Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Chevy Chase parent I would want my children to attend the less crowded school WITH the Silver Spring kids they have been paired with since Kindergarten. I would also like them to be with the NCC kids they attended K-2 and are currently on sports teams right now, but would give that up for a less crowded school.

I currently have a child at Westland and the overcrowding is ridiculous. Really no child can express their voice or learn much in a class with 35 other kids, especially with this dumbed down curriculum.

Middle school is not like elementary school, there is much less parental involvement in the school. The distance is not that big of a deal, it's a pain on school event nights during rush hour but that is just a handful of times a year.

If I was a Rock Creek Forest parent, I would want to continue to go to Westland. I wouldn't want my kids crammed into a new middle school just because it was closer.

We are talking about maybe a 10-20 minute difference in bus rides. The morning bus picks up so early it misses rush hour, and the afternoon just catches a piece of the beginning of high traffic time.

What is unfair is to bus the CCES and NCC kids back and forth in the BCC cluster and then continue to place them in overcrowded schools when the opportunity exists to split the populations in a fair socio-economic manner.

This is astonishing! The sole reason that RCF supported #6 is for the FARMS populations overwhelming support of it. They would be most impacted and they view things differently i.e. I would rather have a crowded school than to not ever be able to visit the school. So you are addressing the wrong people in this forum and are disconnected to the population who is advocating for this.

Hello? It's not all about RCF. There are other schools involved here, too. They're concerns should just get flushed because RCF doesn't agree with them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At any moment in this process CCES (tweedledee) and NCC (tweedledum) from the Triad can step up and offer themselves to be bussed to Westland in place of RCF so you want be uncomfortable in the overcrowded/poor middle school. Go for it!

Wait, I thought the triad was Somerset, Westbrook, and Bethesda. Wouldn't NCC and CC just be a duo? In any case, that's a snappy response to avoid an issue you don't want to address, but the reality is that those schools have no ability to self-select, and you know that.

You keep pushing this narrative about a "poor" middle school. If that helps you get through side-stepping substantive issues, fine, but no one here is complaining about their kids going to school with so-called "poor" kids. The issue is one of physical capacity. The new school starts off at a deficit compared to Westland. According to the Superintendent's report, it hits 99% capacity within five years, before any development kicks in. That's a stupid result when the whole point of building the school was to relieve over-crowding.

CCES, NCC and RHPS = Triad

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At any moment in this process CCES (tweedledee) and NCC (tweedledum) from the Triad can step up and offer themselves to be bussed to Westland in place of RCF so you want be uncomfortable in the overcrowded/poor middle school. Go for it!

Wait, I thought the triad was Somerset, Westbrook, and Bethesda. Wouldn't NCC and CC just be a duo? In any case, that's a snappy response to avoid an issue you don't want to address, but the reality is that those schools have no ability to self-select, and you know that.

You keep pushing this narrative about a "poor" middle school. If that helps you get through side-stepping substantive issues, fine, but no one here is complaining about their kids going to school with so-called "poor" kids. The issue is one of physical capacity. The new school starts off at a deficit compared to Westland. According to the Superintendent's report, it hits 99% capacity within five years, before any development kicks in. That's a stupid result when the whole point of building the school was to relieve over-crowding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Chevy Chase parent I would want my children to attend the less crowded school WITH the Silver Spring kids they have been paired with since Kindergarten. I would also like them to be with the NCC kids they attended K-2 and are currently on sports teams right now, but would give that up for a less crowded school.

I currently have a child at Westland and the overcrowding is ridiculous. Really no child can express their voice or learn much in a class with 35 other kids, especially with this dumbed down curriculum.

Middle school is not like elementary school, there is much less parental involvement in the school. The distance is not that big of a deal, it's a pain on school event nights during rush hour but that is just a handful of times a year.

If I was a Rock Creek Forest parent, I would want to continue to go to Westland. I wouldn't want my kids crammed into a new middle school just because it was closer.

We are talking about maybe a 10-20 minute difference in bus rides. The morning bus picks up so early it misses rush hour, and the afternoon just catches a piece of the beginning of high traffic time.

What is unfair is to bus the CCES and NCC kids back and forth in the BCC cluster and then continue to place them in overcrowded schools when the opportunity exists to split the populations in a fair socio-economic manner.

This is astonishing! The sole reason that RCF supported #6 is for the FARMS populations overwhelming support of it. They would be most impacted and they view things differently i.e. I would rather have a crowded school than to not ever be able to visit the school. So you are addressing the wrong people in this forum and are disconnected to the population who is advocating for this.

Anonymous wrote:At any moment in this process CCES (tweedledee) and NCC (tweedledum) from the Triad can step up and offer themselves to be bussed to Westland in place of RCF so you want be uncomfortable in the overcrowded/poor middle school. Go for it!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Chevy Chase parent I would want my children to attend the less crowded school WITH the Silver Spring kids they have been paired with since Kindergarten. I would also like them to be with the NCC kids they attended K-2 and are currently on sports teams right now, but would give that up for a less crowded school.

I currently have a child at Westland and the overcrowding is ridiculous. Really no child can express their voice or learn much in a class with 35 other kids, especially with this dumbed down curriculum.

Middle school is not like elementary school, there is much less parental involvement in the school. The distance is not that big of a deal, it's a pain on school event nights during rush hour but that is just a handful of times a year.

If I was a Rock Creek Forest parent, I would want to continue to go to Westland. I wouldn't want my kids crammed into a new middle school just because it was closer.

We are talking about maybe a 10-20 minute difference in bus rides. The morning bus picks up so early it misses rush hour, and the afternoon just catches a piece of the beginning of high traffic time.

What is unfair is to bus the CCES and NCC kids back and forth in the BCC cluster and then continue to place them in overcrowded schools when the opportunity exists to split the populations in a fair socio-economic manner.

This is astonishing! The sole reason that RCF supported #6 is for the FARMS populations overwhelming support of it. They would be most impacted and they view things differently i.e. I would rather have a crowded school than to not ever be able to visit the school. So you are addressing the wrong people in this forum and are disconnected to the population who is advocating for this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that the superintendent's recommendation isn't the final say. Doesn't the BOE have to accept the recommendation? As an RCFES parent, I leaned toward wanting the kids to go to Westland. It would be nice to be closer to home, but I worry that a few vocal CCES parents will make those kids feel unwelcome, and will continue to feel (quite irrationally, in my view) that their personal resources are being directed toward lower SES kids.

Bethesda has always resented the RCF kids.

That's interesting. Do you have a source for that? Do you think they resent the RCF kids, or do they RCF parents that, for the sake of their transportation convenience, want two inequitable schools to exist in the cluster with the potential of exacerbating the opportunity gap?

The objections are famously vitriolic when they included a silver spring school in the cluster and then they worked to close it which the county was prepared to do in 1982 to placate them. It was only after the threat of losing federal school money by resegragrating that the county dropped the plan to close the school.

I don't speak for those parents but I am pretty sure they weren't focused on convenience or the opportunities afforded those kids. They knew it was a harbinger for the darkening of the county and they were afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda. Basically the same objections you hear today when people try to add density to better neighborhoods.

Those objections took place almost 35 years ago. Aren’t at least some of those people dead or on their way out the door? Couldn’t it be possible that some of the people in the cluster actually care about the opportunity gap?

Several PPs arguments against the superintendent’s recommendation seem to be making your point about an equitable education. Unless I’m misreading what they said, one PP basically asked why the superintendent would recommend creating a rich, white school in the west that’s not full, and an overcrowded school in the east that’s smaller and has less facilities. Isn’t that concern for the opportunity gap?

I’m not sure what you mean by, “afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda.” House prices are set in a market. Anyway, the disparity you’re pointing to actually is another strike against the superintendent’s decision. Why create two fundamentally unequal educational environments and leave the lesser facility to the more diverse of the two?

It's great for people to want more diverse schools, but I don't think the answer to that is bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes. RCF did substantial outreach to its community, including targeted outreach to the more diverse areas that feed into the school -- and the overwhelming majority wanted a closer school. It appears that this factor outweighed the over-crowdedness issue and the relatively small difference in diversity that would result at the two schools. Maybe the Superintendent thought that it would be pretty lame to disregard the input of those lower-SES and/or minority communities.

I think that the "triad" wants everything their way and is trying to pull in the Western half of the cluster when they really don't care. Yes, Somerset, Westbrook and Bethesda all supported Option #1 for the same reason that RCF supported Option #6, i.e. they want to stay at the closest school first and foremost. Now that Option #7 has been pushed forward, Somerset Westbrook and Bethesda are basically shrugging their shoulders because it doesn't look that much different to them than Option #1. However, CCES and NCC are now upset that they have to go to school with poor kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that the superintendent's recommendation isn't the final say. Doesn't the BOE have to accept the recommendation? As an RCFES parent, I leaned toward wanting the kids to go to Westland. It would be nice to be closer to home, but I worry that a few vocal CCES parents will make those kids feel unwelcome, and will continue to feel (quite irrationally, in my view) that their personal resources are being directed toward lower SES kids.

Bethesda has always resented the RCF kids.

That's interesting. Do you have a source for that? Do you think they resent the RCF kids, or do they RCF parents that, for the sake of their transportation convenience, want two inequitable schools to exist in the cluster with the potential of exacerbating the opportunity gap?

The objections are famously vitriolic when they included a silver spring school in the cluster and then they worked to close it which the county was prepared to do in 1982 to placate them. It was only after the threat of losing federal school money by resegragrating that the county dropped the plan to close the school.

I don't speak for those parents but I am pretty sure they weren't focused on convenience or the opportunities afforded those kids. They knew it was a harbinger for the darkening of the county and they were afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda. Basically the same objections you hear today when people try to add density to better neighborhoods.

Those objections took place almost 35 years ago. Aren’t at least some of those people dead or on their way out the door? Couldn’t it be possible that some of the people in the cluster actually care about the opportunity gap?

Several PPs arguments against the superintendent’s recommendation seem to be making your point about an equitable education. Unless I’m misreading what they said, one PP basically asked why the superintendent would recommend creating a rich, white school in the west that’s not full, and an overcrowded school in the east that’s smaller and has less facilities. Isn’t that concern for the opportunity gap?

I’m not sure what you mean by, “afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda.” House prices are set in a market. Anyway, the disparity you’re pointing to actually is another strike against the superintendent’s decision. Why create two fundamentally unequal educational environments and leave the lesser facility to the more diverse of the two?

It's great for people to want more diverse schools, but I don't think the answer to that is bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes. RCF did substantial outreach to its community, including targeted outreach to the more diverse areas that feed into the school -- and the overwhelming majority wanted a closer school. It appears that this factor outweighed the over-crowdedness issue and the relatively small difference in diversity that would result at the two schools. Maybe the Superintendent thought that it would be pretty lame to disregard the input of those lower-SES and/or minority communities.

Well, it’s nice that the needs of RCF have been taken into account, but what about the needs of the rest of the communities? They did their outreach. They did not support this option, and they voiced their opposition in the PTA process. One community’s desire for a closer school shouldn’t outweigh the balance of all the issues for the balance of all the communities.

And before we go too far down the road of the “bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes” argument, let’s remember that “bussing” in the classic sense of the word was not being proposed. What was being proposed is having the students attend the school they’re attending now.

RCF may not care about over-crowding, but the rest of the communities sending their children to the new school do. The Superintendent’s recommendation is condemning the new school to capacity issues without the ability to address those issues. In fact, even without the capacity issues, the school starts out at a physical deficit compared to Westland. As one PP said, it’s smaller and has less than half the land as Westland.

If RCF doesn’t care about the socio-economic factors (three times the FARMS rate in the new school and less diversity at Westland), that doesn’t mean there aren’t other communities concerned or that the socio-economic factors are the only issue. In fact, putting all socio-economic factors aside, some people simply feel they shouldn’t have to send their kids to a lesser school, while another larger, less diverse, affluent school operates at 82% capacity, just to address the concerns of one community. It makes no management sense, especially in light of the anticipated development in the area, and it’s not fair.

I think that the "triad" wants everything their way and is trying to pull in the Western half of the cluster when they really don't care. Yes, Somerset, Westbrook and Bethesda all supported Option #1 for the same reason that RCF supported Option #6, i.e. they want to stay at the closest school first and foremost. Now that Option #7 has been pushed forward, Somerset Westbrook and Bethesda are basically shrugging their shoulders because it doesn't look that much different to them than Option #1. However, CCES and NCC are now upset that they have to go to school with poor kids.

This is what the uproar boils down to..

Anonymous wrote:As a Chevy Chase parent I would want my children to attend the less crowded school WITH the Silver Spring kids they have been paired with since Kindergarten. I would also like them to be with the NCC kids they attended K-2 and are currently on sports teams right now, but would give that up for a less crowded school.

I currently have a child at Westland and the overcrowding is ridiculous. Really no child can express their voice or learn much in a class with 35 other kids, especially with this dumbed down curriculum.

Middle school is not like elementary school, there is much less parental involvement in the school. The distance is not that big of a deal, it's a pain on school event nights during rush hour but that is just a handful of times a year.

If I was a Rock Creek Forest parent, I would want to continue to go to Westland. I wouldn't want my kids crammed into a new middle school just because it was closer.

We are talking about maybe a 10-20 minute difference in bus rides. The morning bus picks up so early it misses rush hour, and the afternoon just catches a piece of the beginning of high traffic time.

What is unfair is to bus the CCES and NCC kids back and forth in the BCC cluster and then continue to place them in overcrowded schools when the opportunity exists to split the populations in a fair socio-economic manner.

Anonymous wrote:As a Chevy Chase parent I would want my children to attend the less crowded school WITH the Silver Spring kids they have been paired with since Kindergarten. I would also like them to be with the NCC kids they attended K-2 and are currently on sports teams right now, but would give that up for a less crowded school.

I currently have a child at Westland and the overcrowding is ridiculous. Really no child can express their voice or learn much in a class with 35 other kids, especially with this dumbed down curriculum.

Middle school is not like elementary school, there is much less parental involvement in the school. The distance is not that big of a deal, it's a pain on school event nights during rush hour but that is just a handful of times a year.

If I was a Rock Creek Forest parent, I would want to continue to go to Westland. I wouldn't want my kids crammed into a new middle school just because it was closer.

We are talking about maybe a 10-20 minute difference in bus rides. The morning bus picks up so early it misses rush hour, and the afternoon just catches a piece of the beginning of high traffic time.

What is unfair is to bus the CCES and NCC kids back and forth in the BCC cluster and then continue to place them in overcrowded schools when the opportunity exists to split the populations in a fair socio-economic manner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that the superintendent's recommendation isn't the final say. Doesn't the BOE have to accept the recommendation? As an RCFES parent, I leaned toward wanting the kids to go to Westland. It would be nice to be closer to home, but I worry that a few vocal CCES parents will make those kids feel unwelcome, and will continue to feel (quite irrationally, in my view) that their personal resources are being directed toward lower SES kids.

Bethesda has always resented the RCF kids.

That's interesting. Do you have a source for that? Do you think they resent the RCF kids, or do they RCF parents that, for the sake of their transportation convenience, want two inequitable schools to exist in the cluster with the potential of exacerbating the opportunity gap?

The objections are famously vitriolic when they included a silver spring school in the cluster and then they worked to close it which the county was prepared to do in 1982 to placate them. It was only after the threat of losing federal school money by resegragrating that the county dropped the plan to close the school.

I don't speak for those parents but I am pretty sure they weren't focused on convenience or the opportunities afforded those kids. They knew it was a harbinger for the darkening of the county and they were afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda. Basically the same objections you hear today when people try to add density to better neighborhoods.

Those objections took place almost 35 years ago. Aren’t at least some of those people dead or on their way out the door? Couldn’t it be possible that some of the people in the cluster actually care about the opportunity gap?

Several PPs arguments against the superintendent’s recommendation seem to be making your point about an equitable education. Unless I’m misreading what they said, one PP basically asked why the superintendent would recommend creating a rich, white school in the west that’s not full, and an overcrowded school in the east that’s smaller and has less facilities. Isn’t that concern for the opportunity gap?

I’m not sure what you mean by, “afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda.” House prices are set in a market. Anyway, the disparity you’re pointing to actually is another strike against the superintendent’s decision. Why create two fundamentally unequal educational environments and leave the lesser facility to the more diverse of the two?

It's great for people to want more diverse schools, but I don't think the answer to that is bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes. RCF did substantial outreach to its community, including targeted outreach to the more diverse areas that feed into the school -- and the overwhelming majority wanted a closer school. It appears that this factor outweighed the over-crowdedness issue and the relatively small difference in diversity that would result at the two schools. Maybe the Superintendent thought that it would be pretty lame to disregard the input of those lower-SES and/or minority communities.

Well, it’s nice that the needs of RCF have been taken into account, but what about the needs of the rest of the communities? They did their outreach. They did not support this option, and they voiced their opposition in the PTA process. One community’s desire for a closer school shouldn’t outweigh the balance of all the issues for the balance of all the communities.

And before we go too far down the road of the “bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes” argument, let’s remember that “bussing” in the classic sense of the word was not being proposed. What was being proposed is having the students attend the school they’re attending now.

RCF may not care about over-crowding, but the rest of the communities sending their children to the new school do. The Superintendent’s recommendation is condemning the new school to capacity issues without the ability to address those issues. In fact, even without the capacity issues, the school starts out at a physical deficit compared to Westland. As one PP said, it’s smaller and has less than half the land as Westland.

If RCF doesn’t care about the socio-economic factors (three times the FARMS rate in the new school and less diversity at Westland), that doesn’t mean there aren’t other communities concerned or that the socio-economic factors are the only issue. In fact, putting all socio-economic factors aside, some people simply feel they shouldn’t have to send their kids to a lesser school, while another larger, less diverse, affluent school operates at 82% capacity, just to address the concerns of one community. It makes no management sense, especially in light of the anticipated development in the area, and it’s not fair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought that the superintendent's recommendation isn't the final say. Doesn't the BOE have to accept the recommendation? As an RCFES parent, I leaned toward wanting the kids to go to Westland. It would be nice to be closer to home, but I worry that a few vocal CCES parents will make those kids feel unwelcome, and will continue to feel (quite irrationally, in my view) that their personal resources are being directed toward lower SES kids.

Bethesda has always resented the RCF kids.

That's interesting. Do you have a source for that? Do you think they resent the RCF kids, or do they RCF parents that, for the sake of their transportation convenience, want two inequitable schools to exist in the cluster with the potential of exacerbating the opportunity gap?

The objections are famously vitriolic when they included a silver spring school in the cluster and then they worked to close it which the county was prepared to do in 1982 to placate them. It was only after the threat of losing federal school money by resegragrating that the county dropped the plan to close the school.

I don't speak for those parents but I am pretty sure they weren't focused on convenience or the opportunities afforded those kids. They knew it was a harbinger for the darkening of the county and they were afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda. Basically the same objections you hear today when people try to add density to better neighborhoods.

Those objections took place almost 35 years ago. Aren’t at least some of those people dead or on their way out the door? Couldn’t it be possible that some of the people in the cluster actually care about the opportunity gap?

Several PPs arguments against the superintendent’s recommendation seem to be making your point about an equitable education. Unless I’m misreading what they said, one PP basically asked why the superintendent would recommend creating a rich, white school in the west that’s not full, and an overcrowded school in the east that’s smaller and has less facilities. Isn’t that concern for the opportunity gap?

I’m not sure what you mean by, “afraid it would give poor people a way to there school without paying the segregation real estate tax that is homeownership in places like Bethesda.” House prices are set in a market. Anyway, the disparity you’re pointing to actually is another strike against the superintendent’s decision. Why create two fundamentally unequal educational environments and leave the lesser facility to the more diverse of the two?

It's great for people to want more diverse schools, but I don't think the answer to that is bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes. RCF did substantial outreach to its community, including targeted outreach to the more diverse areas that feed into the school -- and the overwhelming majority wanted a closer school. It appears that this factor outweighed the over-crowdedness issue and the relatively small difference in diversity that would result at the two schools. Maybe the Superintendent thought that it would be pretty lame to disregard the input of those lower-SES and/or minority communities.

Well, it’s nice that the needs of RCF have been taken into account, but what about the needs of the rest of the communities? They did their outreach. They did not support this option, and they voiced their opposition in the PTA process. One community’s desire for a closer school shouldn’t outweigh the balance of all the issues for the balance of all the communities.

And before we go too far down the road of the “bussing the kids that will create the diversity to the school farther away from their homes” argument, let’s remember that “bussing” in the classic sense of the word was not being proposed. What was being proposed is having the students attend the school they’re attending now.

RCF may not care about over-crowding, but the rest of the communities sending their children to the new school do. The Superintendent’s recommendation is condemning the new school to capacity issues without the ability to address those issues. In fact, even without the capacity issues, the school starts out at a physical deficit compared to Westland. As one PP said, it’s smaller and has less than half the land as Westland.

If RCF doesn’t care about the socio-economic factors (three times the FARMS rate in the new school and less diversity at Westland), that doesn’t mean there aren’t other communities concerned or that the socio-economic factors are the only issue. In fact, putting all socio-economic factors aside, some people simply feel they shouldn’t have to send their kids to a lesser school, while another larger, less diverse, affluent school operates at 82% capacity, just to address the concerns of one community. It makes no management sense, especially in light of the anticipated development in the area, and it’s not fair.

People put way to much thought into FARMS rates, but then complain their non-FARMS schools don't get enough teachers or staff. There are reasons why having a Focus School or FARMS is good. I prefer it. I'd rather my kid be in a class of 16-20 vs. 28-32.