Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair isn't in its own cluster because the density in DTSS and TkPk fills it before you even get outside of the Beltway. This was a known thing when they moved it to its current location.

MCPS could have acquired the Adventist site in TkPk, used it for Northwood holding and then built a new high school there to alleviate Blair, but no. Or they could have bought the Discovery editing building on Kennett in DTSS to use for Northwood holding and turned that into an urban high school campus that would have alleviated Blair crowding and could have provided an alternative high school experience for kids who don't do well in huge suburban campus high schools like we build.

But instead they were pennywise and pound foolish and used Woodward for Northwood holding, meaning those kids are bused to North Bethesda for three years and don't even have sports fields or an auditorium.

One thing that I’ve wondered about is what’s the plan for the high school renovations that are massively overdue as well as others coming due over the next decade. I believe Northwood was the holding school for years, but that’s not possible now Woodward will be unavailable and Crown will be filled in. Seems like Crown should become a new holding school to do Wootton and Magruder.

The oldest schools (25+) are built in:

Magruder - 1970
Wootton - 1970
QO - 1988
Sherwood - renovated 1991
Einstein - renovated 1997
Northwest - built 1998
Blair - built 1998
Kennedy - renovated 1999
Churchill - renovated 2001

Hard to say, but they can sometimes build the new building on the field next to the school, then tear down the old building afterwards. That's what they did at Paint Branch and Wheaton.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blair isn't in its own cluster because the density in DTSS and TkPk fills it before you even get outside of the Beltway. This was a known thing when they moved it to its current location.

MCPS could have acquired the Adventist site in TkPk, used it for Northwood holding and then built a new high school there to alleviate Blair, but no. Or they could have bought the Discovery editing building on Kennett in DTSS to use for Northwood holding and turned that into an urban high school campus that would have alleviated Blair crowding and could have provided an alternative high school experience for kids who don't do well in huge suburban campus high schools like we build.

But instead they were pennywise and pound foolish and used Woodward for Northwood holding, meaning those kids are bused to North Bethesda for three years and don't even have sports fields or an auditorium.

One thing that I’ve wondered about is what’s the plan for the high school renovations that are massively overdue as well as others coming due over the next decade. I believe Northwood was the holding school for years, but that’s not possible now Woodward will be unavailable and Crown will be filled in. Seems like Crown should become a new holding school to do Wootton and Magruder.

The oldest schools (25+) are built in:

Magruder - 1970
Wootton - 1970
QO - 1988
Sherwood - renovated 1991
Einstein - renovated 1997
Northwest - built 1998
Blair - built 1998
Kennedy - renovated 1999
Churchill - renovated 2001

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Anonymous wrote:To have the luxury to not worry about 100s of thousands of dollars…..lol. Love it.

Omg, so dramatic.

You don't lose 100s of thousands in cash when your property value goes down. Your mortgage stays the same. You have food and shelter and so much more. Good lord.

Oof. The lack of economic sense is a sight to behold, as is the twisting of words. Of course you have less money if your property value declines. It happens when you sell your house.

Yes, when you sell your house and your property value has gone down, you won't make as much money. That is the reality of property ownership. No property carries with it a guarantee of maintaining its value. You'll learn when you are all grown up and have a mortgage yourself.

And some of us need that money to send kids to college. We aren’t like you, who can afford otherwise.

Ok, I'm confused. So, you overspent on a house to get away from some of us, and then you cannot afford college. Sounds like a you problem. We bought a house we can afford and stayed so we can save and afford college, and have the house paid off before college. Would we like a big fancy house? Not sure, but I don't want the upkeep, maintenance, property taxes or stress. What you have. You cannot complain when you aren't willing to make the sacrifices.

what? I overspent on a house because the market sucks right now. I moved from DC to get away from regualry shootings in my neighborhood and don't at all have a fancy house. I put everything I have into it because I wanted my kid to feel safe and to be able to walk to school without that concern.

Plenty of places in MoCo are safe and aren't so expensive that you will lose "100s of thousands" because of a change in school boundaries

Look, I didn't say hundreds of thousands. That was the person saying she was fine if her home value tanked.

I’d love for mine to tank. Less property taxes.

What will actually happen if it tanks is that umc ppl will move away and stop coming here, and then your taxes will go up. Way up.

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Anonymous wrote:Why the overcomplexity? Leave kids in the school they are closest to instead of bringing them by bus to places farther out.

That's Option 4, prioritizing geography. Do you think that's viable, with so many split articulations?

How many more split articulations do Options 2 and 4 have compared to the current number?

Looks like about 12 currently and 50 in the new options.

50??? Yeah that's not good.

Option 1 has zero split articulations from ES to MS.

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Anonymous wrote:Curious what the Wheaton community thinks the best solution is? Different matriculation pattern or sounds like adding on isn’t possible with the distance between buildings? FLO analytics kept mentioning the Edison building and sounds like that is not helpful? Seems like FLO has a disconnect on this point.

The Wheaton cluster coordinator's testimony in 2023 :

"there is a quick and practical solution to our overcrowding
problem that has yet to be utilized - an unfinished shell located within the
Thomas Edison building. Our Community strongly urges MCPS to build
out and finish that shell so that both Wheaton and Thomas Edison can
use that space to accommodate our growing population."

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CXCN955EC89E/$file/Narissa%20Johnson%20-%202023%20CIP%20Testimony%20.pdf

It takes years to find something like that and it wouldn’t work as the distance is too far in less they arranged specific students and basically segregated them.

Huh? It's literally there in the Edison building.

I think PP meant fund, not find.

If it were so easy why not do it this summer? Oh, because it will be years before a project like this is approved, planned and designed, let alone built.

FLO Analytics mentioned this Edison shell space during the presentation last week, which means MCPS CO staff must have told them about it as an option under consideration. We can keep an eye out for this fall's CIP to see if it's included. If so, that could be a clue to how Taylor is leaning.

I couldn't follow that part of the presentation. Can you explain how the CIP budget for Edison would signal how Taylor is leaning?

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

You’re delusional to think that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, once they alter this, everyone will just move to where it benefits them most and then calcifies again over the next 15-20 years. It solves nothing other than a temporary blip while wealthy families move to where the "best schools are". The only way to truly "engineer" this is to move to a countywide lottery like what San Francisco has (which just acknowledged it failed in its diversity goals and is revisiting its system). So in the end, I'm all for whatever results in the lowest cost to MCPS with the least amount of disruption, particularly with respect to split articulations.

this

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

Discrimination in housing was outlawed in 1968. In 1970, Montgomery County was 94.5% white, 4.1% black and 0.8% Asian. These minority populations were so small that they had almost no impact on housing locations or values. The small black population was concentrated in locations that many people now would believe had desirable schools: Scotland, Lincoln Park, Janetta, downtown Rockville, Ken-Gar, etc. If you are trying to say that it was racial discrimination that kept people out of the county entirely, I guess that I could listen to that argument.

Housing value is due to proximity to jobs and amenities.

The situation now in Montgomery County is so far from those days of racial discrimination that it is ridiculous to use those as a bludgeon to get the policies you desire. White students now make up only approximately 24% of MCPS. Just like it would have been pointless in 1970 to try and spread those black kids around the county to make sure that there was no segregation, it will now become pointless to try and spread white kids around to achieve racial balance. Instead of trying to achieve income balance, MCPS should stop wasting money on buses and spend the funds trying to provide a strong educational foundation for poor kids wherever they are.

Posts like these make me wish DCUM had a love button. This is very well said!

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve read all 43 pages of this thread and am pretty disheartened. I have not seen one comment in favor of the more disruptive (to the current status quo) options say a single thing about the prospective quality of education improvement that the potential new Whitman and BCC students would receive. Instead, it’s all about sending Whitman and BCC bus loads of poor kids to somehow stick it to them? If those poor kids have to spend 45 minutes on a bus to (somehow?) upset the rich kids, great!

The kids being bussed from poor communities? Those are kids, not props in your vendetta fantasies. The rich kids you’re sticking it to? Also, just kids. The “foolish” communities that want to stay together? Communities of people (that just want to stay together).

Let’s make every school better and every kid’s life better. Let’s not use them as props against each other.

As a poor family. I sorry you don’t want our kids. Actually some of us aren’t that poor, we make different life choices. The best solution would be to open up another hs lower dcc.

Want to give you a big hug. Your kids are wanted. All kids are wanted. To be fair, from what I have read, I think everyone here welcomes diversity of income, culture and race. The problem is that no one of any income level wants to be bused away from their neighborhoods and rightfully so. Every school needs to be stronger and some underperforming schools need more money, support and staff. Whatever it takes, they should get it.

We are wanted as long as we are not in your schools or competition for your kids. No one wants their kids bussed but maybe this will give those kids opportunities they don’t have to get ahead. Our kids don’t have the same opportunities.

Unfortunately it’s a zero sum game and we don’t get do overs with our kids’ education. I’d support funding more opportunities for your kids through modestly higher property taxes but not at the expense of my own kids’ opportunities or busing them across town. Everyone wants the best opportunities for their children (which is why most of us moved to the best place we could afford) and are looking to preserve that as much as possible in an increasingly uncertain world.

Wow we are all on the same team PP. it’s not a zero sum game.

Are we? There's only one (or few) valedictorians and there's an implicit quota in how many kids from each school matriculate to a particular university. We're not in this together and that's been apparent since I set foot in this county or on DCUM and seen others asking questions about the "preferred preschool to get into the Ivy League" or "my DD has the following stats but they don't have a hook and therefore, didn't get into [insert highly selective university]", especially as our kids get closer and closer to high school. We're more like participants running the gauntlet in The Hunger Games where "may the odds ever be in your favor". This is the meritocracy that we find ourselves in and the system that each of us has to face (or ignore). So forgive me if I don't want my kids being bussed across town to a different school and not the neighborhood school I've already paid a high cost entry fee to get into.

You did not pay a "fee" to "get into" your neighborhood. You purchased an asset, which you can sell or rent out if you want.

I purchased an asset at a several hundred thousand dollar premium to comparable assets because of its access to a desirable public school cluster.

Hard eye roll. You never signed a contract with MCPS to guarantee you that school. That’s a you problem.

You don’t need to be unkind. Even buyers without school age children can and should take school assignments into consideration because it directly impacts home value. While boundaries can and do change, it’s not an unreasonable position to feel you’re not getting what you felt you planned for or a reasonably comparable alternative. MCPS should not be in the position of making numerous families feel bait-and-switched.

Greetings from 2025. MCPS has several overcrowded high schools and has therefore worked to construct two new high schools to reduce or hopefully eliminate overcrowding. In order for that to happen, many students will need to be reassigned to different schools. There is simply no way around that.

Obviously some people will need to shift. But certain proposed options on the table create big changes that no one could have reasonably expected or anticipated. I’m not even personally in this position but it’s obviously upsetting for those who are and I don’t like all the anonymous victim blaming.

There are no victims right now. Nobody has been impacted by these decisions. Some may be worried that their home values are impacted by the simple consideration of them, but you have to understand how entitled and whiny that sounds. MCPS needs to manage its facilities effectively and efficiently. Having schools that are over capacity and others that are under capacity is not efficient. Concentrating poverty in certain schools undermines the kids' education, kids who by and large want to learn, despite some of the truly disgusting stereotypes articulated just in the last few pages of this thread.

I absolutely agree that long bus rides can be disruptive to families of all backgrounds and should be avoided. But this notion that MCPS should be held responsible for your property values is truly absurd and entitled. Learn a little something about how you have personally benefited from the history of oppression perpetrated by the government. Your home value would not be what it is today with is it redlining and racist exclusionary zoning. Jfc.

Discrimination in housing was outlawed in 1968. In 1970, Montgomery County was 94.5% white, 4.1% black and 0.8% Asian. These minority populations were so small that they had almost no impact on housing locations or values. The small black population was concentrated in locations that many people now would believe had desirable schools: Scotland, Lincoln Park, Janetta, downtown Rockville, Ken-Gar, etc. If you are trying to say that it was racial discrimination that kept people out of the county entirely, I guess that I could listen to that argument.

Housing value is due to proximity to jobs and amenities.

The situation now in Montgomery County is so far from those days of racial discrimination that it is ridiculous to use those as a bludgeon to get the policies you desire. White students now make up only approximately 24% of MCPS. Just like it would have been pointless in 1970 to try and spread those black kids around the county to make sure that there was no segregation, it will now become pointless to try and spread white kids around to achieve racial balance. Instead of trying to achieve income balance, MCPS should stop wasting money on buses and spend the funds trying to provide a strong educational foundation for poor kids wherever they are.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:One issue I don't see much discussion on are the number of students out of boundary attending certain schools either through an approved exemption or some other method. I won't speculate on the number of students but I've been shocked the last couple of years witnessing how many of my daughter's classmates actually don't live in the school boundary. So when MCPS is looking to address overcrowding schools I would hope they would at least address the lower hanging fruit before disrupting several communities.

I will also admit I find MCPS engaging in a contentious boundary study very disappointing and tone deaf. My daughter attends BCC and there were several school lockdowns this year due to guns. There's absenteeism, lower test scores, and learning loss due to COVID. And I'm sure there are other pressing issues that are putting a strain on the county. And I'm even more frustrated because I fully support addressing the inequities within the MCPS system but redrawing boundaries would be a very poor attempt to address a complicated issue that quite honestly I believe is outside the scope of MCPS.

How the heck are they supposed to fill new schools without changing boundaries, pray tell?

Two brand new high schools with capacity for close to 5000 kids plus Northwood adding capacity for about 500 more kids means you have to change boundaries. The other stuff is bad and needs to be dealt with but if they don't change boundaries we just spent hundreds of millions of dollars on school construction for nothing.

I'd start here[u]
- Limit the boundary change to be the least disruptive across the county.
- Remove the boundary requirements for the new schools and allow anyone attending overcrowded schools in the county to be eligible to attend.
- Provide resources and special programs that would make the new schools attractive for families across the county to consider.

This is exactly how they should start, especially if there is enough general support for the DCC which appears to be gone with options 1-4.