Anonymous wrote:Flood the zone. Move fast and break things. Seem familiar?

+1000

It's the only way to get the regional model through. Boundaries must be updated at least for Woodward.

Flood the zone. Move fast and break things. Seem familiar?

Anonymous wrote:The slides you share are very interesting. The December 5, 2024 deck says it’s literally outside the scope of work for FLO to conduct a program analysis. It says staff will develop a scope of work for analysis of equitable distribution of MCPS program offerings across the district that will run concurrently with the boundary study. So according to that, the only programmatic work that should have been conducted was a scope of work for a program analysis. There is nothing in there about these things being “inextricably linked.” These documents make it sound like the programmatic work would follow after the boundary work, which makes way more sense.

If you look at the November slides and article you:I'll see that Flo was supposed to do both and I guess the Board pushed back, so in December they pulled it out and said staff would do it instead? I want to watch that part of the November meeting to understand that better but haven't had a chance yet.

They wanted to big piss people off only once. 😁😁

As a tactic to ram through the boundary changes it makes a lot of sense as it gives everyone something else to focus on other than boundaries and makes it hard to understand what any particular neighborhood or person should fight for or against on the two fronts. We are being overwhelmed with information and potential changes.

The slides you share are very interesting. The December 5, 2024 deck says it’s literally outside the scope of work for FLO to conduct a program analysis. It says staff will develop a scope of work for analysis of equitable distribution of MCPS program offerings across the district that will run concurrently with the boundary study. So according to that, the only programmatic work that should have been conducted was a scope of work for a program analysis. There is nothing in there about these things being “inextricably linked.” These documents make it sound like the programmatic work would follow after the boundary work, which makes way more sense.

Whoops, and this link as well: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DBMMEZ5AF22E/$file/Cont%20Apprv%20RFP%204998.1%20Boundary%20Review%20Consultant%20241205%20PPT.pdf

It looks like they originally were going to have the boundary study contractor Flo Analytics do the program analysis as well, and then the BOE was concerned and they ended up switching it over to be done by staff instead:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2024/11/21/school-board-delay-boundary-contract-approval/
https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DB5TS478B637/$file/Cont%20Apprv%20RFP%204998.1%20Boundary%20Study%20Consultant%20241121%20PPT.pdf

If anyone wants to actually watch that part of the relevant Board meetings (or remembers it) that might give some insight:
https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DB5TQM785F06
https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DB8T4A75831C

It's clear they are not truly inextricably linked because the regions cover the whole county, but the boundary studies cover two smaller distinct areas which do not match up with the regions, and which also exclude several clusters entirely.

Sorry - typo in title - link.

I have yet to get an answer from anyone at MCPS on this so I’m posting this here—who in MCPS decided that the boundary study and program analysis needed to get linked up? Round 1 of the boundary study was all about the 4 factors. Only in round 2 of the boundary study did we find out that the 4 factors now really don’t matter, and the programming analysis is driving the options (aka the new proposed regions) because they are “inextricably linked” (as of what, last month?). Why?

The boundary study is highly complex, so who decided it was a good idea to layer in a total county-wide high school speciality curriculum revamp on top of that, while also trying to dismantle the NEC and DCC? The MCPS milk toast answers about equity are not a real explanation. Each of these alone has tremendous, significant changes and comes with massive implications for families, teachers, communities, and taxpayers. Each of these efforts should be done alone, done well, done over time, and done with adequate stakeholder engagement and input to do it right. The community is not on board, the broader PTA is not on board, and the teachers are not on board, yet they won’t delay the programming analysis. Why?