Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says -

Which high school is your kid zoned for and what do you think about the 6 regional magnets and the placement of the program your kid would be interested in?

WJ/Woodward, and my thoughts are: 🤢🤮 it's horrible

I think WJ/Woodward is getting a bad deal with respect to IB. They are now being assigned to the regional program at Kennedy even though RM and BCC would both be closer. Wasn't the whole point of the model to provide programming closer to home?

What the BOE didn't want to tell you is that they're trying to also balance FARMS and racial demographics with these new regions too. They just don't want to say that out loud in this anti-DEI climate we're in under Trump.

By switching QO from region 6 to region 5, they are clearly showing that they don’t GAF to FARM balance.

They care in some regions more than others. But there's a reason they're didn't group BCC, Walter Johnson and Woodward together and instead split them between different regions that have higher FARMS and minority populations.

They are counting on QO kids going to Watkins Mill for IB and WJ/Woodward kids going to Kennedy. I'm not convinced that will happen.

Yeah, they want everyone to stay home, and that is what will happen. Segregation re-enforced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says -

Which high school is your kid zoned for and what do you think about the 6 regional magnets and the placement of the program your kid would be interested in?

WJ/Woodward, and my thoughts are: 🤢🤮 it's horrible

I think WJ/Woodward is getting a bad deal with respect to IB. They are now being assigned to the regional program at Kennedy even though RM and BCC would both be closer. Wasn't the whole point of the model to provide programming closer to home?

What the BOE didn't want to tell you is that they're trying to also balance FARMS and racial demographics with these new regions too. They just don't want to say that out loud in this anti-DEI climate we're in under Trump.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone with concerns about the proposed 6 regions should keep emailing the BOE members.

Particularly Brenda Wolff, Grace and Karla. Those are the biggest decision makers on the board.

Remember that Karla Silvestre is running for county council.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says -

Which high school is your kid zoned for and what do you think about the 6 regional magnets and the placement of the program your kid would be interested in?

WJ/Woodward, and my thoughts are: 🤢🤮 it's horrible

I think WJ/Woodward is getting a bad deal with respect to IB. They are now being assigned to the regional program at Kennedy even though RM and BCC would both be closer. Wasn't the whole point of the model to provide programming closer to home?

What the BOE didn't want to tell you is that they're trying to also balance FARMS and racial demographics with these new regions too. They just don't want to say that out loud in this anti-DEI climate we're in under Trump.

By switching QO from region 6 to region 5, they are clearly showing that they don’t GAF to FARM balance.

They care in some regions more than others. But there's a reason they're didn't group BCC, Walter Johnson and Woodward together and instead split them between different regions that have higher FARMS and minority populations.

They are counting on QO kids going to Watkins Mill for IB and WJ/Woodward kids going to Kennedy. I'm not convinced that will happen.

Yeah, they want everyone to stay home, and that is what will happen. Segregation re-enforced.

Anonymous wrote:Just get rid of all the magnet programs. It’s putting resources that other kids need into programs that help the already advantaged kids.

And yeah, I’m sure this will go over well with the striver parents around here.

I have a kid in one of the programs and he would do fine and have challenging and interesting classes at his home school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in a strong cluster with no desire or need to look outside of it for additional opportunities, little worried about the quality of schools being clustered with us. It looks like they will use us to prop up weaker schools which can only impact local peer group.

It will have zero impact on your school.

thats funny I don't think they mentioned which school so how can you know about the impact. Your confidence / ignorance is telling. Fine if there 0 impacts to the schools why is everybody up in arms? Why is it a 0 impact to a stronger school if a bunch of weaker schools are clustered to it? If weaker kids are a 0 impact why are the weaker schools weaker?

Let me answer those for you, the uproar is all about the shuffling of the poor kids with the Rich schools afraid they will get more impacting what they have built and the poor schools convinced they will get even more and or hemorrhage the good kids to other schools. Both side talking out the sides of their mouths with pleas, flimsy facts and straw arguments to a basic fact every school thinks they have too many problem kids as it is and they are scared they will get more creating winners and losers in the shuffle.

the ugly Truth is even with compromise, the schools will never be equal and any measure with more choice will allow the good kids to flee to more desirable spots with few coming back in return. Schools like Blair that got their pick of the DCC kids (and even a few hundred W kids to elect in) will now be one of the worst if not worst options in their cluster after losing not only the premium students coming in but many of their limited local students who now will have assess to better perceived schools and peer groups. The county thinks they are helping the weaker schools but what they are really doing is creating an escape hatch for a few and further cementing their redheaded step child status. They think they can control the flow by putting basket weaving at the strong schools to allow mid kids to go upstream and putting a few serious programs in meh places. But everyone knows if they water down the prestige of the programs it will default back to the prestige of the schools. Whitman kids don't go to Blair now for the all mighty magnet, they def wont for any watered down replacement. Hell Whitman's school wide SAT avg is comparable to the Magnet's as it is. The question is what that the long term impact to DTSS will be real estate wise and if what happened to the tiny silver that is zoned for BCC price wise. How long before a Takoma Park RE listing states that the property has access to Whitman and BCC?

Your post is really confusing, but I think you're saying the worry is about the regional program leading to too many poor kids at various schools? No, that's not it. (Few poor kids are likely to travel for regional programs, and also those of us who are decent human beings wouldn't freak out about having a couple hundred more poor kids at our schools even if they did.).

The worry is about the academic high achievers and the demand and cohort for high level classes. Richer schools have large numbers of these kids and so even if many of them leave for regional programs, there will be minimal impact on what is available at the home school because there will still be many who stay. But at medium and high-FARMS schools, the number of these kids is much lower and so there is a real concern that fewer high level courses will be available for students in the home school once the kids who want regional programs leave. (And this can create a vicious cycle where once those kids leave and the offerings decrease, then even families/kids who otherwise would strongly prefer the home school feel like they basically have to leave to get the courses they want, and the offerings decrease even further, and this repeats until the school becomes known as a place where no advanced kids aiming for good colleges would ever want to go.)

Basically this change could have some pretty devastating impacts on schools that don't have large cohorts of students taking advanced classes, unless those schools all have their own attractive academic criteria-based magnets to bring in kids to balance out the ones they will lose to other schools (real magnets like SMCS or IB, not fake magnets like the agroecology thing at Northwood or whatever else they're proposing.)

The schools that have large cohorts of kids taking advanced classes (i.e. the richer ones) should be insulated from that and things should be just fine regardless of what magnets are or aren't placed at their school. (That's why MCPS should be thinking about FARMS rates and cohorts in deciding which magnets go where. But they have admitted that they totally ignored that and just went with putting magnets in places that are easiest to launch based on teachers and classes already existing.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says -

Which high school is your kid zoned for and what do you think about the 6 regional magnets and the placement of the program your kid would be interested in?

WJ/Woodward, and my thoughts are: 🤢🤮 it's horrible

I think WJ/Woodward is getting a bad deal with respect to IB. They are now being assigned to the regional program at Kennedy even though RM and BCC would both be closer. Wasn't the whole point of the model to provide programming closer to home?

What the BOE didn't want to tell you is that they're trying to also balance FARMS and racial demographics with these new regions too. They just don't want to say that out loud in this anti-DEI climate we're in under Trump.

By switching QO from region 6 to region 5, they are clearly showing that they don’t GAF to FARM balance.

They care in some regions more than others. But there's a reason they're didn't group BCC, Walter Johnson and Woodward together and instead split them between different regions that have higher FARMS and minority populations.

They are counting on QO kids going to Watkins Mill for IB and WJ/Woodward kids going to Kennedy. I'm not convinced that will happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone with concerns about the proposed 6 regions should keep emailing the BOE members.

Particularly Brenda Wolff, Grace and Karla. Those are the biggest decision makers on the board.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in a strong cluster with no desire or need to look outside of it for additional opportunities, little worried about the quality of schools being clustered with us. It looks like they will use us to prop up weaker schools which can only impact local peer group.

It will have zero impact on your school.

thats funny I don't think they mentioned which school so how can you know about the impact. Your confidence / ignorance is telling. Fine if there 0 impacts to the schools why is everybody up in arms? Why is it a 0 impact to a stronger school if a bunch of weaker schools are clustered to it? If weaker kids are a 0 impact why are the weaker schools weaker?

Let me answer those for you, the uproar is all about the shuffling of the poor kids with the Rich schools afraid they will get more impacting what they have built and the poor schools convinced they will get even more and or hemorrhage the good kids to other schools. Both side talking out the sides of their mouths with pleas, flimsy facts and straw arguments to a basic fact every school thinks they have too many problem kids as it is and they are scared they will get more creating winners and losers in the shuffle.

the ugly Truth is even with compromise, the schools will never be equal and any measure with more choice will allow the good kids to flee to more desirable spots with few coming back in return. Schools like Blair that got their pick of the DCC kids (and even a few hundred W kids to elect in) will now be one of the worst if not worst options in their cluster after losing not only the premium students coming in but many of their limited local students who now will have assess to better perceived schools and peer groups. The county thinks they are helping the weaker schools but what they are really doing is creating an escape hatch for a few and further cementing their redheaded step child status. They think they can control the flow by putting basket weaving at the strong schools to allow mid kids to go upstream and putting a few serious programs in meh places. But everyone knows if they water down the prestige of the programs it will default back to the prestige of the schools. Whitman kids don't go to Blair now for the all mighty magnet, they def wont for any watered down replacement. Hell Whitman's school wide SAT avg is comparable to the Magnet's as it is. The question is what that the long term impact to DTSS will be real estate wise and if what happened to the tiny silver that is zoned for BCC price wise. How long before a Takoma Park RE listing states that the property has access to Whitman and BCC?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in a strong cluster with no desire or need to look outside of it for additional opportunities, little worried about the quality of schools being clustered with us. It looks like they will use us to prop up weaker schools which can only impact local peer group.

It will have zero impact on your school.

It will have an impact on all schools. All schools will have to host at least 2 regional magnets, regardless of whether there is interest in them. That will pull resources away from what is offered by the local school. Just think of Woodward - they are putting a performing arts magnet there even though they don't know there is demand for it. That means that teachers will be hired to support that rather than what the local school would want.

These are not arts magnets. Look at the guide. They aren’t cut ally offering higher level music classes. It’s in name only.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says -

Which high school is your kid zoned for and what do you think about the 6 regional magnets and the placement of the program your kid would be interested in?

Since this isn't all finalized yet, I'm not having my MS kid worry about it. They can focus on school, friends, EC, and life. We can talk about this in the Spring/Summer.

OP here. I am asking the parents what they think and not what their kids think or know about.

I am not happy that my kid who is academically strong will lose access to the best magnets in the county because they will be dismantled, and our proposed regional magnet will most certainly be watered down, so kid will have to go to the home school and just take AP classes. My kid and others in 7th grade will be the scapegoats for what MCPS is doing now, just to say that they have done something. Why all this rush? Why can't they just start small with maybe just another 3 magnets and see how that works first, if they really wanted to make the magnets accessible for ever kid in MCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in a strong cluster with no desire or need to look outside of it for additional opportunities, little worried about the quality of schools being clustered with us. It looks like they will use us to prop up weaker schools which can only impact local peer group.

It will have zero impact on your school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says -

Which high school is your kid zoned for and what do you think about the 6 regional magnets and the placement of the program your kid would be interested in?

WJ/Woodward, and my thoughts are: 🤢🤮 it's horrible

I think WJ/Woodward is getting a bad deal with respect to IB. They are now being assigned to the regional program at Kennedy even though RM and BCC would both be closer. Wasn't the whole point of the model to provide programming closer to home?

What the BOE didn't want to tell you is that they're trying to also balance FARMS and racial demographics with these new regions too. They just don't want to say that out loud in this anti-DEI climate we're in under Trump.

By switching QO from region 6 to region 5, they are clearly showing that they don’t GAF to FARM balance.

They care in some regions more than others. But there's a reason they're didn't group BCC, Walter Johnson and Woodward together and instead split them between different regions that have higher FARMS and minority populations.