Reply to New boundary study for Churchill, Clarksburg, Damascus, Gaithersburg, RM, Northwest, Poolesville, QO, SV, WM, Wootton

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Reply to "New boundary study for Churchill, Clarksburg, Damascus, Gaithersburg, RM, Northwest, Poolesville, QO, SV, WM, Wootton"

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[quote=Anonymous]I think the dynamics of redistricting are very interesting. HoCo had its very public and controversial redistricting in 2019, which made national headlines:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/howard-county-school-redistricting.html

The article above tells a story of their redistricting plan, part of which involved changing the boundaries of River Hill high school, which is relatively (very) highly ranked, and Wilde Lake high school, which is relatively lower ranked. The plan was described as efforts for integration of the two populations, which had very different demographic makeups.

But in hindsight, if you look at how the demographics actually changed during that time period, you do see a drop off of White students from River Hill, but surprisingly there is also a drop off of White students in Wilde Lake during the same time period. Additionally, the percentage of FARMS students at Wilde Lake did not seem to appreciably change.

(data from https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MD/schools/0042000762/school.aspx and https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MD/schools/0042000816/school.aspx)

It seems likely that parents who were redistricted to a school that is perceived to be much worse did not find the situation acceptable and did not opt to go along with it.

The reason I bring this all up is that in MoCo, when they redraw the borders, we are likely to see similar efforts to shift demographic makeups of the schools. If this occurs, we have historical data that strongly suggests the following will happen:

1) Home values of schools which change to lower ranked schools will drop
2) Some percentage of families who are shifted to a lower ranked school will feel pressured to leave

If you are a family described in 2) above, and you're looking to move your kids to the best school you can afford. Moving to (or within) MoCo is very difficult at the moment because of how competitive the market is- you can see this reflected by the fact that counties such as Frederick are rapidly growing, while MoCo is shrinking:

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/data-shows-montgomery-county-residents-are-leaving-for-frederick-county

This is exacerbated by point 1), which suggests these families would have fewer resources to work with due to their home equity taking an immediate hit. For these families, moving to somewhere like Urbana with cheaper houses and excellent schools is likely to be more appealing and achievable.

In summary, I believe historical data suggests redistricting neighborhoods out of highly ranked schools may not achieve the desired demographic changes in both schools, but may instead move upper middle class families out of the district proportionally to the magnitude of the changes.[/quote]

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