Let's say a boundary study concludes with a recommendation that we should exchange a decent portion of our W school student body with neighboring schools that have large demographic differences. This would add slightly to bus routes, but not a huge difference.

And let's also suppose we have strong reason to believe that doing so will cause upper middle class families that are re-assigned to the non-W school leave, and that the demographics of the schools will be largely unchanged.

In that scenario, should we implement that recommended plan?

Anonymous wrote:I think that these should be the MCPS priorities above anything else:

1. Health & Safety. This means addressing student and teacher safety. Ex. if a building has asbesdos or falling ceilings that's dealt with before other renovations. That also means if a school has rats or mice, that's dealt with before building a new school or re-renovating a school with artificial overcrowding that could be addressed with a boundary change. If also this means a school needs an SRO because of rising incidents, it needs an SRO.
2. Academics. This means that no teacher classroom is without basic school supplies or what they need to conduct effective instruction. This means that the Central Office provides support and assistance to teacher concerns, not the other way around. This does not mean teachers go off rails by teaching personal bias, but if it's related to the course material to supplement the module or a textbook, it's fair game. I know the CO will claim they already support teachers, but if a teacher says they're asking parents for materials to help with instruction - they're really not.
3. Fiscal Responsibility. Pet projects are not funded until 1 and 2 are addressed. Period.
4. Everything else is a "competing priority" that can be decided by MCPS leadership; subject to financial constraints.

And my kids have been in extremely overcrowded schools for years - I think that should be the first priority. Not sure what artificial overcrowding is, but the chaos at the overcrowded schools is just that: chaos. The overcrowding has lead to an extremely unsafe environment.

All schools have rats - kids leave behind food and trash, it's like a paradise for the rats

And asbestos is fine as long as its not disturbed.

I agree with you about academics, but let's fill all the teacher roles with qualified teachers, not long term subs, and not the sub of the day or no sub so they get pawned off to other classrooms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do these priorities relate to the Boundary Study? If someone is advocating busing that will cost more money, kill it. Stop wasting money for someone's pet project.

Yes, stop busing kids from nearby schools to ones across the county just because their parents had political clout 40 years ago.

Kensington to Bethesda is across Rock Creek but NOT "across the county."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Every single time I have read claims like this, and then looked into specifics of the actual boundary, it was immediately clear that the boundaries result from constraints from the distribution of population and placements of schools.

Boundaries will be improved where it's doable, but situations like what you're describing are likely to persist after redistricting.

LOL which is easily corrected. Why I should pay for your kids to be bussed when there's a perfectly fine school nearby.

Fine isn’t always good enough for people who can afford better.

If you choose private, that's your business, but I shouldn't be subsidizing segregation.

Anonymous wrote:How do these priorities relate to the Boundary Study? If someone is advocating busing that will cost more money, kill it. Stop wasting money for someone's pet project.

Yes, stop busing kids from nearby schools to ones across the county just because their parents had political clout 40 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Because most of those families want to continue at WJ over Einstein.

My kids at Paint Branch also want to continue at Churchill. Can the county bus them too?

Do the boundary studies. Period! Schools are not conveyed with house purchase, regardless how folks feel it may affect their property values. These studies are LONG overdue and should result in boundaries that are logical, explainable, and address where we are as a county in 2024/2025 and where projected to be 2026-2029.

The school district is to make the best use of facilities and resources and put together the best educational environment for all students. The study produces options that are open to public review, comment and even people to come up with alternative ideas.

How do these priorities relate to the Boundary Study? If someone is advocating busing that will cost more money, kill it. Stop wasting money for someone's pet project.

I think that these should be the MCPS priorities above anything else:

1. Health & Safety. This means addressing student and teacher safety. Ex. if a building has asbesdos or falling ceilings that's dealt with before other renovations. That also means if a school has rats or mice, that's dealt with before building a new school or re-renovating a school with artificial overcrowding that could be addressed with a boundary change. If also this means a school needs an SRO because of rising incidents, it needs an SRO.
2. Academics. This means that no teacher classroom is without basic school supplies or what they need to conduct effective instruction. This means that the Central Office provides support and assistance to teacher concerns, not the other way around. This does not mean teachers go off rails by teaching personal bias, but if it's related to the course material to supplement the module or a textbook, it's fair game. I know the CO will claim they already support teachers, but if a teacher says they're asking parents for materials to help with instruction - they're really not.
3. Fiscal Responsibility. Pet projects are not funded until 1 and 2 are addressed. Period.
4. Everything else is a "competing priority" that can be decided by MCPS leadership; subject to financial constraints.

I think the dynamics of redistricting are very interesting. HoCo had its very public and controversial redistricting in 2019, which made national headlines:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/howard-county-school-redistricting.html

The article above tells a story of their redistricting plan, part of which involved changing the boundaries of River Hill high school, which is relatively (very) highly ranked, and Wilde Lake high school, which is relatively lower ranked. The plan was described as efforts for integration of the two populations, which had very different demographic makeups.

But in hindsight, if you look at how the demographics actually changed during that time period, you do see a drop off of White students from River Hill, but surprisingly there is also a drop off of White students in Wilde Lake during the same time period. Additionally, the percentage of FARMS students at Wilde Lake did not seem to appreciably change.

(data from https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MD/schools/0042000762/school.aspx and https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MD/schools/0042000816/school.aspx)

It seems likely that parents who were redistricted to a school that is perceived to be much worse did not find the situation acceptable and did not opt to go along with it.

The reason I bring this all up is that in MoCo, when they redraw the borders, we are likely to see similar efforts to shift demographic makeups of the schools. If this occurs, we have historical data that strongly suggests the following will happen:

1) Home values of schools which change to lower ranked schools will drop
2) Some percentage of families who are shifted to a lower ranked school will feel pressured to leave

If you are a family described in 2) above, and you're looking to move your kids to the best school you can afford. Moving to (or within) MoCo is very difficult at the moment because of how competitive the market is- you can see this reflected by the fact that counties such as Frederick are rapidly growing, while MoCo is shrinking:

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/data-shows-montgomery-county-residents-are-leaving-for-frederick-county

This is exacerbated by point 1), which suggests these families would have fewer resources to work with due to their home equity taking an immediate hit. For these families, moving to somewhere like Urbana with cheaper houses and excellent schools is likely to be more appealing and achievable.

In summary, I believe historical data suggests redistricting neighborhoods out of highly ranked schools may not achieve the desired demographic changes in both schools, but may instead move upper middle class families out of the district proportionally to the magnitude of the changes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Every single time I have read claims like this, and then looked into specifics of the actual boundary, it was immediately clear that the boundaries result from constraints from the distribution of population and placements of schools.

Boundaries will be improved where it's doable, but situations like what you're describing are likely to persist after redistricting.

LOL which is easily corrected. Why I should pay for your kids to be bussed when there's a perfectly fine school nearby.

Fine isn’t always good enough for people who can afford better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Because most of those families want to continue at WJ over Einstein.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Every single time I have read claims like this, and then looked into specifics of the actual boundary, it was immediately clear that the boundaries result from constraints from the distribution of population and placements of schools.

Boundaries will be improved where it's doable, but situations like what you're describing are likely to persist after redistricting.

LOL which is easily corrected. Why I should pay for your kids to be bussed when there's a perfectly fine school nearby.

DP. You can't pay your taxes a la carte - yes I want to pay for this, no I don't want to pay for that.

Regardless, unnecessary busing results in waste that requires higher taxation to make up the shortfall.

Most of the unnecessary busing comes from busing kids who live within the walking distances of their assigned schools, but there's no safe walking route for them to take to school. Speaking of waste that required higher taxation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Every single time I have read claims like this, and then looked into specifics of the actual boundary, it was immediately clear that the boundaries result from constraints from the distribution of population and placements of schools.

Boundaries will be improved where it's doable, but situations like what you're describing are likely to persist after redistricting.

LOL which is easily corrected. Why I should pay for your kids to be bussed when there's a perfectly fine school nearby.

DP. You can't pay your taxes a la carte - yes I want to pay for this, no I don't want to pay for that.

Regardless, unnecessary busing results in waste that requires higher taxation to make up the shortfall.

DDP. Great! Let's have taxation & budgeting that would support acquisition of land inside the Beltway in SS/TP and build schools so that those areas don't get bussed north/outside the Beltway. Then you could avoid bussing Kensington folks west, too!

Oh, but those interested in using taxes for W relief first disposed of that SS/TP consideration as too expensive with a brief study. Good thing they concomitantly sold Woodward as a solution to that DCC overcrowding (before walking much of that back after approval)!

I didn't think anyone cared about schools in the DCC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can reduce busing costs. Boundaries like Wootton's are terrible. Most of the students live closer to another school.

And then Horizon Hill neighborhood which is walkable, DOESN'T go to Wootton.

In Kensington, many families who live near Einstein also end up being bussed cross-county to WJ. These segregated boundaries from 40 years ago need to go.

Every single time I have read claims like this, and then looked into specifics of the actual boundary, it was immediately clear that the boundaries result from constraints from the distribution of population and placements of schools.

Boundaries will be improved where it's doable, but situations like what you're describing are likely to persist after redistricting.

LOL which is easily corrected. Why I should pay for your kids to be bussed when there's a perfectly fine school nearby.

DP. You can't pay your taxes a la carte - yes I want to pay for this, no I don't want to pay for that.

Regardless, unnecessary busing results in waste that requires higher taxation to make up the shortfall.

DDP. Great! Let's have taxation & budgeting that would support acquisition of land inside the Beltway in SS/TP and build schools so that those areas don't get bussed north/outside the Beltway. Then you could avoid bussing Kensington folks west, too!

Oh, but those interested in using taxes for W relief first disposed of that SS/TP consideration as too expensive with a brief study. Good thing they concomitantly sold Woodward as a solution to that DCC overcrowding (before walking much of that back after approval)!