friends and are torn away from them 3-6.  I will be ticked if they don't pull together NCC and CCES for middle school so they can reunited. It will be insult to injury.   Bus Westbrook to the new middle and let them feel the bussing pain.  I can walk to CCES from my house just like they can walk to Westland.  Didn't stop Montco from bussing our kids.   Let RCF be bussed to Westland so they can feel the pain too. Give the NCC CCES RHPS parents a break.  We've paid our dues.

Of broken friendships, choosing between your children, unsafe bussing and a million other cons of bussing your littlest kids to a school 10 miles away to another town.[/quote]

Did you not know of the school splits when you bought your house?

Assuming so, just stop it already.[/quote]

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