Anonymous wrote:At what point do people actually acknowledge this is all an effort to level the playing field by disadvantaging the children of the wealthy by sending them long distances to school. Of course, few with other options will go along with this; they will go private or move. MCPS is not only mediocre, but now delusional.

The wealthy families will go private. The middle class will move because they cannot afford private. Talk about a way to hollow out the county schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when I started to look at colleges and my parents told me that I had to go to a school with at cv last 10% Jewish population. I didn’t really understand it until I went to college (one with a large Jewish population) and was the first Jew that many people had met. The questions I was asked, the assumptions made, and the comments I heard made me sure of one thing- when I graduated I would always love in an area like I grew up. One where I was comfortable with my religion. So, yes, I picked my home based on the location of lots of synagogues but also so my children could grow up surrounded by people that share their same beliefs. This is what redistricting is about for me. I want my white children who are minorities to be in a school with people like them. And I don’t want a far ride away from that.

White Catholics are minorities too.

Lots of minority groups in MoCo- white Jews, white Christians, Muslims. Hispanic and AA are the “largest group of minorities.” And have been for the last 10 years and growing.

MoCo of the 1990s is long gone.

Catholics are Christians. Christians are not a minority.

Np. You obviously aren’t Catholic. I’ve had plenty of Protestants tell me or ask me if I’m Christian.

At what point do people actually acknowledge this is all an effort to level the playing field by disadvantaging the children of the wealthy by sending them long distances to school. Of course, few with other options will go along with this; they will go private or move. MCPS is not only mediocre, but now delusional.

The report also says that not all of the state funds that are allocated to the focus schools are going to those schools. If not, where are those funds going? To Central Office? Serious question.

The report also seems to complain about so much money going to Special Education students. $36K per special ed student. I don’t think they understand the law related to students with disabilities. Is County Council asking to take money from Special Ed and give to Focus schools for FARMS students?

Honestly, find this report to be totally confusing. Did the Council vote on any resolution?

I grew up in bum f nowhere in the mountains. I didn’t meet a Jewish person until I was in my 20’s. I never though Jewish people had horns though, that sounds like a really bad prejudiced joke. Jewish people are humans after all.

This whole “segregation” thing is really the wrong term. True segregation had white and black schools. Black kids couldn’t go to the white school even if they lived in the district. This is economic self-segregation. I know many don’t understand this but lots of very low income people don’t have the money for a car and can’t get to their kid’s schools for conferences and events if the school is far away. They need to talk to the people they’re trying to de-segregate to make sure they actually want this before they do it. I do think that they need to fill up the schools with extra capacity so a boundary study is definitely needed. You shouldn’t have undercapacity schools and not use that capacity prior to building new schools.

Why not give high poverty schools extra resources (a lot of them) and keep the rest of the kids out of it?
I know from experience that 1-2 middle class kids won’t make a whole room of low income kids to magically perform well.

Read the report. It makes it sound like the County Council wants even more desegregation (and that means switching schools and bussing) than what the BOE seems to be doing. They seem to want a Howard County-type decision - swap thousands of kids from one school to another.

They are all missing one critical piece. Diversity is not enough without inclusion. Organizations of all types struggle with that, but inclusion doesn’t work unless it’s voluntary and collaborative. This is why “diversity trainings” can backfire and make people feel defensive (“are they making me take this because they think i’m a racist?”) etc.

Jewish woman here who grew up in a major metropolitan area. Came to college in DC in the mid 80s and was asked (seriously) by someone during the orientation week where my horns were. I was shocked. 35+ years later and I still remember that late night conversation. No harm in wanting to be around some others who are like you (not being the only one who is different). An entire school of homogeneous people - that is a problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when I started to look at colleges and my parents told me that I had to go to a school with at cv last 10% Jewish population. I didn’t really understand it until I went to college (one with a large Jewish population) and was the first Jew that many people had met. The questions I was asked, the assumptions made, and the comments I heard made me sure of one thing- when I graduated I would always love in an area like I grew up. One where I was comfortable with my religion. So, yes, I picked my home based on the location of lots of synagogues but also so my children could grow up surrounded by people that share their same beliefs. This is what redistricting is about for me. I want my white children who are minorities to be in a school with people like them. And I don’t want a far ride away from that.

White Catholics are minorities too.

Lots of minority groups in MoCo- white Jews, white Christians, Muslims. Hispanic and AA are the “largest group of minorities.” And have been for the last 10 years and growing.

MoCo of the 1990s is long gone.

MCPS has always been segregated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when I started to look at colleges and my parents told me that I had to go to a school with at cv last 10% Jewish population. I didn’t really understand it until I went to college (one with a large Jewish population) and was the first Jew that many people had met. The questions I was asked, the assumptions made, and the comments I heard made me sure of one thing- when I graduated I would always love in an area like I grew up. One where I was comfortable with my religion. So, yes, I picked my home based on the location of lots of synagogues but also so my children could grow up surrounded by people that share their same beliefs. This is what redistricting is about for me. I want my white children who are minorities to be in a school with people like them. And I don’t want a far ride away from that.

White Catholics are minorities too.

Lots of minority groups in MoCo- white Jews, white Christians, Muslims. Hispanic and AA are the “largest group of minorities.” And have been for the last 10 years and growing.

MoCo of the 1990s is long gone.

Catholics are Christians. Christians are not a minority.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a township district that had an optional, elective bussing program: inner city kids could go to suburban schools with capacity, can suburban kids could go to specialty schools downtown, IF they elected. A Small taxpayer funded bus provided curbside pickups and drop offs, for the 40+ minute drive.

Sadly, I never saw the inner city kids’ parents at anything, even their own kids’ basketball, football games, track meets, or band concerts. Most had to catch the 2:50pm bus back or they were stuck with 90 minutes of city busses.

No community feeling there.

It was a school within a school as everyone hung out “with their own people.” Large Chinese and Vietnamese population too.

I also heard the N word on a daily basis, from the blacks. This was in the 1990a. Maybe no one says that word any longer.

The difference is those parents had to work and didn't have flexibility to take off.

Anonymous wrote:I remember when I started to look at colleges and my parents told me that I had to go to a school with at cv last 10% Jewish population. I didn’t really understand it until I went to college (one with a large Jewish population) and was the first Jew that many people had met. The questions I was asked, the assumptions made, and the comments I heard made me sure of one thing- when I graduated I would always love in an area like I grew up. One where I was comfortable with my religion. So, yes, I picked my home based on the location of lots of synagogues but also so my children could grow up surrounded by people that share their same beliefs. This is what redistricting is about for me. I want my white children who are minorities to be in a school with people like them. And I don’t want a far ride away from that.

So, basically you only want your kids to associate with Rich parents and Jewish. You should go to an all Jewish school. My white Jewish kids wouldn't even make your standards, probably.

Anonymous wrote:The schools are segregated based on where affordable housing is available. Potomac does not have apartments for rent, so how will you find kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds there? They do not live in the vicinity. And parents of these kids do not want them to spend extra time on the bus to go to Churchill or Whitman.

Actually there are pockets of low income housing. You may not know it is there but some of us do.

Anonymous wrote:The schools are segregated based on where affordable housing is available. Potomac does not have apartments for rent, so how will you find kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds there? They do not live in the vicinity. And parents of these kids do not want them to spend extra time on the bus to go to Churchill or Whitman.

How do you know what they want? I think it could be beneficial if some motivated parens from poor families want to send their kids to w ro escape the disfunctional home school.

The schools are segregated based on where affordable housing is available. Potomac does not have apartments for rent, so how will you find kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds there? They do not live in the vicinity. And parents of these kids do not want them to spend extra time on the bus to go to Churchill or Whitman.