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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]Springbrook to Whitman, avoiding highways shows 13.1 miles 34 minutes
Springbrook to WJ, avoiding highways, 10.7 miles, 30 minutes

Blake to WJ, avoiding highways, 12.9 miles, 32 minutes

Watkins Mill High School to Wootton, 10.5 miles, 30 minutes
Watkins Mill High School to QO, 6.7 miles, 20 minutes

Are those far off from what they have now:
Kennedy to Wootton, 9.4 miles, 25 minutes
Damascus to Quince Orchard, 14.8 miles, 30 minutes[/quote]

They are already pairing Whitman with a bunch of lower tier high poverty schools from the DCC. Even BCC has its problems. There isn’t enough rich schools to give everyone a seat at one. At some point your kids will have to go to school with the neighbors you chose. What happens when the W kids reject a watered down magnet and just stay home as many do already. If the rich kids don’t opt in how many seats can they truly offer the kids who want out from the poorer schools in the cluster. You’ll have kids picking the rich school’s program even if they don’t care for the subject matter and if it is even the least bit selective the and full of slots will go to the brightest middle class kids leaving the typical poorest kids once again stuck in their home school now with less middle kids. [/quote]

I don’t believe these regional programs will appeal to W students at all. Instead, they simply take away their opportunity to participate in the magnet experience. While there may be a few slots available at W schools for students from other schools, these will likely be the weakest programs since MCPS tends to place the more popular programs at lower-performing schools
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MCPS is trying to discourage W kids from going to the magnets.  They feel W kids already have enrichment activities and opportunities. So, they want to keep the magnets for mostly the eastern side and the TP/SS area in south MoCo.  That is why they are going to put the watered down magnets in the eastern part of the county.  [/quote]

Your opinion on current magnet schools is irrelevant to the discussion, which is about the future when those magnets will not exist and instead we will have several regions, each with the same specialty programs. Only one of those regions is in the southern part of the county. It has not been determined yet what and where the specialty programs would be in each region. Once they do exist, it would not make any sense to actively discourage “W kids” from going to them. But yes, often specialty magnet programs are placed in schools that need to attract more kids. So a “W kid” might need to ride a bus to a “lesser” neighborhood for that opportunity.

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I just don’t see how this setup is going to make the new programs successful. You’re getting rid of well-established flagship programs and replacing them with brand-new, untested regional ones and many of which are being placed in low-performing schools.

Why would students from better-performing schools want to go to those programs? And if these programs are mainly for students in struggling schools, why not just add them there like we’ve done before?

It feels like we’re trying to build something new by tearing down everything that’s already working. That doesn’t seem like the right approach.
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I understand that some people are upset that Blair will no longer draw from half the county but saying we’re “getting rid” of it seems dramatic.[/quote]
But they  are going to get rid of it, and replace it with regional ones.[/quote]

Are they?  I was under the impression a STEM magnet would most likely remain at Blair, for example.[/quote]
Why would you assume that?[/quote]

Because it has been a successful program and existing teachers and resources are there.  There’s no reason to move it.  If they announce they are scrapping it, I will concede you have a point.  As of now I would be astounded.[/quote]
MCPS makes astounding decisions. Are you new to MCPS?[/quote]

I mean yes, there's no guarantees of anything, for sure.  But that doesn't mean it's not highly, highly likely that the Blair SMCS magnet will remain at Blair (albeit potentially with different eligibility.). There are a ton of good reasons they'd want to keep it there and no good ones I can think of they'd want to move it (except that possibly they might not want to keep both SMCS and CAP there, but if so, they would almost certainly move CAP rather than SMCS, and they might just let Blair keep them both.)[/quote]

Blair is likely to keep both. They aren’t offered at other schools in the region. [/quote]

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