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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]great thoughtful perspective today from Brow Station ES. Basically Brown Station and Northwest High School are getting screwed by option H. https://moderatelymoco.com/brown-station-community-raises-segregation-concerns-over-mcps-boundary-proposal/ Increased FARMs, getting cut off from special programs, bussing longer distances. MCPS is segregating black and brown kids to Germantown. [/quote]

The same way Darnestown got segregated to Northwest despite being so close to QO? And now Poolesville? Spare me.[/quote]

Yeah I feel for Brown Station but I think this is really more of an issue of real segregation in neighborhoods than of MCPS manufacturing school based segregation. Diamond and Darnestown are both closer to QO than Brown Station is, so it’s certainly a bit odd that Darnestown and Diamond have been districted to Northwest and Brown Station to QO.

And the Clemente thing isn’t about concentrating lower income students - in fact Clemente’s FARMS % is going slightly down now - but is rather because of the new regional programming, where Brown Station needs to attend a region 6 MS and not a region 5 one. 
[/quote]

I’ll give you Darnestown and, of course, housing segregation is at the root of so much of this. But Diamond and Brown Station are literally walking distance from each other and, even though Diamond is slightly closer distance-wise, drive times are nearly identical for at least some of the communities given how Diamond is tucked back in a neighborhood and Brown Station is on a main road. Half of Diamond is at Northwest now and the FARMS rate significantly decreases at QO and significantly increases at Northwest (and not solely due to the Brown Station move). I tend to agree with you that MCPS isn’t deliberately trying to concentrate poverty - I lean more toward thinking this is coming from their fixation on contiguous boundaries and what looks good on a map. But given the move is basically neutral on two of the FAA factors (proximity and utilization) and clear net negative on the other two (demographic balance and stability) this feels like dereliction of duty. [/quote]

+1000

Taylor has shown us time and again in this process that demographics is not a factor for him, but pretty maps are. Pretty maps is not one of the FAA factors but he is the Superintendent and BOE is to afraid to question him[/quote]

"Pretty maps" could be considered satisfying three of the four factors. Policy FAA has 4 different criteria for boundary studies.

1. Demographic characteristics of student population
2. Geography
3. Stability of school assignments over time
4. Facility Utilization

Geography and Stability of School Assignments (if kids are closer to their schools, it's probably more likely they'll stay in that boundary, instead of in an island) are satisfied by student blocks being close to their schools. Facility Utilization has a segment about "should be fiscally responsible to minimize capital and operating costs whenever possible), so closer bus rides also matches that.

[b]Option 3 for the Crown / Damascus boundary study tried to emphasize Demographics and people HATED those maps. The problem is that the county residential areas have done a pretty good job of geographically sorting ourselves by income and wealth, so trying to make a nice, compact map ends up concentrating FARMS and EML to different schools.
[/b]
P.S. As a legal matter (not moral or "ought to be"), all four of those factors are considered aspirational and not mandatory.[/quote]

The policy doesn't say "if wealthy people who have benefited financially from structural racism want to ensure the persistence of structural racism, the BOE should ignore the demographic factor"[/quote]

The thing I learned from reading up on COMAR and the Clarksburg lawsuit, is that essentially the BOE and MCPS can do whatever they want to do as long as they follow the policy and procedures in Policy FAA.

So, they won't ignore the demographic factor, but they will pay lip service to it.

If we want MCPS and the BOE to prioritize the Demographic factor, then we have to elect board members who prioritize it.[/quote]

Tbh this is part of why this part of the map is so surprising to me. Because they are prioritizing it with moving Wootton in the face of such vocal opposition. So it feels really inconsistent that they’re overlooking it  here. I can’t imagine dealing with diamond families would be worse than dealing with the Wootton crowd. [/quote]

How much opposition is there really?  It looks like the same handful of people all over social media and a random lot of people at the BOE meeting.  That doesn't seem representative of the school.  How about the families who want to move to a new clean, safer building?[/quote]

Ding ding ding! You’re right, it’s the same 20 people posting on their site, Facebook page, WhatsApp, nextdoor and definitely on here! They had a last minute idea to actually claim they were fighting for equity which was laughable given all the crap they’ve spewed online about what they think they deserve! [/quote]

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