Reply to Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study

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Reply to "Taylor's Feb Rec for Crown Boundary Study"

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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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That testimony makes a great point. Why rush to close Wootton and move its kids to Crown?  Is it to avoid the embarrassment of using it as a holding school for Magritte kids?  Don’t want those kids using the shiny new building?  Seems like the Magruder families want Crown and the Wootton families don’t. If it’s a question of money, wouldn’t it make sense to do this - unless MCPS has no intention of renovating Magruder in the next 5-10 years. And if it does, then there is money to remediate Wootton where it is AND move Magruder kids to Crown for a few years. Everybody wins. [/quote]

No, everyone does not win.

If you are from the Magruder community, I empathize with your frustration, and I am fine with you advocating for your own community and fighting to get what you want.  But please, for the love of G-d, let's have these Rockville folks (the city council, Wootton et. al) STOP acting like they are being gracious by saying that, "In addition to Wootton and Magruder students being held at Crown, we'll allow local kids (FRES and Rosemont Island 8) to attend the holding school too XD XD XD".  I hope you all realize how ridiculous that statement is.  So my children from the Fields Road cluster should start off for two years as a teeny tiny minority at "Magruder @ Crown", then two years later as the same teeny tiny minority at "Wootton @ Crown" and have no home school of their own?  It's a completely ridiculous suggestion.  You need to level and accept that when you fly signs stating "CROWN = HOLDING SCHOOL" you are NOT being equitable; you are advoacting AGAINST the interests of the local population for whom Crown was designed and by whom impact taxes were paid.  Again, if that is what you want to do for your community.  By all means, go ahead.  But don't act as though this does not affect others. I believe most of us from FRES and Crown would prefer to stay at QO and/or GHS than to become a tiny minority for years on end in an indefinite holding school.

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Magruder PP and I’m going to be completely candid with you.

You are right. I understand that if Magruder is at Crown, the immediate families around Crown will not get their permanent school that they so desire.

However, no plan is perfect. And truthfully, in any type of plan, someone will feel like they “lost.” So if we must have a loser and a “winner,” I think we need to prioritize existing communities. There is no Crown community or school yet. No one is taking away your school because it doesn’t exist yet. Magruder exists, though people seem to forget that. Prioritize communities that have been waiting before Crown broke ground. Prioritize schools like Magruder that have high FARM rates.

In the end, your community may very well get your permanent school with Wootton. It may still be option H in the long run.

Remove all personal stakes. Pretend you don’t have kids in the system at all and you are some random person from another state, what is most fair? Can any objective person say prioritizing Magruder is not the most objectively fair option?

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Thanks for taking the time to try to think this through, but your argument is flawed because these ARE existing communities - not simply a new one built exclusively from new construction.

We have existing communities to which we pertain.  Fields Road and Diamond Island #2 have been at QO for many, many years. Downtown Crown and the area around Belward Farm have also been at Gaithersburg High School for many years.  For these areas, Option G gives them NO opportunity to remain with their current school community, nor to join a new one (which Modified Option H does).  They are simply forced to be a pariah at another school, or to join a new school community as an island (Options E and F), which is in clear violation of FAA.

To go back to your thought experiment of what someone from an entirely different state would say, I think the real answer would be that there should be no place in the county where existing communities are forced to be in a high school to which they are only visitors and hence have no home community of their own.  It's simply unacceptable and unparalleled across the entire county.

To that effect, if you are serious that you only want this school for YOU and not Wootton, I would suggest you reach across the aisle and try to make alliances beyond the Wootton cluster.  If Crown needs to be used for two years to get a specific school through, that is one thing - if and only if my kids can stay in a REAL community and not as pariahs at a holding school.  This is what happened with Northwood @ Woodword, and Woodward was okay with this because there was an end date in sight and because its would-be students could continue to be part of their current communities until then (WJ and Wheaton primarily).  What you are asking of Fields Road, Diamond Island #2 and, Rosemont Island #8 is simply unacceptable: no child should have no school community of their own to which to pertain for 4 years. [/quote]

Ok fine then allow Magruder to use Crown for a defined time period as in Woodward like you mentioned. Then create a permanent school/community for Crown/Wootton.[/quote]

What you are advocating for is NOT like that was done with Woodward because you are advocating that an entire ES + adjacent islands have no home community for multiple years.  If you want people from FRES and Rosemont Island #8 to support this then you need to specifically request that it be:

A) Solely for Magruder's 2-year renovation, after which the school will open fully.

B) That current boundaries continue until Crown opens.

Otherwise, what you are asking for is not like what occurred with Woodward, and is unprecedentedly detrimental to existing communities close to the Crown Farm site.

If you don't care, okay.  But don't act like it's benevolent to allow these areas to have no home school for four years or longer. [/quote]

I’m that PP. that’s actually what I meant. Fine as in let Magruder use crown, keep fields road, rosemont, etc. exactly where they are now. Then in 2 years, open Crown fully up as a permanent school with whatever boundaries the Board deem fit be it Wootton at crown or crown at crown or whatever—not my monkey, not my circus.[/quote]

but that's assuming there's funds to renovate magruder in 2 years when the $ isn't there! So in 2027-28 you want magruder to go to crown as a holding school till when? the cows come home? [/quote]

Ever consider they want their kids in a safer school as that facility has serious issues.[/quote]

Exactly. I want Magruder anywhere where ceilings aren’t falling down.[/quote]

I understand that overcrowding is an issue at other schools (though mcps is saying enrollment is decreasing so overcrowding seems to be solving itself), but what is worse? Overcrowding or falling ceilings?

Personally, I rather send my kid to a school that is overcrowded vs one that is literally falling apart and an accident waiting to happen.

Prioritize Magruder and let Magruder use crown.[/quote]

Maybe some of the $$ needed to rebuild Magruder can come from knocking down wasteful spendin on the current CIP? Like, why is Cold Spring still on it? Now that those neighborhoods are being redistricted to Churchill, couldn't that small school just be closed with kids sent to nearby Churchill feeders like Beverly Farms and Wayside?

Expediting the closure of these wasteful ESs could help expedite the process of constructing a new Magruder facility. [/quote]

The schools on it also need repairs.  You are being obnoxious.[/quote]

How is it obnoxious to propose taking Cold Spring off the CIP if it is more fiscally responsible and will close anyways? Seems like mentioning Cold Spring touched a nerve because no other schools were even mentioned. The truth is there are so many other schools that really need the money too - 60M freed up is nothing to sneeze at here. [/quote]

As far as I understand it, Cold Spring will only be redistricted to Churchill IF modified H actually passes. So if Crown as a holding school is what actually happens I don’t think the change actually applies. Someone correct me if i’m wrong on this. So if Cold Spring closes what happens then? What ES would Cold Spring be sent to if they are not actually in the Churchill district? [/quote]

Likely will still happen now even if Crown is used as a holding school for a few years. [/quote]

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