DCUM Forum

Anonymous

04/21/2019 07:43 Subject: Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind there is only one way in and out of poolesville, clarksburg, and Damascus... May I suggest moving to VA?

Those clusters are way out in the boonies anyways. It will be a total shock to your system...

Oh the irony.
You mentioned "boonies "and "total shock to your system" and you want OP to move to VA?
Maybe OP doesn't want VA.

DP. And just where in VA besides the boonies will you find a house with OPs criteria that is for 500K? What a silly comment.

Anonymous

04/21/2019 00:36 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:The MoCo close in areas that don't have great schools like Bethesda and CC have been just as hobbled. Houses are still cheap in Silver Spring and Takoma Park. Closer in Silver Spring has appreciated more than northern Silver Spring but the area is still relatively flat. The poverty in those areas is just growing too fast for the schools to keep up. Which schools have the highest drop out rate? Wheaton, Northwood, and Gaithersburg. Northwood is pretty close in.

The problems are everywhere. Montgomery Village used to be a nice place for government workers and professionals that worked in MD. Now it is terrible, high crime, poverty and all rentals. The low income housing developments in the Northwest boundary hold that school back despite there being lots of positive things going on at Northwest. The FARMS rates in the DCC have grown substantially in the past 10 years. The area is not gentrifying. It is getting poorer. Potomac is aging and losing out to VA.
Whether it is the schools, poverty rate increases, high taxes, or long commutes because there are few business or professional opportunities in MoCo, everyone here is being negatively hit by it.

This just isn't true. Several areas of Montgomery Village went downhill, but East Village is still.populated by government workers and professionals. And many areas of the DCC are in fact gentrifying and it is one of the few places in MoCo with areas that have rising property values. You're painting with a very broad brush.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 22:20 Subject: Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of SFH options in neighborhoods that would feed into Oakland Terrace, Flora Singer, and Forest Knolls. If you're really focused on low FARMS percentages and commuting distance isn't a factor, by all means move further out. But a commute from these neighborhoods to DC i at least bearable.

Also Glen Haven ES is in the middle of those 3 and is good too

Anonymous

04/20/2019 21:59 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Would suggest Rockville cluster but the area with homes under $500k have a higher FARMs than you like. My kid is in a focus school with is a higher FARMs and I just have to say you can't really beat a K class size of 12/13 kids. In 1st most have 13 kids only in the class.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 21:44 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is a good point. The schools that have FARMS in the 30%-40% FARMS (or 50% ever been on FARMS) are also likely to grow in poverty even faster. I doubt that Poolesville or Damascus will grow that quickly because the high density low income housing just doesn't exist out there to support the surge in FARMS that you are seeing in Silver Spring, Gaithersburg and Germantown. MCPS will start trying to bus kids from Gaithersburg and Germantown into QO, NW, and Wootton and this will kill those skills. Silver Spring is already a lost cause with poverty already taking over those schools. No idea about Sherwood but I would guess that it get caught up the MCPS bussing plans too.

Snort.

Yeah
OP, don't listen to this. Because real estate values are going up, there are many areas in silver spring and Wheaton that are improving. You may have to take a chance on a school pyramid that is less than you want, but we also are in the under 500k club, and it's fine.

Yes, it's just the usual fact-free fear mongering. The actual MCPS data shows SS schools like Blair are stable and have experienced about 1% variance over the past decade.

Please post a link to the data for us.

MCPS publish this data on their website, but you're going to have to make the effort to locate it. It took me 30 seconds to find it yesterday. It's listed by year. You can see the area in question has only changed about +/- 1% over the past decade.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/

Anonymous

04/20/2019 21:25 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is a good point. The schools that have FARMS in the 30%-40% FARMS (or 50% ever been on FARMS) are also likely to grow in poverty even faster. I doubt that Poolesville or Damascus will grow that quickly because the high density low income housing just doesn't exist out there to support the surge in FARMS that you are seeing in Silver Spring, Gaithersburg and Germantown. MCPS will start trying to bus kids from Gaithersburg and Germantown into QO, NW, and Wootton and this will kill those skills. Silver Spring is already a lost cause with poverty already taking over those schools. No idea about Sherwood but I would guess that it get caught up the MCPS bussing plans too.

Snort.

Yeah
OP, don't listen to this. Because real estate values are going up, there are many areas in silver spring and Wheaton that are improving. You may have to take a chance on a school pyramid that is less than you want, but we also are in the under 500k club, and it's fine.

Yes, it's just the usual fact-free fear mongering. The actual MCPS data shows SS schools like Blair are stable and have experienced about 1% variance over the past decade.

Please post a link to the data for us.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 11:52 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps, but my house is still worth close to 10% less than what I paid for it in 2005. I bought it for 770K in 2005; it would need to be worth 1M now if it had simply kept up with inflation. It would probably go for about 710K.

As soon as my kid is out of college I'm getting the heck out of this area. It's definitely heading down hill.

So, you overpaid.

You bought at the height of the bubble. People who bought in 2009 or later have realized appreciation beyond the inflation rate.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 11:21 Subject: Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are your non-W schools with lower than 30% Farms. There are others that are not far over 30%, but, FARMS have steadily risen since the early 2000s, they are not getting lower!

I included Wootton because maybe you'll find a unicorn. I think your budget is tough period. You'll have to compromise.

Clarksburg (26%)
Damascus (14%)
Richard Montgomery (19%)
Northwest HS (22%)
Poolesville (6%)
Quince Orchard (21.3%)
Sherwood (15%)
Wootton (less than 5%)

Out of curiosity, I looked at FARMS rates back in 2002. Wheaton was the only highschool with over 30% FARMS at 38.4%. 18 out of 26 (69%) of our highschools are over 30% Farms with some being more than 50%. The school system is done. Buyer beware.

Here is the dashboard with data.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/

Interesting data.

We are at a high FARMS elementary and I see the negative effects it has on the school. It is impossible to sustain this model of increasing lower income populations without a negative impact on middle class families. The wealthier will choose private, but the middle class families will look elsewhere for better public school options.

It has nothing to do with race (I’m not White) and everything to do with money. There is not enough money to meet the needs of all the students. And MCPS is so poorly managed that they continue to mismanage the funds they do have.

Your post makes no sense. If you are at a focus school or title one, they get more funding and teachers. There is money, it just may not be utilized properly. The curriculum is a huge issue as well as teachers who cannot teach and just do small groups/centers.

More academic funding at a high-needs school goes toward ESOL. Addressing poverty is a different story, as these are kids who receive free/reduced meals, which cost money, and reduced fees for trips, for example. So the county subsidizes quite a bit.

However, there is overlap (more than not) between FARMs and ESOL. So while the elementary school may have smaller class sizes and more nurturing teachers, once the kids hit middle and high school, it's all the same. On level classes at the secondary level are huge. Additional allocations aren't used the same way b/c at the secondary level, it's course-specific. This may mean that struggling kids have a double period of math, which sucks up a period and may remove a teacher from instructing in another course that's just as significant. lots of movement with course periods, course labels (a whole other story), and teaching assignments . . .

It becomes complicated in schools facing obstacles.

Really? As an ESOL teacher this is news to me. ESOL allocations have been decreasing for years while the student population increases. There used to be a 1:41 ratio, and my caseload has been around 60 for the past few years and approached 70 this year. I support students in multiple grades ranging from newcomers to Level 5 and am also expected to check in on students who have exited ESOL in the past 2 years (RELs). The ESOL allocation at my school is 3.8 and all 3 of the full time ESOL teachers have similar caseloads. The .8 teacher has a slightly lower caseload. Please explain how “more academic funding at a high needs school goes toward ESOL” and your sources for that statement. Or did you just make an assumption and really have no idea what you’re talking about?

Blame your principal. In my experiences, principals have robbed Peter to pay Paul - even to the point of making teachers float b/c of growth in ESOL.

Honey, I don't pull facts out of my a**. I don't need to. I've lived through these experiences many times over my career, and I understand how the budget is allocated and how principals use it to fit the needs of their schools.

Reading is your friend.

from the MCPS budget page - https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/budget-101/index.html

I am pulling from the "need" category, but enrollment and programs are the two other categories used in determining allocation.

Need
Next, we differentiate allocations based on the needs of the students the school serves. Schools that have more students who are economically disadvantaged receive extra staff to lower class sizes and provide additional support and interventions. For instance, in our higher-poverty elementary schools, we try to keep the average class size for Kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 at 18 students or lower. So, based on enrollment, these schools get additional allocations. If a school has a higher population of English language learners, they will receive additional staff to provide English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services. However, the process provides flexibility to principals to allow them to address the specific needs of their school community.

ESOL allocations have little to do with blaming principals. There is a formula that is used to determine ESOL allocation. Title 1 schools have a slightly different formula which provides a slightly higher ESOL allocation for the same number of ESOL students as in a non title 1 school. These formulas are not set by the principals but by central office. This actually screws focus schools with CES programs the most because most of them would be title 1 if not for the % of non FARMS kids in the CES program, very few or any of whom receive ESOL services once they are in 4th grade. Sure, it helps the school’s test scores, but also deprives the school of extra resources that would help to support the home school high FARMS/high ESOL population.

The language you’ve quoted is for the title 1 schools who have decided to use ESOL allocation as extra classroom allocations taught by teachers who are dually certified. That’s an area where principals now have latitude, but they do not have latitude to determine the school’s total ESOL allocation.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 10:57 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

That’s funny because Blair was mostly white and all middle class a short generation ago, doesn’t appear to be a stable trend line to but maybe that trend is your stable.

The Blair science magnet was a response to potential lawsuits to desegregate Blair. The idea was that a math/science magnet program would lead parents to send their children to a school (i.e., Blair) outside the mostly white areas. That was in 1985. 1985 is 34 years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/03/education/in-a-minority-district-in-maryland-a-magnet-school-that-reall-draws.html

In 1982, Blair had 59% non-white students and the largest black student body among the county's high schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1982/03/04/montgomerys-magnet-schools/93b22714-2ca0-471b-a658-b9c7cc9a0ae9/?utm_term=.809e638c2a47

So the past you're referring to ended no later than the 1970s, if not the 1960s.

For which organism is 40-50 years a short generation? Not humans, certainly.

This, I went to Blair in the early 90s and it was ratchet back then

Anonymous

04/20/2019 10:27 Subject: Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are your non-W schools with lower than 30% Farms. There are others that are not far over 30%, but, FARMS have steadily risen since the early 2000s, they are not getting lower!

I included Wootton because maybe you'll find a unicorn. I think your budget is tough period. You'll have to compromise.

Clarksburg (26%)
Damascus (14%)
Richard Montgomery (19%)
Northwest HS (22%)
Poolesville (6%)
Quince Orchard (21.3%)
Sherwood (15%)
Wootton (less than 5%)

Out of curiosity, I looked at FARMS rates back in 2002. Wheaton was the only highschool with over 30% FARMS at 38.4%. 18 out of 26 (69%) of our highschools are over 30% Farms with some being more than 50%. The school system is done. Buyer beware.

Here is the dashboard with data.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/

Interesting data.

We are at a high FARMS elementary and I see the negative effects it has on the school. It is impossible to sustain this model of increasing lower income populations without a negative impact on middle class families. The wealthier will choose private, but the middle class families will look elsewhere for better public school options.

It has nothing to do with race (I’m not White) and everything to do with money. There is not enough money to meet the needs of all the students. And MCPS is so poorly managed that they continue to mismanage the funds they do have.

Your post makes no sense. If you are at a focus school or title one, they get more funding and teachers. There is money, it just may not be utilized properly. The curriculum is a huge issue as well as teachers who cannot teach and just do small groups/centers.

More academic funding at a high-needs school goes toward ESOL. Addressing poverty is a different story, as these are kids who receive free/reduced meals, which cost money, and reduced fees for trips, for example. So the county subsidizes quite a bit.

However, there is overlap (more than not) between FARMs and ESOL. So while the elementary school may have smaller class sizes and more nurturing teachers, once the kids hit middle and high school, it's all the same. On level classes at the secondary level are huge. Additional allocations aren't used the same way b/c at the secondary level, it's course-specific. This may mean that struggling kids have a double period of math, which sucks up a period and may remove a teacher from instructing in another course that's just as significant. lots of movement with course periods, course labels (a whole other story), and teaching assignments . . .

It becomes complicated in schools facing obstacles.

Really? As an ESOL teacher this is news to me. ESOL allocations have been decreasing for years while the student population increases. There used to be a 1:41 ratio, and my caseload has been around 60 for the past few years and approached 70 this year. I support students in multiple grades ranging from newcomers to Level 5 and am also expected to check in on students who have exited ESOL in the past 2 years (RELs). The ESOL allocation at my school is 3.8 and all 3 of the full time ESOL teachers have similar caseloads. The .8 teacher has a slightly lower caseload. Please explain how “more academic funding at a high needs school goes toward ESOL” and your sources for that statement. Or did you just make an assumption and really have no idea what you’re talking about?

Blame your principal. In my experiences, principals have robbed Peter to pay Paul - even to the point of making teachers float b/c of growth in ESOL.

Honey, I don't pull facts out of my a**. I don't need to. I've lived through these experiences many times over my career, and I understand how the budget is allocated and how principals use it to fit the needs of their schools.

Reading is your friend.

from the MCPS budget page - https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/budget-101/index.html

I am pulling from the "need" category, but enrollment and programs are the two other categories used in determining allocation.

Need
Next, we differentiate allocations based on the needs of the students the school serves. Schools that have more students who are economically disadvantaged receive extra staff to lower class sizes and provide additional support and interventions. For instance, in our higher-poverty elementary schools, we try to keep the average class size for Kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 at 18 students or lower. So, based on enrollment, these schools get additional allocations. If a school has a higher population of English language learners, they will receive additional staff to provide English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services. However, the process provides flexibility to principals to allow them to address the specific needs of their school community.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 09:52 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

I am glad you’re happy with Blair, could you imagine if no one in the DCC was content

Anonymous

04/20/2019 08:55 Subject: Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are your non-W schools with lower than 30% Farms. There are others that are not far over 30%, but, FARMS have steadily risen since the early 2000s, they are not getting lower!

I included Wootton because maybe you'll find a unicorn. I think your budget is tough period. You'll have to compromise.

Clarksburg (26%)
Damascus (14%)
Richard Montgomery (19%)
Northwest HS (22%)
Poolesville (6%)
Quince Orchard (21.3%)
Sherwood (15%)
Wootton (less than 5%)

Out of curiosity, I looked at FARMS rates back in 2002. Wheaton was the only highschool with over 30% FARMS at 38.4%. 18 out of 26 (69%) of our highschools are over 30% Farms with some being more than 50%. The school system is done. Buyer beware.

Here is the dashboard with data.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/

Interesting data.

We are at a high FARMS elementary and I see the negative effects it has on the school. It is impossible to sustain this model of increasing lower income populations without a negative impact on middle class families. The wealthier will choose private, but the middle class families will look elsewhere for better public school options.

It has nothing to do with race (I’m not White) and everything to do with money. There is not enough money to meet the needs of all the students. And MCPS is so poorly managed that they continue to mismanage the funds they do have.

Your post makes no sense. If you are at a focus school or title one, they get more funding and teachers. There is money, it just may not be utilized properly. The curriculum is a huge issue as well as teachers who cannot teach and just do small groups/centers.

More academic funding at a high-needs school goes toward ESOL. Addressing poverty is a different story, as these are kids who receive free/reduced meals, which cost money, and reduced fees for trips, for example. So the county subsidizes quite a bit.

However, there is overlap (more than not) between FARMs and ESOL. So while the elementary school may have smaller class sizes and more nurturing teachers, once the kids hit middle and high school, it's all the same. On level classes at the secondary level are huge. Additional allocations aren't used the same way b/c at the secondary level, it's course-specific. This may mean that struggling kids have a double period of math, which sucks up a period and may remove a teacher from instructing in another course that's just as significant. lots of movement with course periods, course labels (a whole other story), and teaching assignments . . .

It becomes complicated in schools facing obstacles.

Really? As an ESOL teacher this is news to me. ESOL allocations have been decreasing for years while the student population increases. There used to be a 1:41 ratio, and my caseload has been around 60 for the past few years and approached 70 this year. I support students in multiple grades ranging from newcomers to Level 5 and am also expected to check in on students who have exited ESOL in the past 2 years (RELs). The ESOL allocation at my school is 3.8 and all 3 of the full time ESOL teachers have similar caseloads. The .8 teacher has a slightly lower caseload. Please explain how “more academic funding at a high needs school goes toward ESOL” and your sources for that statement. Or did you just make an assumption and really have no idea what you’re talking about?

True - I also looked up the delta of ESOL students over the past 10 years on the county's website and it was far less than the fearmongers would have you imagine. This seesm a lot like scapegoating.

Anonymous

04/20/2019 08:48 Subject: Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are your non-W schools with lower than 30% Farms. There are others that are not far over 30%, but, FARMS have steadily risen since the early 2000s, they are not getting lower!

I included Wootton because maybe you'll find a unicorn. I think your budget is tough period. You'll have to compromise.

Clarksburg (26%)
Damascus (14%)
Richard Montgomery (19%)
Northwest HS (22%)
Poolesville (6%)
Quince Orchard (21.3%)
Sherwood (15%)
Wootton (less than 5%)

Out of curiosity, I looked at FARMS rates back in 2002. Wheaton was the only highschool with over 30% FARMS at 38.4%. 18 out of 26 (69%) of our highschools are over 30% Farms with some being more than 50%. The school system is done. Buyer beware.

Here is the dashboard with data.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/

Interesting data.

We are at a high FARMS elementary and I see the negative effects it has on the school. It is impossible to sustain this model of increasing lower income populations without a negative impact on middle class families. The wealthier will choose private, but the middle class families will look elsewhere for better public school options.

It has nothing to do with race (I’m not White) and everything to do with money. There is not enough money to meet the needs of all the students. And MCPS is so poorly managed that they continue to mismanage the funds they do have.

Your post makes no sense. If you are at a focus school or title one, they get more funding and teachers. There is money, it just may not be utilized properly. The curriculum is a huge issue as well as teachers who cannot teach and just do small groups/centers.

More academic funding at a high-needs school goes toward ESOL. Addressing poverty is a different story, as these are kids who receive free/reduced meals, which cost money, and reduced fees for trips, for example. So the county subsidizes quite a bit.

However, there is overlap (more than not) between FARMs and ESOL. So while the elementary school may have smaller class sizes and more nurturing teachers, once the kids hit middle and high school, it's all the same. On level classes at the secondary level are huge. Additional allocations aren't used the same way b/c at the secondary level, it's course-specific. This may mean that struggling kids have a double period of math, which sucks up a period and may remove a teacher from instructing in another course that's just as significant. lots of movement with course periods, course labels (a whole other story), and teaching assignments . . .

It becomes complicated in schools facing obstacles.

Really? As an ESOL teacher this is news to me. ESOL allocations have been decreasing for years while the student population increases. There used to be a 1:41 ratio, and my caseload has been around 60 for the past few years and approached 70 this year. I support students in multiple grades ranging from newcomers to Level 5 and am also expected to check in on students who have exited ESOL in the past 2 years (RELs). The ESOL allocation at my school is 3.8 and all 3 of the full time ESOL teachers have similar caseloads. The .8 teacher has a slightly lower caseload. Please explain how “more academic funding at a high needs school goes toward ESOL” and your sources for that statement. Or did you just make an assumption and really have no idea what you’re talking about?

Anonymous

04/20/2019 08:44 Subject: Re:Struck Out in DC school lottery....Tell/Sell me in your non-W School Cluster

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

That’s funny because Blair was mostly white and all middle class a short generation ago, doesn’t appear to be a stable trend line to but maybe that trend is your stable.

Yes, history is fun. I didn't realize Georgetown was a blue-collar industrial area once upon a time either. Nevertheless, according to MCPS Blair's farms rate has been stable for the past 10 eyars so you failed to make your argument.