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

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[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]I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.[/quote]

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

[/quote]

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.[/quote]

Every single time I have read claims like this, and then looked into specifics of the actual boundary, it was immediately clear that the boundaries result from constraints from the distribution of population and placements of schools.

Boundaries will be improved where it's doable, but situations like what you're describing are likely to persist after redistricting. [/quote]

LOL which is easily corrected. Why I should pay for your kids to be bussed when there's a perfectly fine school  nearby.[/quote]

Fine isn’t always good enough for people who can afford better. [/quote]

If you choose private, that's your business, but I shouldn't be subsidizing segregation.[/quote]

You don’t subsidize segregation. People choose to segregate themselves. They want to live in neighborhoods with their own ethnic groups.  Desegregation is unnatural and costs lots of tax dollars for bussing and unnecessary emotional stress on people. Bussing failed decades ago and will never be successful. [/quote]

To a lesser extent, but where i have to object is these gerrymandered boundaries like take Wootton for example where 80% of the boundary is closer to another HS. [b]This was done specifically to create a segregated boundary[/b] and this is just one of many such examples.[/quote]

Citation needed.[/quote]

easy just look at the boundaries it's self-evident[/quote]

What a joke - we've posted before about the demographic make-up in Montgomery County 40-50 years ago.  It was overwhelmingly white (94.5% in 1970), and there were no boundaries for Wootton that would have sent a sizable number of black kids there.  There just weren't enough in the County.  The only way to be "desegregated" would be to bus just a few black (and even fewer Hispanics and Asians) to each school.  Boundaries designed back then were not due to segregation.

Now we are starting to have the same issue in reverse with White kids, who now are only 25% of MCPS students, a percentage getting lower each year.  Yes, you can bus that 25% all around the county, but for what purpose?  And is that remnant of the population really in the same few schools because of "segregation"?   [/quote]

At MCPS, it's not really about bussing white kids around. It's about spreading kids around from certain neighborhoods that will reduce some of the excessively high FARMS rates at schools.  [/quote]

They just tried this in Howard County. It doesn't work.

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

"The plan, announced by Dr. Martirano in August, would transfer 7,400 of the district’s 58,000 students to different schools in an effort to chip away at an uncomfortable truth: Some of the county’s campuses have become havens for rich students, while others serve large numbers of children whose families are struggling."

"The average bus ride for students throughout the county would increase by two miles each way, said Brian Bassett, a district spokesman."

That was five years ago. Look at the data from the schools featured in the article since then. These efforts did not make a dent:

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MD/schools/0042000816/school.aspx
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MD/schools/0042000762/school.aspx

Howard County is now facing a "school bus crisis":

https://www.wypr.org/the-baltimore-banner/2023-11-27/inside-howard-countys-school-bus-crisis-everything-that-went-wrong-before-zums-launch

MoCo, unlike HoCo, is bleeding population. It cannot afford to kneecap its best schools and alienate the families living there in order to accomplish absolutely nothing. Building new schools and improving the situation for overcrowded schools with very minimal changes to W schools is very possible and would be such an easy win for the County.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics