Reply to When is the plan for new HS programs coming out?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As far as I can tell no one is talking about scrapping the Blair magnet.  Presumably the only change *might* be that it is now a regional not a countywide program, correct?

I am curious, although I don't pretend to have any idea what the answer is, what percentage of current magnet students at Blair come outside the proposed region.  I understand the entire county is eligible, but I'm also sure there must be parts of the county where few students would consider making the commute.[/quote]

Folks have gone through in the past and done an "analysis" of the magnet directory. Consistently, most kids come from within the DCC. At one point I think the other "most sending schools" were WJ and Wootton. But if we assume 100 kids per grade, I have no doubt that you can find 100 capable kids in each grade across Blair, Einstein, Northwood, B-CC, and Whitman.

Or across WJ, Churchill, Woodward, and Wheaton.

I don't even think there would be a drop in rigor/level of preparation. [/quote]

There are about 900 students who apply, lets throw in a 100 more who may not have due to location/curriculum.  So, lets say out of those maybe 200 are not qualified.  They easily could do one school with just a magnet program with 500 students per year.[/quote]

Having a 500-kids-per-year program seems like the worst of all possible worlds.  Transportation would still be difficult/impossible for many families, there'd be lots of faraway kids who do attend but struggle to participate in extracurriculars and feel part of the school community, but then things would be way easier for families who happen to live nearby which would be unfair.   But then you'd still deal with the "watering down" where parents are freaking out about the impact of having kids attend who are a little lower than the top 1% of the county (I don't get the issues but clearly some parents think it's problematic.)   If you're going to increase the number of kids (which I think you should!), you should at least spread them out among schools to make the programs more accessible to more families.[/quote]

You’re describing TJ in Fairfax county which is very successful and a top high school in US[/quote]

Well if that's true, either Fairfax kids are way smarter than MoCo kids, or the parents here who think that there aren't possibly 500 kids per year to support rigorous regional magnets in MCPS are full of crap...[/quote]

Six small regional programs can’t match the impact of one unified school. With 500 students per grade in one place, you get more clubs, advanced classes, and shared resources. Splitting into groups of 80 waters everything down. Collective strength beats fragmentation.

[/quote]

You are assuming there are only 500 kids per grade in the entire district capable of doing the work. That's absurd. [/quote]

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