Reply to Option H is permanent and the old Wootton HS campus will be closed for good?

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Reply to "Option H is permanent and the old Wootton HS campus will be closed for good?"

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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]I"m confused. If they use Crown for Wootton, and move one or two additional GHS neighborhoods to Crown, how does that the overcrowding at the neighboring schools like RM, QO, NW?[/quote]

It doesn't.  It achieves the following:

1. Removes the political pressure from Wootton families on MCPS to remediate (not renovate) issues at Wootton
2. Removes Wootton from the Capital Improvement Plan in 2035 (after being removed twice previously, but now permanently - third time's a charm)
3. Moves the Wootton boundary to include GHS neighborhoods by moving Wootton 3 miles, achieving previous boundary study goals/recommendations that were rejected
4. Redistributes the high achievers from Wootton to a new school and mixes them with kids from much lower-achieving school(s), hoping for improved grades by peer influence
5. Removes the political pressure from vocal, non-W school neighborhoods that such schools are bastions of white, privileged, rich families
6. Frees up prime real estate on Wootton Parkway for substantial residential development, enriching a developer that will make campaign contributions for years to come
7. Covers up a mistake by MCPS in accepting "free land" and building a new high school in a congested, high-traffic area right off the highway
8. Generates more tax revenues from increased business at the shops and restaurants surrounding Crown (and potential campaign contributions for years to come from those businesses)[/quote]

Can you expand a little more on your #4?[/quote]

Not the pp but It means Wootton will not be a top performing school anymore. That list that comes out with the best high schools in MD-it will no longer be on it. Basically it will probably be a very small step up from Gaithersburg HS. [/quote]

What lists?
Why do you think that will happen?
What actual impact would it have if that does happen?[/quote]

US News and World report-heard of that? Wootton is ranked 191 nationally. 
What makes a school great? It’s usually a very strong and active PTA. It correlates to high parent involvement. Rosemont basically has no PTA. And the reviews of Fields road are absolutely awful. The impact will be much time that is supposed to be for instruction now devoted to managing behavior issues. [/quote]

Are you concerned about dilution?  Because the Wootton cohort & PTA would pretty much stay intact with a move to the Crown location.  What does the ranking, in and of itself, generate, aside from marginally higher real estate prices?  The understanding is that it does not result in preferential admission to college on an individual basis.

High school is by period/course.  The likely placement of academically minded Wootton students in honors-level/advanced classes, which certainly stay available with any reasonably sized portion of the intact cohort, would tend to keep them with others similarly interested and less prone to being difficult (in the manner about which you may be expressing concern) in the classroom, even if from (gasp!) Fields Road.[/quote]

Did you ever actually go to high school? You think kids are only with the kids they are in classes with and that’s it? It’s a community. There is so much more to it than just being in classes with other similarly academic kids. [/quote]

Correct.  If there are gangs or drugs, even the most academically-oriented kids will not be immune.  There will be peer pressure to get involved with both, whether as a perpetrator or a victim.  Both are fairly limited at Wootton and Wootton families want to keep it that way.[/quote]

Exactly. I actually don’t think any of these people thinking it’s no big deal have any idea the real problems some of these schools have. I went to a terrible high school in another state. There were active gang members and it was scary every single day and completely colored my high school experience in a negative light. I would never want my kids to have to deal with it. The high performing schools do have drug problems but honestly Although that’s not great, I will still take it over violence.

[b]Gaithersburg has active gang members and lots of behavior issues[/b]. At least one of the feeder schools that Crown is getting if Wootton moves is one that feeds to GHS. I’m not sure why people think that somehow we are going to be ok with this. If we were ok with it then we would have moved to a much cheaper house in the GHS attendance zone.

And to add, many many of us in the Wootton cluster stretched to be able to get a house in that zone. Many of us are not rich at all and decided the investment in our child’s education was more important than many other things. We are not rich, not by a long shot. So losing considerable money in our investment does matter-it affects our children’s future.

Of course there are exceptions like anything else, but when a child has parents that don’t show any interest in their education, provide no consequences and show no concern when their kid is causing trouble at school-that’s a problem. Has this happened in our cluster with a child? Absolutely-but the difference is the PTA is strong and collectively doesn’t accept it so pushes for these issues to be dealt with. Once a good piece of Wootton gets pushed out-And is replaced with GHS kids it will just be a downward spiral. I believe most people who judge went to excellent schools and truly don’t know the difference.

So you can think it’s gross all you want. I want my kids safe. I want them to go to school without being scared.

[/quote]
And Wootton has lots and lots of drugs [/quote]

And if you read my post-I acknowledged that. Still think it’s better than violence. I can do my best to teach my kids to make good choices and not engage with drugs but I can prevent someone from trying to hurt them at school. [/quote]

Serious question- why would any of these "gang members" try to hurt your kid at school?  [/quote]

Why even put them in an environment where gangs, drugs, etc... in the first place?  On the subject at hand, why destroy an extremely high achieving school by increasing the probability that gangs and drugs will infiltrate that school?

As for doing what's right for MCPS more broadly, is it in the best interests of MCPS to lose a high achieving school just to fill a new building?  Wouldn't it be better to use that excess capacity as a holding school - especially for kids who are attending schools with gangs, drugs, etc....?  If Wootton is forced to move, many parents who bought in Wootton over the past few years will send their kids to private school or sell their houses (possibly at a loss) and move elsewhere - maybe even out of state.  This will exacerbate the drop in Crown attendance and lead to a drop in MoCo tax revenues, making MCPS' financial position even worse than it is now.

But hey, at least the haters can say they finally destroyed one of those evil "W" schools....[/quote]

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