Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big winner in this situation will be private schools. Parents who are unhappy with the new school boundaries, and are affluent enough to do so, will simply send their kids to private schools. Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. Some families will end up in a less desirable academic situation with no ability to buy their way out. Montgomery county will have one less top rated school.

It’s so interesting cus they want to destroy it but they also love to publish it as a top rated school. Make it make sense.

Yawn.

This PP doesn’t care about the loss of a top school because s/he doesn’t live in Wootton.

MCPS wants to lift and shift Wootton kids to Crown, then change the name of Crown to Wootton in order to continue to trade on its reputation as a top school. This is what the developers around Crown want too because they can sell their townhomes at top dollar to gullible buyers. Why do you think the land for Crown (prime real estate) was given to MCPS for free?

Seems like the seeds for Option H were planted years ago, coupled with removing Wootton from the CIP and building neglect to encourage Wootton families to accept Crown. This would move the “Wootton” boundaries to where MCPS wanted them years ago through boundary studies but which Wootton parents strongly opposed. It would also cover up the risk of under enrollment at Crown and save $100M+ in renovation costs for the current Wootton building (which could be funneled into other pet projects).

MCPS doesn’t see Option H as a loss of a top school. It’s a win for them on multiple fronts.

Not the referenced pp. But when you put it this way, I'm sold! MCPS is completely unfair with some kids getting "top" schools and other kids getting, what, "bottom" schools? Step back and think of this in terms of morality and public policy rather than your own kid. If you were behind a veil of ignorance (you didn't know which school your own kid was in) would you intentionally design a system where there are "top" and "bottom" schools?

The bolded bit is the best argument I've seen in favor of Option H!

Your bias is showing. You know exactly what the PP meant. Care to explain how Wootton became a top performing school?

Hint: it wasn’t because MCPS funneled resources to Wootton at the expense of other schools.

Write it yourself. I dare you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big winner in this situation will be private schools. Parents who are unhappy with the new school boundaries, and are affluent enough to do so, will simply send their kids to private schools. Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. Some families will end up in a less desirable academic situation with no ability to buy their way out. Montgomery county will have one less top rated school.

It’s so interesting cus they want to destroy it but they also love to publish it as a top rated school. Make it make sense.

DESTROY

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.

Correct. And comparing SSIMS to Frost, Frost has 20% of students in its walk zone.

Wootton and Frost are not walkable to a high % of students compared to other schools.

That can be due to poor planning by MCPS.

But look at the utilization of the walk zone vs walk shed vs the two schools.

The difference between the students in the walk zone compared to the students in walkshed at SSIMS is 43.28 percent. Meaning 43.28 percent of the area within the 1.5 mile radius of SSIMS is determined not to be walkable by residents.

Compare this to Wootton which has 27.74 percent of students in the walk zone and 25.54 percent in the two mile walkshed. So they somehow have a negative number at -2.20, showing that the majority of the community in those two miles are walkable to the current Wootton location.

Or if you want to make it more equivalent, look at Frost, which is right next to Wootton and has a 1.5 mile walk zone. It has 20.78 percent students in it's walk zone and 21.97 students in it's 1.5 mile walkshed. And is only a difference of 1.19 percent.

So Frost and Wootton is more accessible to the homes in it's 1.5 to 2 mile radius.

Ok, but *not that many* homes are in the 1.5-2 mile radius, compared to other schools!

Like I said, it's poor planning by MCPS's part and what happens when try to overthink things and try to redraw boundaries based on anything other than proximity. Maybe not in regards to Option H, where supposedly they're just lifting the whole school and moving it (which I'm skeptical about the claim).

But in the first round of options they propose boundaries and zones based on diversity and going things like sending some Walter Johnson students to Kennedy. Which to my understanding is off the table. But it shows MCPS doesn't really plan well in terms of resources/money when doing things and leads to problems further down the road, which is what a lot of concerned families are saying. Where they doubt the projected numbers MCPS is using to base these decisions on based on the developments going on in the area.

Poor planning by both MCPS and Montgomery County.

Keep building houses and not bringing in jobs Montgomery County!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big winner in this situation will be private schools. Parents who are unhappy with the new school boundaries, and are affluent enough to do so, will simply send their kids to private schools. Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. Some families will end up in a less desirable academic situation with no ability to buy their way out. Montgomery county will have one less top rated school.

It’s so interesting cus they want to destroy it but they also love to publish it as a top rated school. Make it make sense.

Yawn.

This PP doesn’t care about the loss of a top school because s/he doesn’t live in Wootton.

MCPS wants to lift and shift Wootton kids to Crown, then change the name of Crown to Wootton in order to continue to trade on its reputation as a top school. This is what the developers around Crown want too because they can sell their townhomes at top dollar to gullible buyers. Why do you think the land for Crown (prime real estate) was given to MCPS for free?

Seems like the seeds for Option H were planted years ago, coupled with removing Wootton from the CIP and building neglect to encourage Wootton families to accept Crown. This would move the “Wootton” boundaries to where MCPS wanted them years ago through boundary studies but which Wootton parents strongly opposed. It would also cover up the risk of under enrollment at Crown and save $100M+ in renovation costs for the current Wootton building (which could be funneled into other pet projects).

MCPS doesn’t see Option H as a loss of a top school. It’s a win for them on multiple fronts.

The bolded is not a bd thing. It is sound fiscal management.

But it's imaginary. There are currently no funds budgeted for Wootton renovation, so there are no savings by not renovating. It's like me saying, "on second thought, I'm not going to buy a Porsche. I'll use the money elsewhere." What money? I wasn't planning on buying a Porsche and didn't have any money budgeted for one anyway. You can't "save" money that you weren't planning to spend. That's not fiscal management. It's just make believe. I mean, we could all be billionaires if accounting actually worked like that - I saved $50 million this year when I didn't buy a private island. Guess I'm set for retirement.

So now we’re left with MCPS needing to fill up a school that was already committed to GHS and its feeders?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.

Correct. And comparing SSIMS to Frost, Frost has 20% of students in its walk zone.

Wootton and Frost are not walkable to a high % of students compared to other schools.

That can be due to poor planning by MCPS.

But look at the utilization of the walk zone vs walk shed vs the two schools.

The difference between the students in the walk zone compared to the students in walkshed at SSIMS is 43.28 percent. Meaning 43.28 percent of the area within the 1.5 mile radius of SSIMS is determined not to be walkable by residents.

Compare this to Wootton which has 27.74 percent of students in the walk zone and 25.54 percent in the two mile walkshed. So they somehow have a negative number at -2.20, showing that the majority of the community in those two miles are walkable to the current Wootton location.

Or if you want to make it more equivalent, look at Frost, which is right next to Wootton and has a 1.5 mile walk zone. It has 20.78 percent students in it's walk zone and 21.97 students in it's 1.5 mile walkshed. And is only a difference of 1.19 percent.

So Frost and Wootton is more accessible to the homes in it's 1.5 to 2 mile radius.

Ok, but *not that many* homes are in the 1.5-2 mile radius, compared to other schools!

Like I said, it's poor planning by MCPS's part and what happens when try to overthink things and try to redraw boundaries based on anything other than proximity. Maybe not in regards to Option H, where supposedly they're just lifting the whole school and moving it (which I'm skeptical about the claim).

But in the first round of options they propose boundaries and zones based on diversity and going things like sending some Walter Johnson students to Kennedy. Which to my understanding is off the table. But it shows MCPS doesn't really plan well in terms of resources/money when doing things and leads to problems further down the road, which is what a lot of concerned families are saying. Where they doubt the projected numbers MCPS is using to base these decisions on based on the developments going on in the area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big winner in this situation will be private schools. Parents who are unhappy with the new school boundaries, and are affluent enough to do so, will simply send their kids to private schools. Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. Some families will end up in a less desirable academic situation with no ability to buy their way out. Montgomery county will have one less top rated school.

It’s so interesting cus they want to destroy it but they also love to publish it as a top rated school. Make it make sense.

Yawn.

This PP doesn’t care about the loss of a top school because s/he doesn’t live in Wootton.

MCPS wants to lift and shift Wootton kids to Crown, then change the name of Crown to Wootton in order to continue to trade on its reputation as a top school. This is what the developers around Crown want too because they can sell their townhomes at top dollar to gullible buyers. Why do you think the land for Crown (prime real estate) was given to MCPS for free?

Seems like the seeds for Option H were planted years ago, coupled with removing Wootton from the CIP and building neglect to encourage Wootton families to accept Crown. This would move the “Wootton” boundaries to where MCPS wanted them years ago through boundary studies but which Wootton parents strongly opposed. It would also cover up the risk of under enrollment at Crown and save $100M+ in renovation costs for the current Wootton building (which could be funneled into other pet projects).

MCPS doesn’t see Option H as a loss of a top school. It’s a win for them on multiple fronts.

Not the referenced pp. But when you put it this way, I'm sold! MCPS is completely unfair with some kids getting "top" schools and other kids getting, what, "bottom" schools? Step back and think of this in terms of morality and public policy rather than your own kid. If you were behind a veil of ignorance (you didn't know which school your own kid was in) would you intentionally design a system where there are "top" and "bottom" schools?

The bolded bit is the best argument I've seen in favor of Option H!

Your bias is showing. You know exactly what the PP meant. Care to explain how Wootton became a top performing school?

Hint: it wasn’t because MCPS funneled resources to Wootton at the expense of other schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.

Correct. And comparing SSIMS to Frost, Frost has 20% of students in its walk zone.

Wootton and Frost are not walkable to a high % of students compared to other schools.

That can be due to poor planning by MCPS.

But look at the utilization of the walk zone vs walk shed vs the two schools.

The difference between the students in the walk zone compared to the students in walkshed at SSIMS is 43.28 percent. Meaning 43.28 percent of the area within the 1.5 mile radius of SSIMS is determined not to be walkable by residents.

Compare this to Wootton which has 27.74 percent of students in the walk zone and 25.54 percent in the two mile walkshed. So they somehow have a negative number at -2.20, showing that the majority of the community in those two miles are walkable to the current Wootton location.

Or if you want to make it more equivalent, look at Frost, which is right next to Wootton and has a 1.5 mile walk zone. It has 20.78 percent students in it's walk zone and 21.97 students in it's 1.5 mile walkshed. And is only a difference of 1.19 percent.

So Frost and Wootton is more accessible to the homes in it's 1.5 to 2 mile radius.

Ok, but *not that many* homes are in the 1.5-2 mile radius, compared to other schools!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.

Correct. And comparing SSIMS to Frost, Frost has 20% of students in its walk zone.

Wootton and Frost are not walkable to a high % of students compared to other schools.

That can be due to poor planning by MCPS.

But look at the utilization of the walk zone vs walk shed vs the two schools.

The difference between the students in the walk zone compared to the students in walkshed at SSIMS is 43.28 percent. Meaning 43.28 percent of the area within the 1.5 mile radius of SSIMS is determined not to be walkable by residents.

Compare this to Wootton which has 27.74 percent of students in the walk zone and 25.54 percent in the two mile walkshed. So they somehow have a negative number at -2.20, showing that the majority of the community in those two miles are walkable to the current Wootton location.

Or if you want to make it more equivalent, look at Frost, which is right next to Wootton and has a 1.5 mile walk zone. It has 20.78 percent students in it's walk zone and 21.97 students in it's 1.5 mile walkshed. And is only a difference of 1.19 percent.

So Frost and Wootton is more accessible to the homes in it's 1.5 to 2 mile radius.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big winner in this situation will be private schools. Parents who are unhappy with the new school boundaries, and are affluent enough to do so, will simply send their kids to private schools. Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. Some families will end up in a less desirable academic situation with no ability to buy their way out. Montgomery county will have one less top rated school.

It’s so interesting cus they want to destroy it but they also love to publish it as a top rated school. Make it make sense.

Yawn.

This PP doesn’t care about the loss of a top school because s/he doesn’t live in Wootton.

MCPS wants to lift and shift Wootton kids to Crown, then change the name of Crown to Wootton in order to continue to trade on its reputation as a top school. This is what the developers around Crown want too because they can sell their townhomes at top dollar to gullible buyers. Why do you think the land for Crown (prime real estate) was given to MCPS for free?

Seems like the seeds for Option H were planted years ago, coupled with removing Wootton from the CIP and building neglect to encourage Wootton families to accept Crown. This would move the “Wootton” boundaries to where MCPS wanted them years ago through boundary studies but which Wootton parents strongly opposed. It would also cover up the risk of under enrollment at Crown and save $100M+ in renovation costs for the current Wootton building (which could be funneled into other pet projects).

MCPS doesn’t see Option H as a loss of a top school. It’s a win for them on multiple fronts.

The bolded is not a bd thing. It is sound fiscal management.

But it's imaginary. There are currently no funds budgeted for Wootton renovation, so there are no savings by not renovating. It's like me saying, "on second thought, I'm not going to buy a Porsche. I'll use the money elsewhere." What money? I wasn't planning on buying a Porsche and didn't have any money budgeted for one anyway. You can't "save" money that you weren't planning to spend. That's not fiscal management. It's just make believe. I mean, we could all be billionaires if accounting actually worked like that - I saved $50 million this year when I didn't buy a private island. Guess I'm set for retirement.

Anonymous wrote:^ people missing the point of H.

Wootton would be renovated *eventually* to be a holding school. This school needs serious renovation and repairs.

But, Wootton families are asking for immediate urgent fixes all while a brand new school will be open in two years a couple of miles away.

Given the budget cuts, H addresses both issues: move the students from a school that is falling a part to a brand new school, giving MCPS the time to renovate Wootton over a several years.

Not to throw anyone under the bus.

But you have to compare how many Wootton families were asking for a renovated/new school vs how many are protesting the move.

Here is the change.org petition asking for renovations with 1900 signatures:
https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-wootton

And this is the change.org for saying Wootton should stay in it's current location with 4124 signatures:
https://www.change.org/p/save-wootton-and-crown-high-school-say-no-to-option-h

Not beating up the petition organizer or throwing the area under the bus but the petition starter for the Justice for Wootton petition looks like they're in the Stone Mill or Dufief area. So is a little bit more less invested in the current location for Wootton. Especially if they live in the Stone Mill area and have kids go to Cabin John for their middle school.

And people that did sign the petition may not have known the alternative that MCPS would propose.

So the question is if both petitions were released at the same time, which one would get the most support from Wootton families?

Again I'm not beating up the petition starters at all. Wootton is one of the oldest buildings in MCPS and also has one of the worst CFI ratings. And never should have been passed on for renovations as often as it was.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.

Correct. And comparing SSIMS to Frost, Frost has 20% of students in its walk zone.

Wootton and Frost are not walkable to a high % of students compared to other schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big winner in this situation will be private schools. Parents who are unhappy with the new school boundaries, and are affluent enough to do so, will simply send their kids to private schools. Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. Some families will end up in a less desirable academic situation with no ability to buy their way out. Montgomery county will have one less top rated school.

It’s so interesting cus they want to destroy it but they also love to publish it as a top rated school. Make it make sense.

Yawn.

This PP doesn’t care about the loss of a top school because s/he doesn’t live in Wootton.

MCPS wants to lift and shift Wootton kids to Crown, then change the name of Crown to Wootton in order to continue to trade on its reputation as a top school. This is what the developers around Crown want too because they can sell their townhomes at top dollar to gullible buyers. Why do you think the land for Crown (prime real estate) was given to MCPS for free?

Seems like the seeds for Option H were planted years ago, coupled with removing Wootton from the CIP and building neglect to encourage Wootton families to accept Crown. This would move the “Wootton” boundaries to where MCPS wanted them years ago through boundary studies but which Wootton parents strongly opposed. It would also cover up the risk of under enrollment at Crown and save $100M+ in renovation costs for the current Wootton building (which could be funneled into other pet projects).

MCPS doesn’t see Option H as a loss of a top school. It’s a win for them on multiple fronts.

Not the referenced pp. But when you put it this way, I'm sold! MCPS is completely unfair with some kids getting "top" schools and other kids getting, what, "bottom" schools? Step back and think of this in terms of morality and public policy rather than your own kid. If you were behind a veil of ignorance (you didn't know which school your own kid was in) would you intentionally design a system where there are "top" and "bottom" schools?

The bolded bit is the best argument I've seen in favor of Option H!

Only people live in crown would be so in favor of H. Others don’t care since they don’t gain anything anyway. Saving tax dollars? No such thing. It’ll be wasted one way or another.

The new school will not be called Wootton. The name change issue was never fully closed and any school on that list, that will be rebuilt/relocated will also be renamed. The main reason that the renaming was temporarily delayed was cost and if you do it simultaneously with a rebuild/relocation, there is way less added cost.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.

And if anything the gap would be bigger because the walk zone ideally wouldn't be expanded if it's determined the area outside of the walking zone to not be walkable. Unless they're taking age into account. ie high schoolers may be a bit more mature and safer for them to walk through some areas compared to middle school students.

Anonymous wrote:"If you look at it, Wootton is probably one of the high schools that has the highest density of houses within it's one mile walking radius in a suburban/neighborhood setting. So when people point out how Blair relocated, they don't account for how Blair was and is at a major busy intersection and was always mostly made up of commuters and bus riders.

Take a look at page 42 of this document: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteasset...rt/02d_proximity.pdf
It says only 8.1 percent of Blair students are in the walk zone for Blair. If using the 2 mile walkshed it would be 31.22 percent."

Just on this point, I think PP is misinformed. The linked document appears to reference Blair's current location; the school was moved over 20 years ago. It's previous location was near DT Silver Spring and very walkable for many students.

Silver Spring International is in the old Blair Building right?

It's a smaller walk zone (1.5 mile) but it's numbers are on page 529 of the document.

And it shows 23.24 percent of the students are in the walk zone, while 66.52 percent would've been in the walkshed.

I don't know if the extra half mile would close the gap between the two.