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Anonymous wrote:Some other things we learned:
You can only advocate for your kids and school if you are at a low performing school, if you are in Wootton it’s not advocating-it’s whining.

If you ask for things to be fixed and are then in turn, presented with the most insane option-you are ridiculed for not accepting the wonderful gift you were so lucky to be offered.

Even though everything will change with option H-it actually all will be exactly the same apparently.

You aren't advocating for your kids. You are advocating for your building. And, you are so entitled you demand everything else be dropped so your small in comparison to other schools can be top of the list with repairs, that reality is all schools need.

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.

+1 Are Wootton parents thinking it's the building that makes the school "strong"? It's the totality: student body + admin, and all of them would be moving to Crown. So, I don't understand this "taking a strong school down" argument.

Oh.. is it that you don't want those brown/black kids from GHS as part of "Wootton"? Not a good look for you.

No one cares what color the kids are, they do however care that their scores are much lower than Wootton which will overall lower its scores as a school. These are facts. GHS has lower scores than Wootton-that’s not hypothetical.

I’m curious if you have ever actually been to Wootton? Because you would know that there are black and brown kids here too.

There is more to life than test scores.

Anonymous wrote:I think we are making much progress in this discussion. We have established that if H passes, the Wootton name will disappear, the new replacement school will be mediocre, that many people who bought into the Wootton district will be seeking to move or to send their kids to private schools, and that we will continue to elect people who think all of this is good for the county.

Anonymous wrote:Some other things we learned:
You can only advocate for your kids and school if you are at a low performing school, if you are in Wootton it’s not advocating-it’s whining.

If you ask for things to be fixed and are then in turn, presented with the most insane option-you are ridiculed for not accepting the wonderful gift you were so lucky to be offered.

Even though everything will change with option H-it actually all will be exactly the same apparently.

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.

+1 Are Wootton parents thinking it's the building that makes the school "strong"? It's the totality: student body + admin, and all of them would be moving to Crown. So, I don't understand this "taking a strong school down" argument.

Oh.. is it that you don't want those brown/black kids from GHS as part of "Wootton"? Not a good look for you.

No one cares what color the kids are, they do however care that their scores are much lower than Wootton which will overall lower its scores as a school. These are facts. GHS has lower scores than Wootton-that’s not hypothetical.

I’m curious if you have ever actually been to Wootton? Because you would know that there are black and brown kids here too.

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Anonymous wrote:Wootton is the affordable W school

Which is why it's the easier target and the one always beat up on.

As previous poster mentioned, once can choose to settle for a little bit less for the money in choosing Wootton vs some other areas.

And the same can be said for choosing Wootton over some of the other richer areas.

But this whole process shows what areas are more protected and in hindsight it is apparent, where some of the schools there don't have to deal with some of the nonsense that some of the Wootton cluster schools did. Those Wayside parents sure didn't want to get zoned to Wootton.

So it may very well be worth it to move to an even older/smaller home in these richer areas but also have more protection against these kinds of things.

No one is targeting or beating up on Wootton. Wootton is just being unrealistic about the boundary situation and crying about it.

First it was unfair that Dufief has to leave the cluster
Second was it is unfair that the school is falling apart
Third is that it is unfair that Wootton needs to move to a new building
Fourth is that it is unfair that Gaithersburg students will be at the new building with Wootton.

Wootton boundaries are right along where the area with Crown. There will be changes to Wootton. You all need to be realistic about the situation.

Changes like:
being moved to a new building miles from the original
a new name
new student cohort
new teachers
new admin
new programs
leveling the old Wootton

Apart from those things it'll be EXACTLY THE SAME.

The bolded has no basis in fact.
If Wootton were moved to a holding school for a year while the current building was leveled and a new building in its place, would you have an issue? No. So that is not a thing.
There may be an additional student cohort, not splitting up the current one.

So yes, there will be changes- many students very much inconvenienced by traveling to a new location. That is real. Yes, there will be a new name, but I can't see the meaningful argument for why that matters much. And...tell me why additional students is a bad thing?

Of course there will be teacher and admin turnover. That's what happens when a school closes and another opens. As for students, they're proposing to add a couple extra ES and they'll probably remove an ES or two which changes the cohort. Change is bad when things are working well and Wooton is one of the state's best high schools. Just admit that you hate the W schools and want to see them eliminated.

That's not why there would be turnover. There is turnover yearly at every school. Usually, teachers want closer to home, better admin, teaching their actual classes they were train for, etc.

Your kids will be ok if they add another ES. Its a good learning lesson for them to be in the real world with actual low income and not just rich pretending they are low income.

I'm glad we agree that when a school closes and a new one opens there are reasons new teachers might to want to teach there or existing teachers might find it too far and this will cause more turnover than usual. And you outed yourself as an anti-W school, pro-busser with "Its a good learning lesson for them to be in the real world with actual low income."

Yeah I'm not a fan of them and is a reason why we purposely avoided some of the richer areas... Yes we're one of the ones that could've afforded to live somewhere more expensive but didn't want our kids in that environment.

But some people honestly can live in a segregated world and that's their world. And it's fine. It's just different worlds and classes.

But some of these "anti-W school" people think that their point of view or world is the right way and how everyone should do and see things.

It goes back to the debate about county wide magnet programs. Some of these students are coming out and benefiting society and leading change. Whereas a lot of posters on here are saying that enrichment isn't needed for these types of students and the focus should be for the greater population who are struggling.

It's the same point of view when it comes to wanting to tear down W schools or forcing mixed demographics or integration. If they do that, can they guarantee the same level of academic rigor and standards that some of these families were looking for in choosing an area to live in and send their kids to?

The W schools have advanced classes for these students. Its the kids in the other schools that are lacking in course offerings that need the magnets to achieve to the same level.

This is kind of the mentality out there, where people want things for free.

Maybe five or ten years ago on this forum people would post, "It's all one school district. It's all the same curriculum" And that was a very naive way of thinking. And people that knew, knew which schools to look for and why some areas were more desirable and expensive than others. In the Wootton school district there are rentals available, both homes and townhomes. And they have the apartments over by the Traville Shopping Center. And there were some homes with multiple families living there. The specific cases I'm thinking of are African immigrants. So yeah believe it or not there are URM minorities in the Wootton school district.

So people were willing to sacrifice to give their kids a chance for a better education.

Fast forward to now, people are realizing there really is an inequality between schools. Such as in the different levels of rigor in the same class in different schools, leading to limited advanced offerings at some schools because supposedly there weren't enough students interested and qualified for it.

And instead of looking at the root of the problem and trying to improve it to make more students qualified for the classes, they're saying it's not fair so we should make it equal for everyone. So those people who decided to take the "grasshopper" route by buying a really nice house on a nice plot of land say that no one should take the really advanced classes or be in the advanced programs because not everyone qualifies for it. Or trying to mix the W students in with some other populations so there would be enough students for the advanced classes. But some of these students come from different elementary schools with the same different levels of preparation. So what happens if some of them can't perform or keep up with the material? Well MCPS doesn't fail anyone, so they'll slow down the curriculum for everyone in the class and school.

If people say they purposely avoid Wootton because they didn't want their kids in a pressure cooker environment, well don't complain that Wootton and other W schools have more advanced classes than other schools. Because that pressure cooker environment is what pushed kids to be able to take those courses and eligible for the countywide programs.

No one is asking for anything for free. We all all paying taxes to support the schools and all our kids should get equal opportunities. There are enough kids to take the advanced classes but there ae also more average kids than advanced and the prinicipals choose to use their allocations on the average kids vs. doing a mix good for all.

If you look at this document, the max MPDU rental rate for a one bedroom in high rise with someone with a max annual salary of $80500 is $1680/month:
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/DHCA/Resources/Files/housing/affordable/publications/mpdu/calculate_rental_rates.pdf

This rental in Rio island assigned to Wootton is $1628/month:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Gaithersburg/eaves-Washingtonian-Center/apartment/22011115

This townhome is for sale for $675000:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Rockville/554-Monet-Dr-20850/home/10518574

This recently listed home now under contract listed for $785000:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Rockville/2892-Balmoral-Dr-20850/home/10510799

And these apartments not in Rio island are about $2500/month:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Rockville/Avalon-at-Traville/apartment/22011398

The homes in Wootton aren't necessarily inaccessible. But a lot of the pricing is because you're paying for the schools.

For example instead of paying $785000 for a 1830 square foot 60 year old single family home listed above, you chose to buy this new build home for $800k recently under contract:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Montgomery-Village/9759-Stewartown-Rd-20886/unit-P45/home/196137281

You're paying more in property taxes. But you also chose to go for the newer and bigger home and most likely didn't take schools as much into account.

Or if you want something closer, this home in the Lakelands:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Gaithersburg/528-Market-Mews-E-20878/home/11183064

Not much bigger. But newer and gets the amenities of being in a preplanned development if you like that kind of thing.

Living in the Wootton school district isn't out of reach. But you can definitely get more for the money if you live elsewhere. But people choose to pay the money to live in the Wootton school district because of the reputation of its schools. So they may settle for the smaller or older home. And even if you're paying the same amount in property taxes, you probably have a lot more house for the money or some features that you really like that would've cost a lot more if it was in an area zoned for a W school.

Wootton is a school, MCPS is the school district. Wootton has had some serious issues in the past five years. I wouldn't pay that much to send my child there, especially after the rape.

And this is the type of poster that doesn't contribute.

You know school system employee staff refer to school zones as districts right? In multiple school systems in the area?

It's posters like the above that demand things to be called a certain way instead of focusing on the actual matters.

They're probably the ones that used to spout the "It's all one district and one curriculum belief'

It's okay they'll just go on and pick up whatever new popular words or trends are later.

Actually those things do matter especially when it was preventable. What do you have to offer? We’ve asked many times for suggestions and you have not suggested anything. There is no money in the budget and you refuse crown. You’d rather tantrum and bully vs offer real solutions or wait your turn.

The “wait your turn” poster is still here?

Your question has been answered countless times in this thread, but you don’t like the answer.

No, you don’t want to wait your turn and that’s the issue. You are so entitled that you think you should get priority over other schools with more serious issues.

Fine, we will wait our turn. Leave us alone.

What else ya got?

dp.. ok, then don't complain about having to send your kids to a dilapidated school.

We have every right to do that like any other school not on the CIP.

When I give my kids two realistic choices, and they don't like either one, they also continue to complain but the choices don't change.

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.

What do you mean nothing else changes? They are adding schools. That’s a change.

OK and to appease Wootton families who don't want Gaithersburg students at their school, they offered you all Crown without caring about the impact it has on Gaithersburg students. Just take your turn in line, keep your school and move on. You all created this problem.

Wootton never asked for Crown.

Anonymous wrote:And, isn't Wootton pretty much Gaithersburg?

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.

What do you mean nothing else changes? They are adding schools. That’s a change.

OK and to appease Wootton families who don't want Gaithersburg students at their school, they offered you all Crown without caring about the impact it has on Gaithersburg students. Just take your turn in line, keep your school and move on. You all created this problem.

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.

+1 Are Wootton parents thinking it's the building that makes the school "strong"? It's the totality: student body + admin, and all of them would be moving to Crown. So, I don't understand this "taking a strong school down" argument.

Oh.. is it that you don't want those brown/black kids from GHS as part of "Wootton"? Not a good look for you.

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.

What do you mean nothing else changes? They are adding schools. That’s a change.

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Anonymous wrote:The basic point that seems to be lost here is that Wootton has been a too performing school that improves the prestige of the MCPS system. Why would anyone want a school like that closed? The name at least should be preserved, which would carry the prestige forward. However there in lie the issue. One of the agendas here is to get rid of the name, even if that means erasing the prestige. Why have top, Nationally recognized schools when we can have mediocrity?

MCPS is being run by people who neither understand nor value the role prestige plays. Their leadership is shortsighted, dismissive of long term consequences, and singularly focused on equity for its own sake, without regard for excellence or outcomes. They are also undermining programs that took decades to build like the Blair magnet, a nationally recognized and highly respected program on track to be dismantled, sacrificing proven success and reputation in the name of equity.

There is nothing equitable about our schools and saying only wealth and prestige matters speaks volumes. All our kids deserve the same strong programming in high school. What are you worried about? Other kids surpassing yours?

Sure we need all schools to be strong but taking down the strong one is not the solution. Instead of making all schools strong, they’re on the way to make all schools weak.

No one is talking about taking down your so called strong school. They are offering to move it to a new location - nothing else changes. They only offered because parents like you had a tantrum over the condiditon despite it getting regular updates.