I don't like the idea of turning SSIMS into a holding school and then closing it, but they said they were doing it to renovate Eastern and Sligo Middle, which are not west county or rich.

But I agree that shutting down schools in a central dense area is a bad idea, and I think MCPS needs to provide a lot more information on what led them to come to the conclusion that this option was better than renovating or tearing down and rebuilding those schools in the same location.

There is a profound equity issue here, and I hope the folks in DTSS yell loud and clear.

Closing SSIMS disproportionately hurts poor/working class families by forcing them into enormous schools that are much further from home.

Building at Nolte removes one of the only walkable green spaces for kids living in nearby apartment complexes.

Using SCES/SSIMS as a holding school benefits rich west county families by giving them a lovely location while their own schools are renovated.

Taken together, this is an attack on poor/working class families, families of color, and families who choose or are forced to choose to live in an urban environment.

Anonymous wrote:It is very complex. And based on the way things have been going, I’m not sure they are going to adequately engage the communities that will be affected by changes. But hopefully I am wrong.

If they do add part of SCES to the ESS catchment area and try to keep kids together for MS/HS, it seems like adding everybody to Eastern (which is slated for rebuild) and Northwood (which is brand new) would make more sense from a utilization perspective than adding more kids to TPMS and Blair, which are already at or near capacity. I don’t necessarily agree that it’s right, but I could see MCPS trying to make that point.

But ESS is so walkable to TPMS! That would be a major loss to this community.

Related, ESS is one of the schools untouched by the first 4 options that is now in play for the second set.

It is very complex. And based on the way things have been going, I’m not sure they are going to adequately engage the communities that will be affected by changes. But hopefully I am wrong.

If they do add part of SCES to the ESS catchment area and try to keep kids together for MS/HS, it seems like adding everybody to Eastern (which is slated for rebuild) and Northwood (which is brand new) would make more sense from a utilization perspective than adding more kids to TPMS and Blair, which are already at or near capacity. I don’t necessarily agree that it’s right, but I could see MCPS trying to make that point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think SCES’s FARMS rate is higher than 18% but still lower than ESS. But that is due, in part, the French immersion program (which serves students outside the catchment area) dragging down the average. The non-French classes at SCES have significantly more students that qualify for FARMS.

But another unanswered question is what happens to the French immersion program, especially at the middle school level with the dissolution of SSIMS. Nobody has answered this, or many other questions, yet.

They should just keep SCES where it is and keep SSIMS open. Their current plan makes no sense.

Agree, but the FARMS difference is pretty significant even without French immersion and I think this boundary is one of the ones most due for evaluation in a new study.

I suspect if SCES were moved further north, perhaps near the golf course, the population south of Wayne Ave could be absorbed into ESS. That school is high FARMS and also under enrolled.

All that said, I think DTSS should loudly protest repurposing the current SCES and SSIMS buildings.

Anonymous wrote:That could work in the long term but it does seem pretty devastating for the current SCES kids to get split up from their friends midway through elementary school. And then what happens in middle school and high school? Do they send all of ESS with its new boundaries to eastern and then Northwood?

I mean, it's not just SCES, they're already planning to split kids away from their friends midway through elementary school in 2028 when they implement the countywide elementary boundary study? They're planning on "fixing" the 6-8 DCC elementary schools with split articulation under the current boundary options by taking those kids out of their current elementary schools and reassigning them to different ones to fix all the unnecessary split articulation that comes from bending over backwards to accommodate their new "region" borders and make sure that almost no WJ/BCC/Whitman families are inconvenienced in any way...

Anonymous wrote:That could work in the long term but it does seem pretty devastating for the current SCES kids to get split up from their friends midway through elementary school. And then what happens in middle school and high school? Do they send all of ESS with its new boundaries to eastern and then Northwood?

ESS should really stay with TPMS and Blair. I agree— I am in this neighborhood and it is weird to be zoned separately all the way through. These things are hard to fix.

At SCES, there are also a number of COSA’ed siblings who didn’t get into French. I assume that gets all messed up (even if French doesn’t move) if there’s suddenly a sharp boundary change.

That could work in the long term but it does seem pretty devastating for the current SCES kids to get split up from their friends midway through elementary school. And then what happens in middle school and high school? Do they send all of ESS with its new boundaries to eastern and then Northwood?

Anonymous wrote:I think SCES’s FARMS rate is higher than 18% but still lower than ESS. But that is due, in part, the French immersion program (which serves students outside the catchment area) dragging down the average. The non-French classes at SCES have significantly more students that qualify for FARMS.

But another unanswered question is what happens to the French immersion program, especially at the middle school level with the dissolution of SSIMS. Nobody has answered this, or many other questions, yet.

They should just keep SCES where it is and keep SSIMS open. Their current plan makes no sense.

Agree, but the FARMS difference is pretty significant even without French immersion and I think this boundary is one of the ones most due for evaluation in a new study.

I suspect if SCES were moved further north, perhaps near the golf course, the population south of Wayne Ave could be absorbed into ESS. That school is high FARMS and also under enrolled.

The French immersion program has moved before — they could put it at a different school.

I think SCES’s FARMS rate is higher than 18% but still lower than ESS. But that is due, in part, the French immersion program (which serves students outside the catchment area) dragging down the average. The non-French classes at SCES have significantly more students that qualify for FARMS.

But another unanswered question is what happens to the French immersion program, especially at the middle school level with the dissolution of SSIMS. Nobody has answered this, or many other questions, yet.

They should just keep SCES where it is and keep SSIMS open. Their current plan makes no sense.

What about closing the golf course at Sligo and building there?

As a former DTSS resident, I would hate to see the loss of Nolte Park. I hope that a different option can be found.

As things currently stand, if SCES were built in nolte Park, it would be built in the ESS catchment area. The two schools would be about 3 blocks apart. But they currently have very different student populations. Quick Google says ESS is 62% FARMS and SCES is 18%. As people have pointed out elsewhere on this thread, the boundaries are somewhat non intuitive anyway, and putting those schools so close together makes it kind of look worse.

Side note: ESS used to be a K-2 school feeding into piney Branch ES so there is some precedent.

Anonymous wrote:If they did build in nolte Park would a k-2 and 3-5 model be on the table? Might address some equity issues

How so?