Anonymous wrote:Travilah and stone mill get screwed in this outcome. They go to cabin John and Hoover respectively, then to Wootton. All other students in both of those schools will go to Churchill. Huge loss for the Wootton bound kids. Other options consolidated them to frost.

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Anonymous wrote:So happy Wootton will get a new building! We didn’t testify publicly but have been sending emails to the board and Taylor about why we support option H. Just people a small group of people are louder doesn’t mean they speak for the majority.

This is that I'm thinking. The outcome is so great for Wootton. They get a new building. They get the math & science focal area. Almost the full community stays the same (cold spring moves to churchill, but I haven't seen any concern from those folks and it's a tiny part of wootton. The only downside is that current walkers will need to be bus riders. That would annoy me as a parent. But the rest of the stuff is great. One might wonder why Wootton is getting all of the benefits form this re-org.

Almost the full community stays the same" except half of it will be new. And there will be a new name and probably new admin and new staff. And of course it will be in a new building in a new location. So, quite literally, nothing will be the same.

What are you talking about? The name, admin, and staff will almost certainly stay the same. Do you not know how building changes work? It's basically like getting sent to a holding school but it's permanent rather than temporary. But otherwise not much else changes (except a little bit with the boundaries on this one because it's weird timing.)

Thomas Wootton was a slave owner. There's no way MCPS keeps that name when they have the chance to signal their progressive virtues by naming it after a member of a marginalized community. Or perhaps they just name it after the community itself. My bet is that they will go with Piscataway HS. So as I said, a new building in a new location with a new name. The new location will mean many of the teachers and admin don't want to travel there. And of course there are moving at least 2 ES out and adding at least 2 ES in. So that's a big change on student cohort. So almost nothing will be the same.

And yes, I know exactly how a school closure works and that's what this is.

Your belief is that the majority of teachers and staff at Wootton live significantly closer to the current building than the new building, and this would affect their commute negatively? Or you believe that the current secluded location tucked away in a neighborhood is a more desirable place to work than in Crown?

DP. Traffic around Crown will be a nightmare for everyone. A school tucked away in a neighborhood is more desirable to great teachers. Proof is the top reputation of Wootton- while Crown is, at best, a question mark. Though not really one, since while GHS and QO might be closer to where some teachers live, most teachers want to work at top schools. No different than admin staff - principals and vice principals want the same. It enhances their career prospects, especially if they want to teach at a private school after hitting their base pension benefits.

New school buildings are often populated by great teachers who are eager to work there.

Please cite examples in MoCo where this is the case. Did any of the newly renovated high schools in MoCo jump dramatically in academic rankings? For example, did Seneca Valley improve overall after its renovation? IB doesn’t count because that’s a specialty program only open to a select group of teachers and students.

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Anonymous wrote:I never understood why people were obsessed with the name. But you're saying that you know that the name honors a slaveholder and even so, you bring the possible loss of the name up as one of your main arguments repeatedly?

I'm not a person that thinks we need to go around changing every name. But I also wouldn't use the fact that he was a slaveholder as an explanation for why you're worried about a name change.

They can call it Wootton High School at Crown.

Anonymous wrote:I never understood why people were obsessed with the name. But you're saying that you know that the name honors a slaveholder and even so, you bring the possible loss of the name up as one of your main arguments repeatedly?

I'm not a person that thinks we need to go around changing every name. But I also wouldn't use the fact that he was a slaveholder as an explanation for why you're worried about a name change.

Anonymous wrote:I never understood why people were obsessed with the name. But you're saying that you know that the name honors a slaveholder and even so, you bring the possible loss of the name up as one of your main arguments repeatedly?

I'm not a person that thinks we need to go around changing every name. But I also wouldn't use the fact that he was a slaveholder as an explanation for why you're worried about a name change.

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Anonymous wrote:So happy Wootton will get a new building! We didn’t testify publicly but have been sending emails to the board and Taylor about why we support option H. Just people a small group of people are louder doesn’t mean they speak for the majority.

This is that I'm thinking. The outcome is so great for Wootton. They get a new building. They get the math & science focal area. Almost the full community stays the same (cold spring moves to churchill, but I haven't seen any concern from those folks and it's a tiny part of wootton. The only downside is that current walkers will need to be bus riders. That would annoy me as a parent. But the rest of the stuff is great. One might wonder why Wootton is getting all of the benefits form this re-org.

Almost the full community stays the same" except half of it will be new. And there will be a new name and probably new admin and new staff. And of course it will be in a new building in a new location. So, quite literally, nothing will be the same.

What are you talking about? The name, admin, and staff will almost certainly stay the same. Do you not know how building changes work? It's basically like getting sent to a holding school but it's permanent rather than temporary. But otherwise not much else changes (except a little bit with the boundaries on this one because it's weird timing.)

Thomas Wootton was a slave owner. There's no way MCPS keeps that name when they have the chance to signal their progressive virtues by naming it after a member of a marginalized community. Or perhaps they just name it after the community itself. My bet is that they will go with Piscataway HS. So as I said, a new building in a new location with a new name. The new location will mean many of the teachers and admin don't want to travel there. And of course there are moving at least 2 ES out and adding at least 2 ES in. So that's a big change on student cohort. So almost nothing will be the same.

And yes, I know exactly how a school closure works and that's what this is.

Your belief is that the majority of teachers and staff at Wootton live significantly closer to the current building than the new building, and this would affect their commute negatively? Or you believe that the current secluded location tucked away in a neighborhood is a more desirable place to work than in Crown?

DP. Traffic around Crown will be a nightmare for everyone. A school tucked away in a neighborhood is more desirable to great teachers. Proof is the top reputation of Wootton- while Crown is, at best, a question mark. Though not really one, since while GHS and QO might be closer to where some teachers live, most teachers want to work at top schools. No different than admin staff - principals and vice principals want the same. It enhances their career prospects, especially if they want to teach at a private school after hitting their base pension benefits.

New school buildings are often populated by great teachers who are eager to work there.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So happy Wootton will get a new building! We didn’t testify publicly but have been sending emails to the board and Taylor about why we support option H. Just people a small group of people are louder doesn’t mean they speak for the majority.

This is that I'm thinking. The outcome is so great for Wootton. They get a new building. They get the math & science focal area. Almost the full community stays the same (cold spring moves to churchill, but I haven't seen any concern from those folks and it's a tiny part of wootton. The only downside is that current walkers will need to be bus riders. That would annoy me as a parent. But the rest of the stuff is great. One might wonder why Wootton is getting all of the benefits form this re-org.

Almost the full community stays the same" except half of it will be new. And there will be a new name and probably new admin and new staff. And of course it will be in a new building in a new location. So, quite literally, nothing will be the same.

What are you talking about? The name, admin, and staff will almost certainly stay the same. Do you not know how building changes work? It's basically like getting sent to a holding school but it's permanent rather than temporary. But otherwise not much else changes (except a little bit with the boundaries on this one because it's weird timing.)

Thomas Wootton was a slave owner. There's no way MCPS keeps that name when they have the chance to signal their progressive virtues by naming it after a member of a marginalized community. Or perhaps they just name it after the community itself. My bet is that they will go with Piscataway HS. So as I said, a new building in a new location with a new name. The new location will mean many of the teachers and admin don't want to travel there. And of course there are moving at least 2 ES out and adding at least 2 ES in. So that's a big change on student cohort. So almost nothing will be the same.

And yes, I know exactly how a school closure works and that's what this is.

Your belief is that the majority of teachers and staff at Wootton live significantly closer to the current building than the new building, and this would affect their commute negatively? Or you believe that the current secluded location tucked away in a neighborhood is a more desirable place to work than in Crown?

DP. Traffic around Crown will be a nightmare for everyone. A school tucked away in a neighborhood is more desirable to great teachers. Proof is the top reputation of Wootton- while Crown is, at best, a question mark. Though not really one, since while GHS and QO might be closer to where some teachers live, most teachers want to work at top schools. No different than admin staff - principals and vice principals want the same. It enhances their career prospects, especially if they want to teach at a private school after hitting their base pension benefits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So happy Wootton will get a new building! We didn’t testify publicly but have been sending emails to the board and Taylor about why we support option H. Just people a small group of people are louder doesn’t mean they speak for the majority.

This is that I'm thinking. The outcome is so great for Wootton. They get a new building. They get the math & science focal area. Almost the full community stays the same (cold spring moves to churchill, but I haven't seen any concern from those folks and it's a tiny part of wootton. The only downside is that current walkers will need to be bus riders. That would annoy me as a parent. But the rest of the stuff is great. One might wonder why Wootton is getting all of the benefits form this re-org.

Almost the full community stays the same" except half of it will be new. And there will be a new name and probably new admin and new staff. And of course it will be in a new building in a new location. So, quite literally, nothing will be the same.

What are you talking about? The name, admin, and staff will almost certainly stay the same. Do you not know how building changes work? It's basically like getting sent to a holding school but it's permanent rather than temporary. But otherwise not much else changes (except a little bit with the boundaries on this one because it's weird timing.)

Thomas Wootton was a slave owner. There's no way MCPS keeps that name when they have the chance to signal their progressive virtues by naming it after a member of a marginalized community. Or perhaps they just name it after the community itself. My bet is that they will go with Piscataway HS. So as I said, a new building in a new location with a new name. The new location will mean many of the teachers and admin don't want to travel there. And of course there are moving at least 2 ES out and adding at least 2 ES in. So that's a big change on student cohort. So almost nothing will be the same.

And yes, I know exactly how a school closure works and that's what this is.

Your belief is that the majority of teachers and staff at Wootton live significantly closer to the current building than the new building, and this would affect their commute negatively? Or you believe that the current secluded location tucked away in a neighborhood is a more desirable place to work than in Crown?

Anonymous wrote:I thought they were selling option H with the promise the Wootton community stays together and just the building changes. That was very misleading. Now they are casting Cold Spring out so they are breaking up the school community. They’re also doing some weird middle school shuffling. As a Wootton parent, I don’t mind adding students from another ES in but I do mind that now we won’t be Wootton at all. I attended Wootton as did many of my neighbors, so both kids and parents feel deeply connected to the school community.

I think it would have made more sense to move Wootton temporarily to Crown while bringing Wootton up to acceptable standards and then move the kids back to Wootton Parkway. The building is inadequate for Wootton as it stands today so why is it adequate for a holding school? There will also be lots of traffic congestion on Wootton Parkway if kids come from 30 minutes away and the Wootton kids are going in the opposite direction to reach Crown.

I understand they can’t make everyone happy and I will accept the decision that is made but I resent that I received the superintendent’s email this evening saying “ This is not a school closure—Wootton remains Wootton
Essentially, the school’s students, staff, programs, traditions, and identity would continue in a modern, purpose-built facility” at the same time our neighborhood has essentially learned we won’t be attending Wootton.

Anonymous wrote:So happy Wootton will get a new building! We didn’t testify publicly but have been sending emails to the board and Taylor about why we support option H. Just people a small group of people are louder doesn’t mean they speak for the majority.

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sorry but I haven't been paying attention to this. Can someone give me a high level breakdown on what Option H does for Crown and Woodward?

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sorry but I haven't been paying attention to this. Can someone give me a high level breakdown on what Option H does for Crown and Woodward?